Chapter Five
Five
First-day jitters had their grip on my stomach like a vise as I made my way to the First National Center. My hands were like ice with excitement, but as long as no one planned to hold my hand, it didn’t matter. My first-day-of-work outfit was the best in my closet, dark-wash skinny jeans that hugged my butt just right, a lacy tank top, and my new thrifted purple cashmere cardigan. It was like being a kid all over again, when we got new clothes but weren’t allowed to wear them until school started. I had been waiting to wear this outfit for a few weeks to keep it fresh. What really set it off were my orthopedic flats. To quote a dumb Borat joke, Not! My arches were shit, so I had to wear them, but at least they were cuter than orthopedic tennis shoes. I wouldn’t be caught dead in those.
There were so many things I wanted to do with my first paycheck: new clothes, new shoes, and a new car. I wanted to feel what it was like to say yes to my desire and splurge on some new outfits. But there was no use spending money in my head before it was in my hands. I had to actually work for two weeks before I could make plans.
The last time I had entered this building, I was hardly paying attention to anything. This time my eyes hungrily absorbed every detail, from the glass entrance to the marble walls and up to the people walking around on the mezzanine. It was loud and alive and exhilarating.
I filed into the gilded elevator, and most of the thirty-two floor buttons were lit up. We stopped at every floor until finally the doors opened to floor twelve, and I squeezed past the remaining riders to my new company.
Everything was exactly the same: cold, sterile, and modern. Phoebe was rifling through the cabinet behind her, and I cleared my throat to alert her of my presence.
“Hello!” she said when she saw me. She twirled around on her toe, pens and paper in her hand.
“It’s my first day.” I fiddled with my fingers.
“I remember you. Congrats and welcome. I was just gathering all your new-hire stuff.” Phoebe put the contents in her hands into a navy-blue backpack that sat on top of her desk. “Here,” she said and thrust the still-open backpack into my hands.
“Thanks! Will I need a backpack?”
“Every person gets a welcome gift on their first day. We all get a company-branded backpack, water bottle, T-shirt—sorry, we only had men’s mediums left—notepad, and pens. I like the backpack because commuting with just a purse is hard. You end up becoming a bag lady with a purse, lunch bag, tote with extra shoes just in case.”
“Great tip.” I adjusted the strap of my very full tote bag.
“If you would come around and follow me this way, I’ll show you to your desk.” For someone so tiny, she took off like a rocket. I felt like Shrek as I clambered my way after her, the echo of my steps going thump, thump, thump . I felt sorry for whoever was working on the floor beneath us.
“Over there,” she said, indicating to the left, “is finance. The middle is HR, and this side”—she waved in the general vicinity to our right—“is all accounting. Through that door and hallway are the bathrooms and break room. C-suite is all on the seventeenth floor, so it’s pretty chill here. IT has those desks outside of the conference room near finance.”
She abruptly stopped, and I nearly plowed her down.
“And this is you. If you need anything, my extension is 505, and Dan should be over any minute with your laptop. All set?”
“Yeah, I think so. Thank you for the quick tour.”
“Anytime. Did you bring lunch?”
“I did.” Was that not cool? Oh my god, was I that nerd? I was broke. The bowling alley paid shit, and I had to stretch it. I was eating bologna, and it wasn’t even fried. I was in a hurry this morning.
“Great, you can eat with me in the break room if you want. I know how awkward it can be starting at a new place.”
She had no idea.
“I would love that.” I gave her a genuine smile. Everyone was so nice here; I had no idea what people meant about women in offices being catty. Phoebe was an angel. I hoped she would stay that way after she saw my cheap-ass sandwich. It was just Wonder Bread, mayo, American cheese, and bologna. That was as broke as it got.
She tapped the top of my cubicle. “Great. See ya!”
Phoebe left, and I forced myself to take a calming breath. I could do this. I closed my eyes, and I pictured that fat paycheck and nearly drooled just thinking of the meat I could buy and slow-cook at home.
“Well, if it isn’t strike-rolling Bucky?” Danuwoa’s deep, throaty voice came from behind me. I spun around only to be left nearly breathless. He wore his hair down and straight. He was an ear tucker—his black tresses were endearingly tucked behind each ear. He was so good-looking it was almost too painful to stare at his perfection. The type of good-looking that sent men like him to Hollywood but then got them stuck doing historical reenactments because people like us were never romantic heroes. But Danuwoa the IT guy was definitely romantic hero–worthy. What the hell was he doing here and working in IT? I had to know.
“Danuwoa.” I smiled and tried to keep a straight face to look down my nose, but I was a terrible actress, and I was starting to really like him. My face betrayed me and made a dumb dopey smile.
He placed a thin black laptop and charging cord on my sterile desk, accessorized only by more black cords, a phone, a monitor mounted on an arm, and a black block that I’d never seen before in my life.
“It’s just Dan here.” He gave me a smile back. “This snaps into place on the docking station”—he pointed to the black block—“so you can use the monitor. It’s pretty easy. I’m sure you’re used to it.”
“Not really.” I gave him a sheepish grin. A second monitor? My laptop was ancient. I got it at a pawn shop in high school, and it was damn near louder than my car if I had too many programs open at once.
“Here.” He leaned across me, and my brain short-circuited from his closeness. He opened the laptop up and then clicked it into the docking station. “You hit this here”—he pointed to a button on the side—“and it will release it if you gotta be mobile.” His hair fell over his shoulder and grazed my arm. The smell of lavender washed over me. I clenched my thighs together. I should not be reacting this way to a coworker. He’s just clean, Ember, get it together. I scooted out my rolling office chair to give him more space while he worked.
He powered on the laptop and gave me a sheet of paper.
“This is your log-in and password. You can change it later, but go ahead and enter it now.”
I did and waited for the profile to load and the company email platform to come up.
“So, how long have you been working here?” I asked him.
“It’ll be two years in August,” he said as he crossed his arms and leaned against the cubicle partition.
“Wow. You mentioned before that this place was chill?”
“Yeah, it’s cool. The pay is good and never late, so that’s all I care about. Well, that and I don’t have to wear slacks.”
I nodded and tried to sound nonchalant as I asked, “So, you and your sister go to the bowling alley often?”
“I’d never heard of it before. My sister’s friend mentioned it. I think your settings are all set.” He straightened. “Open Excel and I’ll show you how to use a second monitor.”
He had me drag a blank Excel workbook onto the big monitor that was attached to the desk. It was nerdy magic. For school, in the few classes I did take, I would window-hop when I needed to see things on another screen to put somewhere else. Or I would copy and paste a bunch of stuff into the document I was working on to make things a little easier, but man, a second monitor opened up a whole new world. My face must have mirrored my awe, because Danuwoa laughed at me.
“There was a study done that circulated around the company that said two monitors made all employees twenty percent more productive or something. So we all got two monitors.”
“This is great! Thanks for showing me.” I leaned back in my office chair to look up at him. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do now,” I said as I picked my hangnail.
“You’re Gary’s new assistant?”
“Yup.”
“He usually rolls in a little before nine.” It seemed like Danuwoa was bored and wanted to stay and chat. “Ember is your given name, or did you pick it yourself?”
I snorted. “I was given an Okie name so that when I was in trouble, they had something fun to yell. Ember Lee has that good scolding flow to it, but I don’t have a traditional name. Why Dan and not Danuwoa?”
“Because no one can pronounce it. Well…no one cares to learn how.” It was a beautiful name and not that hard to pronounce; people were just lazy.
“ Dahnawa means warrior , right?” I asked.
“Yeah, okay, I see you.”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t gotta prove myself to you.”
“But you just did.” He raised and lowered his eyebrows. “My name is spelled a bit differently. Dahnawa ditihi means warrior officially. My grandpa was fluent in Tsalagi but spelled things phonetically. So my name is a bit confusing.”
“It’s not confusing. I’ve been to some intertribal dances in my day and come across a lot of interesting names. Shit, people just name their kids whatever nowadays.” I laughed, blushing. Danuwoa, warrior. It really suited him. It was the kind of name I wanted to say out loud and often…which I most definitely should not do. I needed to quickly bring the conversation back to a safer topic—work. “So, tell me, IT Guy, what exactly is Technix? I couldn’t figure it out based on the vague website full of smiling stock models. Are we a product or service company?”
“It’s a little of both, I guess. I just handle the personnel technical problems. You should ask sales and product development what they do.”
“There are only finance, HR, accounting, and IT on this floor. Who’s in sales and product development?”
“The executives on floor seventeen and our team in Austin.”
“You don’t know what we do either,” I accused him.
“Nope! Two years and haven’t been able to figure it out.”
“Then there’s no hope for me.”
“Doubtful, unless you change departments.” Danuwoa folded his arms on top of the partition and rested his chin on them. It was like he was getting comfortable to stay awhile.
“No way, I only have the bandwidth to be an accountant.”
“Ignorance is bliss.” Suddenly he straightened and dropped his smile.
“Ember?” a loud male voice barked from behind me.
“Yes?” I smiled at whoever sounded so rough and angry, swiveling in my chair to greet them.
A short man with dark curly gray hair dropped a stack of folders onto my desk. “I’m Gary. Dan, is her computer all set up?”
“Yes, sir,” Danuwoa answered politely.
“Good, and you”—he focused his attention on me—“Monica said you’re familiar with accounting procedures?”
I could answer this. I had been up late into the night reading up on all things accounting. “Yes, I am very familiar with G-A-A-P.”
Gary stood looking at me with his mouth open. “Gap. We say it like the word, not G-A-A-P. We might as well just say generally accepted accounting procedures then.” He rolled his eyes, and I heard a light snicker.
I stole a glance at Danuwoa, my eyes cursing him for staying here and witnessing whatever this was. I couldn’t believe I had made the same mistake from last week, but this time the opposite. I could not win with these stupid acronyms.
“Sorry, it’s just how I remember,” I said, giving him a sheepish smile.
“See ya around,” Danuwoa said before he turned on his heel and left. Yeah, he had better leave. I barely knew the man, and he had seen me embarrassed too many times now. I needed to even the score.
Gary nodded toward the stack of files, moving on from my embarrassment and Danuwoa’s departure. “These are your projects to get your feet wet and learn the lay of the land. Why don’t you pull up QuickBooks and we’ll get started.”
I pushed the folders aside and started the program.
“You’re familiar with how to upload invoices and print checks from this program?” His face was expectant and impatient.
“You bet.” I gave Gary my biggest, most confident smile.
“Excellent. The folders are broken down by month. This is all from our Portland office that we are closing. Start with the month of April, and I’ll have Lisa check on you when she gets in.”
“Who’s Lisa?” I asked.
“She’s our senior accountant.” He turned and left. His office was one of the small glass enclosures against the wall.
I closed QuickBooks and promptly opened a Google window and typed into the search bar How to use QuickBooks beginners . That lie didn’t count, since I could figure it out easily enough with the help of the internet. I would become proficient in the program by the end of the day. I was determined.