Tales of Darkness & Sin - Pepper Winters Page 0,112

someone who worked really hard to qualify for it, so you have to take it seriously.

Like it was a stretch of his imagination to think I could take anything seriously.

Oh well. Shaking off everyone else’s doubts, I take a left and head over to the reception desk.

Greeting the chilly-looking woman who sits there with a sunny smile, I tell her, “Hi, I’m Chelsea Parker. Today’s the first day of my internship—”

The lady thrusts her palm up to halt me and I realize she’s wearing a headset. “No, she isn’t in today, but I can forward you to her voicemail box and she can get back to you tomorrow.”

“Oh. Sorry,” I whisper, falling back a step and looking around awkwardly as I wait for her to finish her call.

After taking three more, she finally gets to me. I was here fifteen minutes early, but after standing here for ten minutes, I’m getting a little nervous about being late by the time I get to where I’m supposed to be.

Surely they’re a little more lenient on the first day, but they did send me that email…

Sighing as she switches off the headset, the woman shoots me a brief, apologetic smile. “Sorry, I’m a little busy over here. I am not a receptionist.”

“Oh.” I frown slightly, looking around, but I don’t see anything that looks more like a reception area than this. “Is this… not the reception desk?”

Her eyebrows rise with familiar annoyance. “Oh, no. It is—I’m just not a receptionist. I’m an assistant pulling double duty until we can get someone in here Foster doesn’t hate. A temp showed up this morning and he fired her on the spot. It may not surprise you to hear the last receptionist quit, so…” Suddenly struck by an idea, she eyes me up and asks brightly, “Have you ever worked the phones?”

I shake my head quickly. I don’t want her getting any ideas, so I quickly light up my phone screen and flash her the time. “I’m almost late and that’s probably not the first impression I want to make, so…”

“Oh! Yes, you need HR.” Finally, the woman directs me to the appropriate office on the same floor, so I make my way to it.

Orientation is a bit tedious, but it breezes by. In fact, the whole first half of the day does. I’m introduced to the people in my department and shown the ropes. Then—since his assistant is preoccupied at the reception desk—I’m handed off on a temporary basis to an associate named Ryan. He seems nice enough, but he doesn’t ask a lot of me. Basically, I’m just fetching him coffee and drafting emails that he reads before they’re sent, anyway.

I get the feeling there is much more to the job that he’s just not putting on me, because he’s running around all morning and seems as overwhelmed as the front desk girl.

Just before lunchtime, I head into his office to see if I can order him something. I’ve never been an assistant, but I have seen assistants on movies and TV shows order out for the person they’re assisting. Seems like it might be helpful.

When I step inside, I see Ryan standing at his desk, leaning down to type on his computer with the phone wedged between his ear and shoulder to keep it from falling.

“I hear a fax coming through right now, that’s probably it,” he says into the phone.

I see the fax machine, so I run over to grab the paper it’s spitting out and walk it over to him.

He flashes me a grateful smile as he grabs it and starts skimming so he can sound more prepared than he is for whatever conversation he’s having.

I don’t know what else to do, so I wait for him to finish his call. When he finally does, he drops into his office chair and sighs. “Is it time to go home yet?”

The poor man looks exhausted. “I wish I could help. I can help, but you need to let me do more. I’m not useless, I swear.”

In a half-hearted attempt to be nice, he tells me, “You have been helping.”

I cock an eyebrow at him. “Helping enable your caffeine dependency, maybe. I know it’s only my first day, but I’m here to assist you. You don’t have to take it easy on me, Ryan. I’m a big girl, I can handle a little hard work.”

My words do seem to have a relaxing effect on him, but I’m not sure it’s in precisely