LUCIEN: A Standalone Romance

by Glenna Sinclair

  “Kind of,” I admitted. I’d visited the library on my shopping day and had taken the opportunity to do a little research. “It’s like a shopping website.”

  “That’s one part of it,” she allowed, nodding encouragingly. “And that’s how the Shepards got their start. But today, Shepard Shipments is a retail and media force. The company launches its own products, everything from electronics to Internet services. And it just keeps growing.”

  “And so what role do I play in all of this?” I asked, realizing that Dan had neglected to let me know exactly what the job I was agreeing to do would entail. “What do you do?” Dan had said it wasn’t glamorous, and Myra had laughed and agreed. To me, this entire office was glamorous, with its enormous windows, soft carpet, and workers dressed in all the latest fashions. The least glamorous position I could imagine was working as one of the warehouse stock employees, scurrying around, finding the items people ordered from the website to prepare them for shipping.

  Somehow, though, I couldn’t imagine Myra doing the same.

  “A very important one,” she began, and my stomach knotted in anxiety. I hadn’t finished college. I had limited skills. I certainly didn’t know anything about coding or working on websites.

  “I’ll be training you this week to replace me as Mr. Shepard’s assistant,” she finished. “Mr. Roland Shepard, the president of this company. For clarity’s sake.”

  My nerves crept up my spine and made my head swim. Assistant to the president of this enormous and important company? I had no idea what even the first thing expected out of me would be. All I knew was that I was to be the assistant to a vaguely threatening presence who lived at the top of this building and had a private, ominous elevator in the lobby I wasn’t allowed to use. None of this did a damn thing to inspire any confidence in me.

  “Okay,” I said faintly. “You should probably start telling me everything you know right now. Because I don’t have a clue…”

  Myra laughed again, but it wasn’t the same free guffaw she’d given outside of the building. It was more restrained, more careful.

  “That’s what the training is for, silly girl,” she said. “You’ll do just fine. Now. Over here is where we’ll be. There’s plenty of space for the both of us, but you’ll eventually inherit all of it when I leave.”

  We’d arrived at a large desk, set somewhat apart from the rest of the furniture in the room, near a large, heavy-looking door. Something in me felt uneasy, like something wasn’t quite right, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I chalked it up to anxiety and tried to focus on gleaning every drop of knowledge that Myra was willing to give me. She wouldn’t be here forever, after all, and I’d be expected to assist the leader of this company as best I could.

  “Beyond that door is Mr. Shepard’s office,” Myra said, nodding to the door on the far wall. From her slightly hushed tone, I didn’t have to ask her to clarify which Shepard brother she was talking about. I already recognized that Myra used reverence to talk about Roland and exasperation to discuss Dan.

  “He’ll call or email you if he needs anything,” she continued. “And when you know what he needs, you’ll be prompt in getting it to him.”

  “What does that usually entail?” I asked, confused. Would I be a glorified errand girl? I didn’t really imagine Myra as that, but I could’ve been wrong.

  “Digitizing, mostly,” she said. “Even if Shepard Shipments started as an Internet retailer, it kept loads of paper data on hand prior to the advent of cloud computing.”

  It was cute to see a little old lady up on her knowledge of technology—until I remembered that I only had a cursory understanding of these kinds of things. A lot could happen in a year off the grid, not paying attention to news and advancements and the like. A person could get completely consumed by, say, figuring out how to put food in her mouth and gas in her tank.

  “When you’re not scanning and filing online, you’re getting Mr. Shepard whatever he needs, doing whatever he says, and being his eyes, ears, hands, and brains out here,” Myra continued.

  “His brains?” I repeated, confused. “I don’t understand. Isn’t he the president of this company?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How am I supposed to think like that?” I asked, feeling faint. I needed to change out of these pantyhose—and maybe just escape this entire situation. I wasn’t cut out for this. There had been some kind of mistake. There was no way on God’s green earth that I was qualified to think like the president of a successful global business.

  “Mr. Shepard doesn’t come out here,” she said, nodding meaningfully at the closed door. “When that door opens, it’s because you’re going through it, taking him something he’s asked you for, or you’re coming out of it, having delivered whatever he asked. He doesn’t come out here. He doesn’t interact with anyone in person. You’re the physical extension of him when you’re out here. You might find yourself delivering folders or messages to other people. Once, several years ago, I fired somebody for him.”

  I shook my head, utterly overwhelmed. “It just seems like a lot of responsibility,” I admitted. “Why wouldn’t the head of a company want to be out here with the people helping make everything happen?”

  Myra leaned close. “You’re going to learn very quickly that Mr. Shepard has reasons for desiring his privacy,” she said, her voice lowered. “He’s a good man, regardless of what anyone says. Always keep that in mind—no matter what.”

  I didn’t know how to question that strange aside. I hadn’t heard anyone say anything about the president of this company besides Myra. Was there something there? Something I should know about?

  “Anyway,” she said, probably looking to head off any follow-up questions I might have popped, “every day, someone brings a box of documents that need to be digitized.” Myra patted the top of a large cardboard container taking up much of the desk. “Your goal, to stay on schedule for what the company has in mind, is to get through a box a day. I’m thinking we’ll be able to do two, since there’s two of us for now.”

  I lifted the top off the box in question and gave a low whistle. It was packed to the brim with a mess of hanging folders, file folders, and loose sheets of paper.

  “We probably shouldn’t get too ahead of ourselves,” I remarked. “That’s a lot of digitizing.”

  “It’s not difficult,” Myra insisted. “It’s just time consuming. I volunteered to be one of the employees helping with this transition. It’s enormously important that we get all parts of the company firmly in the twenty-first century.”

  She proceeded to teach me the process of scanning, labeling, and filing away each piece of paper in the box. For a single file folder containing related records, it was easier. The scanner would just whip the pages through in one bundle. It was the random, floating sheets of records that required the most painstaking work.

  At least I had something to do with my hands. I was unreasonably nervous, under the impression that I was under some kind of extreme scrutiny. In my previous incarnation working as a stripper, I hadn’t minded the eyes on me because I could stare right back. That’s how I made my money, making those connections. But this feeling was different. I glanced furtively around as I ran some files through the scanner, working while Myra trotted off to the break room to get a couple of cups of coffee.

  Nobody across the office was paying a bit of attention to me, all of them engrossed in their computer screen or talking to one another. A few looked up as I passed my glance over them and smiled.

  Someone was watching me, but I didn’t know who or where they were. My skin crawled with the sensation.

  The phone at my elbow rang loudly—once, twice, three times. I looked around for Myra, but she was nowhere in sight, still on a jaunt for our caffeine fix. I checked the display and blanched. “Shepard, Roland,” it read. The president of Shepard Shipments was calling right now, and the person he wanted wasn’t here. What was I going to do?

  The phone rang thre
e more times while I stared at it as if it were a wild animal threatening my physical safety, willing Myra to swoop in and save the day. Then, I answered.

  “Hello?” I winced at my own voice. I sounded like a frightened child.

  “How many goddamn rings does it take for you to answer the fucking phone?” Roland exclaimed, his voice deep, ever so slightly hoarse, and very, very angry. “And is that the best you can manage for a professional greeting? Hello?”

  My face had to have been scarlet. “I’m so…I’m so sorry,” I stuttered. “I was…this is my first day, and Myra stepped away from the desk, and I wasn’t sure…”

  “Wasn’t sure about what?” he barked.

  “I wasn’t sure what to do,” I was forced to squeak.

  “You weren’t sure what to do when a phone rang?” he demanded.

  “Um, I wasn’t sure what to do when it was the president of a big company calling,” I whispered.

  “You answer it!” The bellow made me jump and nearly drop the phone, which I was sure wouldn’t have gone well either.

  “Okay.” I doubted he could hear me over his angry breathing.

  “If you think you’re competent enough to do so, bring me a copy of the Times and a cup of coffee,” he snapped and slammed down the phone.

  I was all too eager to replace my own receiver, standing quickly and looking around. Times. Coffee. A newspaper and a cup of coffee. I could do that. And coffee was where Myra was. She could help me figure this all out, help allay my unreasonable fucking fear of a billionaire on a telephone.

  I reached the break room easily enough without too much delay, but Myra was nowhere in sight. Had she gone back to our desk? I craned my neck to check, but didn’t see her there. Where had she gone?

  With shaking hands, I poured a large cup of coffee, slopping it over the sides and onto the counter. Dammit! Couldn’t I do anything right? I mopped up the spill with a paper towel and looked around. Would they…would they maybe keep the newspaper in here? There were snacks galore, reminding me that I was hungry, and plenty of community drinks in the refrigerator, but not a single sheet of newsprint.

  Wasn’t this company working toward going completely digital? Couldn’t Roland Shepard turn on a computer to read the day’s news?

  I carried the coffee out of the break room, the hot liquid sloshing around, jumping out and dotting the carpet from time to time, and hunted for Myra. Where in the hell was she? Did she leave me on purpose? Was this some twisted part of the training? I didn’t see the old woman anywhere, but, then again, she was awfully short. It would be easy to overlook her in my panicked scan around the office.

  No Myra, no newspaper, and a rapidly decreasing mug of coffee from spilling so much of it. I was not doing very well on my first day.

  I finally approached the receptionist at the front of the office, a woman sitting at a desk by the elevator I’d come up here on.

  “Excuse me,” I said, forcing myself to smile and pretend like everything was just fine. “Have you happened to see Myra Tuttle around?”

  “Oh, she had to go down to one of the other companies in the building to hash some things out for Shepard Shipments,” she said, then leaned close and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “That old beast is going to work her as hard as he can, up until the day she leaves.”

  That old beast? Did she mean Roland? She had to have meant it. Roland Shepard was probably the only one around here who could tell Myra what to do, and he’d certainly been a beast to me over the telephone. Now that I thought about it, he could’ve just said, in a friendly voice, “No need to be nervous, Beauty, I know it’s your first day.” That simple statement would’ve done wonders to assuage my anxiety, but instead, here I was, out of breath for no good reason, on the end of my rope after not much more than an hour in this place.

  “Could you tell me where to get that old beast—I mean Roland—I mean Mr. Shepard! Ugh! Could you tell me where to get his paper for him?” How could I be so flustered? Is this what an office setting did to me?

  “There’s a kiosk if you just go down to the lobby and right across the street,” the receptionist said, giving me a sympathetic smile.

  “Shit!” I exploded, spilling even more coffee as I jerked my hand upward to cover my mouth. “Sorry! I mean, thank you!”

  I took refuge in the elevator, still holding that damned coffee mug, which was now missing more than an inch of the beverage, thanks to my clumsiness. I’d never been so flustered in a work setting before, and I used to strip down to nothing but a thong in front of people I didn’t know. How had getting a man a coffee and newspaper reduced me to such a bumbling mess?

  I emerged from the elevator at a dead run, my flats clattering across the floor, people ducking out of the way. I was looking for a newspaper kiosk. Pushing the building doors open, my eyes darted all around until I spotted it.

  Just an hour ago, I was standing out here, staring at the unfamiliar reflection of myself in the glass. Would I have gone inside if I’d known what torture awaited me there? Hell, no. I would’ve marched my ass back to my car and driven clear to Canada.

  I dashed across the street, unwilling to wait for the correct traffic signals, and earned myself some well-deserved honks and shouted insults. Sorry, folks, but I was trying to get a billionaire his newspaper before he fired me or murdered me or berated me until I curled up and died. I was just trying to save my own hide, here.

  “I need to get a copy of the Times, please,” I told the cashier, excited that I’d at least found the place. Now I could sprint back up to the office and prove to Roland Shepard that I wasn’t a complete idiot.

  “Here ya go,” the man said, flipping a fat paper toward me. “That’ll be a buck fifty.”

  I froze in my tracks, having been ready to wheel back around and run for it.

  “Excuse me?” I asked, clutching the paper and the coffee mug.

  “I said, that’ll be a buck fifty,” the cashier repeated, staring at me.

  “I don’t have any money,” I said, patting the sides of my pocketless skirt just to be sure that some benevolent being hadn’t graciously bestowed a pocket with a dollar fifty to save the day. Nope.

  “Then you can’t have any news,” the cashier said, reaching for the paper.

  “Um, wait a second,” I said, dodging away. “This paper. It’s for the man in charge across the street…there at the Shepard Shipments building. Roland Shepard. The president. Doesn’t he have some kind of credit here? He probably asks for a paper every day.”

  “Nobody has credit here, lady,” the cashier said. “The paper’s a buck fifty for presidents and pissants both.”

  “Fuck,” I moaned. How long had I been on this stupid errand? Ten minutes? Twenty? If I was incapable of something so mundane, how could I be expected to be Roland’s eyes and ears and hands and brains in the office, as Myra told me I would be?

  “A buck fifty,” the cashier repeated, holding out his hand. “Or you give the paper back right now.”

  “I’ll pay you back later, thanks!” I yelled, spinning around him and galloping away at full tilt.

  “You’re stealing that paper!” the cashier yelled after me, making me grimace as people stared at me run by, bewildered. “You’re stealing that paper, lady! I don’t give a shit if it’s for the Pope! You’re stealing that paper!”

  The only thing on my mind was getting this paper and coffee up to Roland as fast as my legs—and the elevator—would take me.

  I slowed my pace to a trot as soon as I got back up to the office, giving the receptionist a small smile as I fought to regain control of my breathing. Everything was fine, now. I had the paper, and I had the coffee. All I had to do was deliver it to a man I was apparently terrified of and all would be well. I could cower back down at the desk, continuing to scan the box full of papers that needed to be digitized before the end of the day.

  With Myra still doing Roland’s bidding elsewhere, I set my shoulders and plunged forward. Pulling the door
to his office open, wrinkling the paper a little in the process, I abruptly stopped.

  The light inside the office was so dim that it was hard to see, and I didn’t want to run into anything. I had to stand still as the door closed behind me and wait for my eyes to adjust.

  One dim lamp illuminated a desk, in the far corner, and the outside light was trying to creep in through the same large windows the rest of the office had, but these were obscured with heavy curtains.

  “Well?”

  I jumped at the voice, which came from the direction of the light on the desk, and peered over there. I should’ve been able to see him by now, my eyes having gotten used to the dimness, but I didn’t see anyone.

  “I have…your, um…”

  “Speak up!”

  That sharp command made me want to do the opposite of speaking; it made me want to disappear forever. And then something else rose inside of me, an indignation about how I was being treated. It overwhelmed everything. Why was this man being so foul to me? Did he think he could treat everyone like this just because he had so much more money than the rest of us? It wasn’t fair that I’d been running around like a chicken with its head cut off just because he’d been so mean to me over the phone. It was my first day, after all. I was bound to make some mistakes simply because I didn’t understand how this place worked yet.

  “I have your coffee and your paper,” I said, proud that my voice only quavered a little.

  “Well, bring it here.”

  Here? Where was that? I tiptoed carefully toward the light, in the direction of a voice whose owner I still couldn’t see, until I could gradually make out that the chair at the desk had been spun around, the man sitting in it hidden from my view.

  What was wrong with him? Did he think me so beneath him that he wouldn’t even deign to gaze upon me? I let the paper fall to the desk with a loud slap in indignation, but as I was moving to slam the coffee mug down beside it with equal rancor, my elbow caught the edge of the lampshade, sending a large wave of the liquid to splash over the front page of the Times. The lampshade crashed to the floor, and I could see now, better than ever, just how nice the office was.