by Nicole Marsh
“Do we have to go to the expo today?” I question Glenna, trying to figure out how involved with the event that I’ll need to be.
“Oh no, honey.” Glenna chuckles. “The expo isn’t for some weeks yet. We’re just going to write an article reviewing the last few years of the expo and anticipate what products will sell well. Maybe you’ll get to go to the expo with me, when the time comes.”
Her words flood me with relief. In the past, I’ve avoided the expos like the plague. Too many people, too much gossip. With my luck, it would just be another place for Vlad and his minions to target me for their cruel pranks.
“Okay, that sounds like a good place to start,” I respond as I follow behind her across the room to her desk. I’m trying to discretely examine the entire office as I walk.
The desks are spread throughout the room in what appears to be a haphazard manner. Two near the front face reception, but behind those, four sit in a square all facing inwards. To the side of those, a couple of desks face the left wall. Behind the grouping of four, the rest of the desks are in three neat rows facing alternating directions.
There’s a large gap of space after the last row of desks and the assignment whiteboard stands there. In the back of the room, furthest from the reception area there’s the office that Marc walked into and another room that looks like a meeting room. The wall in between the two doors hosts a table of coffee supplies and one of those water dispensers with a gallon sized jug on top.
When I first walked into the Daily I noticed two doors in the reception area as I rushed by. I’m guessing access to the restroom and breakroom is through there. Making a mental note to ask Glenna about it later, I pull up a chair to her desk so she can explain what we need to do for our story.
Glenna gives me a rundown of how she normally pulls her research online, then sets me loose. She pulls a magazine featuring a couple of celebrities on the cover from her purse and flips through it on her lap. Every now and then I see her circle things with a pen and I wonder to myself if she’s taking some of those little quizzes magazines sometimes have.
We spend the rest of the day that way. Glenna flipping through her magazine and me looking through past articles in the daily. I pick a few notable events to piece together a timeline of changes to the knitting expo in Florence, pausing only once or twice to ask Glenna a few questions.
I linger for a few minutes after it’s time to leave, waiting until I see Vlad pack up and head out before I start to do the same. Glenna tells me I did a great job for a “Newsby” or a news newbie as she explains. Laughing, I head to the parking lot with my fingers crossed, hoping Vlad has already headed home.
Friday finally rolls around and I’ve never been more ready for the weekend. Sylvia’s parents kidnapped her and forced her to go on a wilderness retreat to Alaska this week. She told me that her parents were freaking out that she was going to hair school all summer and wanted a chance to “disconnect and connect together”. Meaning they went somewhere with no cell reception and only each other for entertainment.
Thinking about having to spend seven days with Sylvia’s little brothers and no internet makes me shudder. I would take my internship with Vlad over that, any day of the week. But as much as I’m thankful I’m not in her shoes, I can’t wait for Sylvia to get back. Being reception free in the wilderness means I haven’t been able to give her my daily updates about my internship. She gets back tomorrow and I can’t wait to hang out with her and tell her everything.
For starters, working at F.O. Daily has been surprisingly fun. I enjoy my internship much more than I expected. It doesn’t feel like work, getting to write stories in the hustle and bustle of the daily, but it’s not just that.
The staff is small and eccentric, just like our town. Marc runs a tight ship with deadlines, but he isn’t against joking around once we’ve met our deadlines. He’s very charismatic and likeable and he’s one of my favorite parts of the job so far, to be honest. Marc and Sylvia would probably vibe well together and in the back of my brain I keep thinking about ways to get them to meet each other, so he can be initiated as our third friend. Maybe once I no longer work for him, we can all hang out.
So far, I’ve spent most of my week shadowing Glenna and writing articles about the knitting expo. Marc also asked me to shadow the receptionist for a bit, which is less exciting than being a journalist. But she goes on vacation in two weeks and Marc wants me to fill in for while she’s out of the office.
Only one dark cloud occasionally shrouds my time at the Daily. Vlad. Every time he walks near me, I make a hasty escape to avoid any pranks he may have up his sleeve. Either he’s biding his time or my plan has been working because my week has been incident free so far. Although I don’t miss being pranked, I also worry that I’m letting my guard down, which will make it worse when Vlad finally strikes again.
Well there is one other dark cloud, I guess. All week I’ve barely been on time to the Daily. I was even a few minutes late on Wednesday. For some reason the alarm on my cell chose my first week of being an employed adult, to crap out and stop working. I’ve been setting more and more alarms every day and every day they all fail to go off.
Thankfully, Marc has been pretty understanding so far. But I don’t to get fired as an intern because I can’t show up on time. Part of my weekend plans are to see Sylvia, and the other part is to fix my phone.
4
The Partnership
Mirabella
As I change out the jug on the water dispenser, I can sense someone watching me. I ignore the feeling and carry on with the task as part of my receptionist training. Once the jug is firmly settled into place, I reach for a cup to check the water is working. Vlad steps into my path and holds out a cup for me instead. Ignoring him (what if he poked a hole in the bottom?) I stretch as much as possible around him for my own cup.
Instead of backing off over my obvious disinterest in being around him, Vlad takes a few steps closer. He stands on the other side of the water jug to talk to me, leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets. Vlad looks like he belongs on the cover of a magazine with his dark jeans, white tee, and broody amber eyes.
With a sigh, I meet his gaze directly. He’s made it so I can’t ignore him without being obviously rude, in front of the entire office. The place is loaded with gossipmongers that constantly have an ear to the ground for anything scandalous happening around them. So despite the work continuing around us, I know at least one person is paying attention to our interaction.
“Hi Vlad, how can I help you?” I push out, trying to sound courteous but disinterested. I just want him to get to the point then we can go our separate ways.
Taking the couple of steps back to the cooler, I check to make sure the jug is in place while Vlad replies, “I wanted to talk about your graduation, but you ran off and have been avoiding me. You didn’t even join family dinner last week.”
Since Sylvia was over on Sunday, my parents let us order a pizza and hang out in my studio last week. I was surprised, usually they’re adamant about me attending dinner with the Mort’s, but I think they were still trying to smooth over the graduation incident. Or maybe they’re trying to treat me more like a high school graduate rather than a belligerent child that doesn’t want to eat.
I pause before tapping down on the cold water button, trying to formulate a response. I decide to multitask, opening my mouth to reply the same instant I tap on the dispenser, but my words are quickly replaced with a shriek. Water begins spraying outwards from the spigot, soaking both Vlad and I.
I think removing my hand from the button will solve the problem, but water keeps flooding out. The gallon jug makes a glugging noise as it rapidly empties its contents onto the two of us and the office floor. Panicking, I look around trying to find something to stop the flow of water before everything in the front of the room gets soaked.
While I stand there freaking out, Vlad jumps into action and unscrews the jug from the dispenser. He rips it o
ut and places it upside down on the ground so that the opening is facing upwards and the water sinks to the bottom of the container. The spray turns into a few drips down the nozzle as the last bits of water drain out.
I’m relieved Vlad was able to fix the problem, but quite a bit of damage has already been done. The burgundy carpet where we stand is darkened with dampness and my clothes are plastered to my body.
Vlad is equally soaked with his white shirt and dark jeans clinging to his form. I never realized how built Vlad had gotten. When we were kids, he was scrawny, we both were. But he rapidly outgrew me in height as we got older and now through his wet shirt, I can see the outline of at least six abs. His thighs are also thick and muscular, filling out his dark jeans nicely.
A throat clearing in the background interrupts my perusal of water-soaked Vlad. I look over and Marc, the producer of the noise, is holding out his sweatshirt to me. Looking down, I see that my T-shirt has been soaked through and the outline of my blue bra is now visible. Blushing I snatch the sweatshirt from Marc, muttering a low thank you before tugging it on quickly.
Once my head pops out of the neck, Marc gestures at the two of us. “My office, please.”
Hanging my head to hide my embarrassment, I follow him into his office behind Vlad. This is it. Vlad must have been thinking this up all week, a prank that would seem like an accident to get me fired. I don’t understand why he would stand so close though when it all went down. Maybe he wanted to seem innocent, or didn’t expect the water to spray out as aggressively as it did. Once it started it was like a dam broke, releasing as much water as quickly as possible. There are some oddities, but this whole incident stinks like a set-up. And Vlad is always setting me up. I’m confident that he’s the culprit behind the whole thing.
Once we’re seated, Marc launches straight into it, only his words aren’t what I expected. “I’m sorry about that incident, the dispenser must be a faulty piece of equipment. I’ll call the company to have it replaced. Why don’t you two head out and start the weekend early? I don’t want you to sit around the rest of the day in wet clothes.”
My mouth drops open in shock. We aren’t getting fired. Maybe this wasn’t a Vlad prank, either that or he didn’t anticipate how compassionate Marc is towards his staff. Vlad replies while I’m still reeling from the past five minutes. “Thank you, sir. See you Monday.”
He gets up and leaves the office, I mumble my own quick thank you before bolting out. Without lifting my head to look at my coworker, I quickly gather up my purse and head home. I’m embarrassed, but at least I wasn’t fired.
…
When Monday rolls around again, I wake up feeling well rested. I stay in bed for a few minutes, stretching like a cat before I glance around my room. I’m surprised that I woke before my alarm after such a late night last night.
Sylvia didn’t get in from her Alaska family vacation until after Sunday dinner and we stayed up late talking on the phone. I told her about my first week as an intern, including the recent water dispenser incident. Once I was done, Sylvia ranted all about her hippie parents and the wilderness trip they forced on her and her brothers. They’d spend the entire week living off the wild without even running water as a commodity and she had a lot to complain about.
Partway through our conversation I realized I was still wearing Marc’s sweatshirt that he’d lent me on Friday. I’d honestly been wearing it almost all weekend at that point. The only time I really had taken it off was to paint. Lovingly folding it and carefully placing it on one of the chairs in my studio, not letting it out of my sight, but also not wanting it to get damaged.
I was pleasantly surprised that Vlad didn’t say anything about my clothing choice at Sunday dinner. It would’ve been easy for him to alert my parents to the fact that I’ve been wearing my new boss’s sweatshirt all weekend. He merely raised an eyebrow at me, but kept his comments and his dinner to himself. It isn’t really that its Marc’s sweatshirt per say, it just smells so good and it’s so comfortable, that I didn’t want to take it off.
During my phone call with Sylvia, I finally relented to putting it in the washer so I could return it to Marc, first thing Monday. I don’t want to remind anyone of the water cooler incident and making him ask me for his sweatshirt back would do that. I had to stay up past the end of my call so I could place the sweatshirt in the dryer and wait for it to finish. Finally crawling into the bed when it was clean, dry, and folded neatly on my desk to bring in to work the next day.
Now it’s almost time to get ready for work, and to return the sweatshirt, but I have a few minutes to lounge in bed before the weekend is actually over. With that though in mind, I reach over to my night stand to pick up my phone and scroll through LifeNovel, the social media site where everyone shares their pictures and posts about their lives.
It’s a good way to kill time and I’m not quite ready to crawl out of bed if it isn’t time to get ready for work. The screen lights up and I gasp, accidentally dropping my phone on my face when I see the time.
No, no, no, no.
No way.
I set six alarms.
Today is my sixth day and I’m going to be late, again! No wonder I feel so well-rested. I should’ve been at work over thirty minutes ago. All last week my alarms were silent, causing me to think I was losing it. I even resorted to taking a screenshot of my alarms Thursday night to confirm that I did set them. After they didn’t go off again on Friday morning, I made an appointment to take my phone in and have it looked at.
Instead of holing up in my studio all weekend like I wanted to, I went took my phone in first thing Saturday morning. One of the employees inspected my phone for issues. They tested out my alarm and my speaker, but couldn’t find anything that would cause my alarms not to work. The store associate tried to upsell me on a new phone, but I declined thinking last week may have been a fluke. Now I’m thinking I might need to get a standard alarm or a new phone to be on time for work.
I fly out of bed and scramble around in my closet, pulling a dress over my head after barely glancing at it. I quickly braid my long, blonde hair down my back, swish around some mouthwash, and throw on some low-heeled sandals. At the last second I remember to grab my purse, tossing Marc’s sweater inside, before I rush out the door to my Prius.
I screech into a parking spot at work, barely waiting for the car to stop before I’m jumping out and dashing across the lot. I burst through the front door, slightly winded, and sixteen pairs of eyes turn to stare at my disheveled form. Apparently I’ve interrupted morning meeting. Great.
“Mirabella, so glad you could join us today.” Marc calls out in a lightly sarcastic tone, from his spot near the back of the room.
It’s clear that I interrupted the end portion of the meeting, the white board is almost full of ideas and assignments. I almost wish that I had taken a few more minutes to get ready, then it my tardiness may have been less noticeable.
“Err. Sorry I’m late,” I say in a quiet voice, dropping my bag onto the nearest desk and walking over to glob onto the back half of the circle.
“Let’s continue going over assignments for the week. We only have a few left.” Marc states. Normally this meeting is already over by this late in the morning, I wonder if they waited for me before starting today. “Where was I before we were interrupted?”
My cheeks tinge pink when he pointedly looks in my direction. Glenna turns his attention to her when she calls out, “Interviews with the football players to get their thoughts on next year!”
“Ahh right.” Marc glances around the room, then he points to Vlad. “You.” He looks past Vlad’s chair in the front row and points at me next. “You shadow him.”
I want to protest. Why does Marc want me to shadow Vlad? I was perfectly happy last week with Glenna. Researching with her is fun and easy. She let me do most of the work, just providing input here and there while she looked over magazines or the catalog for the knitting expo.
It’s bad enough I
have to spend my whole summer working in the same place as Vlad. The last thing I want is to spend the entire time in close proximity, shadowing him. Especially if Marc is going to assign me to shadow a person for a week at a time, like he did last week with Glenna.
I keep my mouth shut against my protests though. It was bad enough I was late, there’s no reason to cause more drama in front of everyone or question Marc’s authority in front of his staff. I resolve to talk to Marc in private once the meeting is over. I need to return his sweater from last week anyways.
As soon as the meeting ends, everyone disperses quickly to dig into their assignments. I start to follow Marc to his office, but am forced to pull up short when a broad chest appears in front of me, blocking out the rest of the office and my path to Marc. I crane my neck up to see Vlad staring intently down at me.
He’s over a foot taller than my five-foot frame and I think he enjoys making me feel small, by towering over me, whenever possible. The fact that he does this often when we’re around each other, combined with the smirk he’s wearing now help confirm my assumption. Either that or he’s smirking because he’s blocking my way to Marc’s office and sabotaging my attempt to shadow someone else.
“Let’s go brainstorm some questions for our interviews, little Mir.” Vlad says in his deep, low voice.
The other staff members are too nosy for me to ignore Vlad when he approaches me in the office. By blocking my path he essentially guaranteed we’d be stuck together. Everyone here can sense dirt immediately and like a bloodhound, they would chase the scent until they found the root cause of the tension between Vlad and me. I’m already having enough issues with my inability to set an alarm that goes off, I don’t want more from people prying into my personal life.
