The Design(7)

When she caught sight of the receptionist in the midst of a public meltdown, her eyes widened and she quickly tried to reign in the situation.

“Kelly! That’s enough,” the woman said, putting her hands on Kelly’s shoulders. “Here, just let me…” The new woman tried to gently pry the stapler from Kelly’s hand, presumably to keep Kelly from firing it off at me.

“Beatrice! THAT’S MY STAPLER! It’s not company property and neither am I so get your damn hands off of me!” Kelly sassed, as she tried to keep Beatrice from clawing the stapler out of her hands.

Just when I thought an actual brawl was about to break out, Kelly paused.

“No wait,” Kelly said, huffing from the exertion of fighting Beatrice off. “Actually, the staples aren’t mine. So here, have them.” Kelly then proceeded to punch every single staple out onto her desk as Beatrice and the rest of my fellow applicants looked on. Each staple hit the desk with a soft clap. I wasn’t sure what the hell I was supposed to do, so I just stood there. Was this whole office building full of crazy people?

When the stapler was empty (and no longer in danger of going off in one of my eyes), Kelly went back to packing her things and Beatrice turned to me with a bright smile. She clearly had practice in dealing with crazy.

“Hello. I’m Beatrice, Grayson’s personal assistant. Interviews haven’t started yet so you can take a seat with the other applicants and then we’ll begin shortly.”

She was attempting to salvage the situation as best as possible, but her smile was tight and I knew she was mentally cursing her job.

I found an empty spot on the ground near the front door and sat, while the applicants did their best to size me up inconspicuously. I could practically hear their thoughts. Is that blood? Yes. Is that sweat or a design on her dress? It’s sweat, you judgmental cows.

They were exactly the type of people I’d been expecting: Ivy League prodigies with a creative flair. There were two other girls in a sea of men, one sitting directly beside me on a chair and another one on the other side of the room who kept giving me death stares whenever we made eye contact. I guess she didn’t believe in the whole “you go girl!” mantra. Most everyone seemed to be about my age or a few years older. A boy across from me had on a tweed jacket and thick black glasses, and he was flipping through flash cards at lightning speed.

What was he even memorizing at that point?

Now that I was at least in the correct office, I finally had a moment to piece together my appearance. I tried to wipe off most of the blood with tissues from a side table and then I combed through my hair with my fingers, but it was almost too far gone by that point “You look like you could use a cup of coffee,” said the girl next to me, interrupting the layer of silence that had covered the waiting room before that, save for the stray curse word uttered by Kelly every now and again.

I peered over to take in the girl beside me. Her smile said, “I’m not your enemy” but her power suit said, “Or am I?” I decided to test the waters with a friendly smile of my own.

“You wouldn’t believe that I started this morning off thinking everything would go just as I had planned,” I said.

The girl laughed. “It rarely does.” Then she reached her hand out toward me. “I’m Hannah by the way.”

I liked that name. Mean girls didn’t have names like Hannah.

I returned her handshake. “I’m Cameron, but everyone calls me Cammie.”

“Nice. Are you a recent grad?” she asked, eyeing the leather of my pad folio like it would belch out all of my secrets.

“Yeah. First interview. You?”

She grunted and leaned back against her chair, glancing up toward the ceiling as if recalling distant memories. “Nah, I’ve been out of school for about three years. My firm had layoffs a few months back so I’ve been looking for a job ever since.”

Great. She was older than me and had more work experience. Not to mention, she was gorgeous. Her blonde hair fell straight past her shoulders, her tan skin glowed, and the smoky eye effect she’d done with her makeup looked killer. I glanced down at my chipped nail polish and my red dress that had once made me feel sophisticated, but now just made me look like a sweaty Twizzler.

“Was your old firm in LA as well?” I asked.

“Nope. If this interview works out, I’ll need to find a place to stay. I’ve been crashing on a friend’s couch while I look for a job.”

I smiled. “Same here. Well, I’m from LA, but I have to move out of my dorm in a week. I either have to find a roommate or crash with my sister.”

Hannah peered over at me from the corner of her eye. “Well, good luck. Hopefully we’ll both be starting here soon.”

A few minutes later, Hannah’s name was called from the front of the waiting room and we both looked up to see Beatrice standing behind the desk, gesturing for Hannah to stand up.

“You’ll be our first candidate,” Beatrice said.

With a final “here goes nothing” smile, Hannah stood and walked toward the front desk while Kelly simultaneously picked up her full cardboard box from the desk. Her personal items shuffled around inside the box, announcing her departure to the quiet waiting room.

When she passed me, she stopped and glanced down.

“Here,” she said, starting to rustle through her box. “If you end up working here you’ll need this.”