2. Small, Small World （Melissa）
Chapter two
Small, Small World (Melissa)
T he nearly six-foot-tall secretary to Mr. Hellerman, Stacy, stood towering in the corridor, eying me as if I was emerging from some radioactive site.
It was a rather bleak scenario: the corridor all dark and winding, the doors to all the rooms closed with everyone gone for the day, and at the end, underneath just one shimmering fluorescent was Stacy, looking like a creature straight out of an urban legend.
A slender woman.
“Well?” she hissed.
After having seen the hijinks that Mr. Hellerman and his friends had been up to, I could understand why Stacy had passed it on to me to check on him instead of going there herself. It could either be an elaborate one-day prank.
Or it could be that Stacy was afraid of the company Mr. Hellerman kept.
Maybe I was in over my head, thinking up all these elaborate fictions.
I was Stacy’s trainee, after all, and I had to do what she instructed.
At least for the next week and a half. Who knew being a secretary had such a steep learning curve to it?
“Mr. Hellerman said there’s no need to call the janitor,” I muttered.
“Oy vey.” Stacy’s palm resignedly met her forehead.
“Who are those people?”
“Who do you think they are? They’re his friends. Went to the same prep school, then attended Harvard together, and now they meet like this once a month or so,” Stacy explained, ushering me to follow her as she took giant strides across the dimly lit corridor.
I did not know where we were headed, but it was almost eleven-thirty.
I was kind of apprehensive about going down to the parking lot all by myself and then driving myself home at this time of night.
Whatever they said about the Big Apple in the tourism pamphlets: it was a dangerous place for a woman to be at midnight.
“Stop,” Stacy said, coming to an abrupt halt in front of the filing room.
“What is it?”
“You’re thinking too loud,” she noted, swerving around to look me in the eyes with a cold gaze that made me feel like she was silently interrogating my soul.
“Am I?”
“For crying out loud, yes. Listen. This is the music industry, and you’re ever so lucky to get a job at the most prestigious label on the West Coast. So, if you’re thinking about how you’re going to get home, and if putting in ten hours on your first day of work is too much, you’re not cut out for this, and you better quit.
But if you want to make something of yourself, well, you know what to do,” Stacy stated.
“And right now, that includes taking all these files and sorting them alphabetically.”
While I was still incredulously wondering how she could possibly know what I was thinking, Stacy took a large stack of files from the trolley by the wall and handed it to me. The stack was so tall it blocked my vision.
“These are Mr. Grisham’s client’s files. File them in his section, okay? And lock up after yourself when you’re done,” Stacy said, closing the door behind me.
The generic file room with the blue hue from the overhead fluorescents felt like a welcome reprieve from the funky theme of Blue Riff Records.
No brightly colored walls here. No posters of pop stars.
No prop guitars and drum kits. Just the papery smell of files and the faint buzzing of the central air conditioning.
After the hectic day I’d had, I needed something like this.
Now, if only I had a burrito and a can of Sprite to wash it down. The last thing I’d eaten was a meager breakfast at six in the morning, comprised of a kale smoothie, two apples, and a stale bagel from my fridge. I could eat the files: that would keep me going for a few more hours.
Just as I was acclimatizing myself to the room, I heard loud clanging and hollering from the corridor outside.
I didn’t need to peek from behind the door to know who it was.
They were Mr. Hellerman’s friends finally leaving his office.
I hid behind one of the aisles and waited for the noise to subside, in the meantime perusing Mr. Hellerman’s file section and all the clients he had landed in the past.
Every major artist who had reached the top of the billboards in the past eight years had a file in this section.
To think that Ryan Hellerman had been the one to sign all of them onto Blue Riff Records was nothing short of impressive.
The man was a titan of industry, and tonight I’d met him for the first time.
He was taller and far more muscular than in the pictures.
I had barely any time to get my thoughts in order when there was an authoritative knock on the door.
“Who’s there?”
“Room service.”
Confused and a little amused, I unlocked the door and opened it to find Mr. Ryan Hellerman standing there, dark circles under his eyes and a tired smile on his face.
“Oh, Mr. Hellerman, I didn’t….”
“Relax, you’re off the clock. I’m surprised you haven’t gone home yet. It’s almost twelve,” he said, making his way into the file room. “Did you know that I’ve never actually been in this room before?”
“I kind of find that hard to believe. Have you seen the sheer number of files under your name?”
“Oh, that.” Was he being humble on purpose? I knew a lot of things about Ryan Hellerman, most from online tabloids like TMZ, but none of them mentioned that he was so charming.
“That’s just hard work speaking for itself. You know, when I started this company, I made sure that I’d be able to outwork every single person I hired. A crew’s only as strong as their captain.”
“A nautical man, are you?” I asked.
“Eh, just Pirates of the Caribbean fever that hasn’t died down decades later.
Unlike your generation, growing up, we didn’t have all that much choice in terms of which fandom to pursue.
Everyone was into Harry Potter, just as everyone was into Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Pirates of the Caribbean. ”
“Should I be writing this down?” I giggled. “Because that’s millennial wisdom right there.”
Mr. Hellerman chuckled, then looked around the room, presumably trying to gather what I was doing here this late.
“You have yet to file everything in that pile? It would take you the entire weekend,” he warned.
“Stacy gave them to me just a few minutes ago, basically implying that I couldn’t leave until I sorted them all. I’m not one to go running to the boss on my first day,” I said, turning my attention back to the pile of files.
“Smart girl,” Mr. Hellerman retorted. “But not smart enough to see that Stacy was hazing you. Her way of saying ‘Welcome to Blue Riff Records.’”
My mouth hung open as I looked from the files to Mr. Hellerman’s grinning face. I joined in and laughed.
“You must think I’m an absolute idiot,” I said, blushing involuntarily, unable to look him in the eyes.
“Only a relative one. There’s no such thing as an absolute idiot. Remember, only a Sith deals in absolutes.”
“You really love your Star Wars, huh?”
“Eh. No more than the other guy.”
Even though I’d started sifting the files, I could see from the corner of my eye that Mr. Hellerman was still standing there.
“Is there something I could help you with, Mr. Hellerman?” I asked, a bit unnerved. His gaze was fixed on me.
“Well, given that you’re not really supposed to be in the file room right now, let’s start by getting you out of here. Secondly, have you eaten?”
At that moment, my stomach grumbled embarrassingly, which I managed to cover with a well-timed cough.
“I could eat,” I said, ditching the whole facade. “There’s a burrito with my name on it waiting for me back home.”
“Queens?”
“Brooklyn, actually.”
“Come on. I’ll drop you home. We can get a bite on the way. It’s not every day you get an offer like this from your boss, is it?”
“No, it isn’t,” I said, smiling. “Makes a girl wonder. Are you making up for something, Mr. Hellerman?”
“You don’t have to keep calling me Mr. Hellerman, you know. Ryan’s fine,” he said. “And yeah, you could say I’m making up for something. It’s to apologize for the ridiculous way my friends were acting. I’m sorry you had to see that,” he said. I
’d never really been someone’s center of attention the way I was for Ryan.
He wasn’t checking the time on his watch nor was he idly scrolling on his phone, while talking to me.
Standing there in the doorway, looking at me intensely, he made me feel like I was the only person who existed in the world.
It was oddly comforting and disconcerting at the same time, making me feel nice but extremely over-conscious. Had I known I’d have gotten this much face time with the boss, I’d have worn something better and would have done my hair in a more formal style.
I wouldn’t have been wearing my yellow Hello Kitty panties. But what did that have to do with anything? It wasn’t like he was going to suddenly nail me to the counter, push my skirt up, pull my panties down, discover what I was wearing and become disgusted with my choice of underwear.
I hung on to that thought for a little while longer. Me, on the wooden countertop of the file room, his coarse hand running down my naked thigh, his fingers digging into my skin, his lips hovering over my neck, breathing hot whiskey-scented fumes all over me, turning me on…
“Melissa?”
“W—what?”
My face was burning right now. The fact that I’d just had a visceral daydream about my boss fucking me while he was standing mere inches away made me wish that the ground would open up and swallow me whole.
“You sort of disappeared on me just now. Now I know for sure you’re starving. Come on. Let’s go. And I’m not taking no for an answer,” Ryan insisted, gently pulling my forearm and taking me out of the file room.
That was the first time he touched me.