Chapter 5 #2
The office feels different this morning.
Maybe it’s the adrenaline from the HR meeting hanging over me, or maybe it’s just that I’ve had three hours of sleep and my brain isn’t working right.
Either way, I step off the elevator at 8:00 AM sharp into the reception, all clean lines and expensive quiet, the kind of space that makes you feel underdressed just by standing in it.
I set my bag down at my desk. The lights are on down the corridor, past the conference rooms. He’s already here. He probably never left.
I should just sit down and work, but instead I walk down the corridor to his office. The door is open. Patrick’s at his desk, laptop glowing, jaw set in concentration.
I make the mistake of knocking lightly on the doorframe and giving him a wave. Too cheerful. Full hand, big smile, like we’re colleagues who like each other.
He glances up, grimaces, and goes back to his screen.
Right. Got it. No cheerful waves.
I sit at my desk and stare at the computer. The mailbox icon in the corner has a number next to it. Four thousand, six hundred, and twelve.
Four thousand.
I click on it, and the screen fills with emails.
Contracts, shipment updates, meeting requests, invoices, and questions from I don’t know how many different people, names, and numbers blur.
I start reading from the top. The first email is about a delayed fabric shipment from Milan.
The second is a meeting request for next Tuesday.
The third is someone asking about a trademark filing.
By the time I get to the fifteenth email, I give up.
Instead, I open a new tab and search for auditions.
Nothing today. One open call tomorrow for a non-union production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Another next week for a showcase. I bookmark them both and close the tab just as the phone rings.
“Aldera, how can I help?”
“This is Jonathan Pierce. I need to speak with Patrick.”
“One moment, please.” I put him on hold and buzz Patrick’s line. He picks up immediately.
“Yes?”
“Jonathan Pierce on line one.”
“Put him through.”
I transfer the call and make a note on the pad next to my keyboard. Jonathan Pierce. Put through.
The phone rings again. Then again. I take five more calls in the next hour.
Three go through to Patrick. Two I take messages for.
One guy asks if Patrick is available, and when I say he’s on another call, the guy just hangs up.
No name, no callback number. I write “Rude hang-up guy” on my notes and move on.
At 9:45 AM, I realize I should probably head to HR.
I walk down the corridor and knock on Patrick’s open door. He looks up.
“I have to go to HR. Margaret Calloway. Twenty-fifth floor.”
He holds my gaze for a second. “Margaret’s on twenty-seven. Not twenty-five.”
“Right. Twenty-seven.” I knew that; I don’t know why I said twenty-five. Great. Now I look incompetent and stupid. “Thank you.”
He goes back to his screen.
The HR office is tucked in the back corner, behind a row of glass doors with frosted panels. I push through and find myself in a small reception area. A woman with sharp red lipstick and a tablet looks up.
“Elena Brown?”
“That’s me.”
“Margaret’s expecting you. Through that door.”
I walk into an office that smells faintly like lavender and air conditioning.
Margaret Calloway is sitting behind a desk, mid-fifties, gray hair in a sleek bob, glasses perched on her nose.
She looks up and smiles. It’s not a warm smile.
It’s a smile that says she’s done this a thousand times and she’s very good at it.
“Ms. Brown. Sit.”
I sit.
My palms are already damp. I press them against my thighs and try to look like a person who belongs in an office building. A person who didn’t sleep three hours on a pull-out couch and spent the morning hauling flowers at 4 AM.
“Let’s start with the basics. You were hired on short notice. We don’t have your full file yet. So.” She taps her tablet. “Educational background?”
Oh no. Here we go.
“High school diploma. I read a lot. I’m a fast learner.”
“Work experience?”
This is it. The part where I lie or tell the truth, and either way it ends badly.
My chest feels tight. I press my feet into the floor.
I take a breath. “I’m an actress. I’ve worked in theater. Small productions, mostly. I moved to New York two weeks ago. This is my first corporate job.”
There. I said it. The truth. Now she’ll smile politely and tell me they’ll be in touch, and I’ll never hear from them again.
Margaret doesn’t blink. “And you’re qualified to be an executive assistant, how exactly?”
My throat goes dry. “I’m not,” I say honestly. “But I can learn. And I need this job.”
She stares at me. I stare back. My fingers are tingling. They always do this when I’m nervous, this slow crawl from the tips down, like my body deciding before my brain does that things are about to go wrong. I squeeze my wrist under the desk where she can’t see.
Then she makes a note on her tablet. “Alright. We’re going to do a few assessments. Personality, logic, situational judgment. It’ll take about three hours.”
“Three hours?”
“Is that a problem?”
“No. Not at all.”
She hands me a tablet. “Start here.”
The tests are very long. The personality assessment asks questions like “Do you prefer to work alone or in a team?” and “How do you handle criticism?” The logic section has pattern recognition puzzles that make my brain hurt.
The situational judgment section gives me scenarios like “Your boss asks you to cancel a meeting, but the client is already in the building. What do you do?”
I answer as honestly as I can and hope it’s enough.
By the time I finish, it’s almost 12:45 PM. Margaret takes the tablet back and nods. “We’ll review these and follow up. You can go.”
I stand on shaky legs. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
I take the elevator back up to the 40th floor, and the first thing I notice is that Patrick’s office is empty. The door is closed. The lights are off.
I sink into my chair, and my stomach growls loud enough to echo.
Right. Food. I haven’t eaten since the coffee this morning.
I grab my bag and head back downstairs. There’s a hot dog cart on the corner. I buy two hot dogs, extra mustard, and a bottle of water. Then I go back upstairs and eat at my desk like a raccoon in an alley.
The emails are still sitting there. Four thousand and fifty-eight now. I open the list of questions I started yesterday—things I need to ask Patrick, if he ever lets me.
Who should I never put through on the phone?
What do I do with all these emails?
Do I need to read every single one?
Does he actually want flowers every week?
That last one is doing double duty. Maybe the answer tells me something useful about Patrick, like whether there is a wife in the picture. Maybe it gets Nadia a standing order. Ideally both.
I stare at the list. Then I stare at the emails. Then I stare at the couch.
It’s three o’clock. Patrick’s still gone. The office is quiet.
I tell myself I’ll just close my eyes. Just ten minutes. Just enough to stop my eyelids from feeling like sandpaper.
I walk over to the couch, sit down, and lean back into the cushions.
They’re so soft.
I close my eyes.
Just ten minutes.