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"As you can see," Hannah said, waving a hand around her, "she did not."
Elliott sighed and nodded, holding a hand out as if he was offering it to her. "Come on then, I will show you."
Hannah rose from the desk slowly, her body aching in places she didn't realize she could have strained. Not even the promise of her own office could ease the urgency she felt to get back home, make a cup of soothing tea, and fall into bed.
She followed EM into his office and then through the door to the right which she had assumed, up until then, was a storage room or a private bathroom. He pulled the door open, reached in, and switched on the light.
Inside was a small black desk which faced away from the huge windows that lined that whole side of the building. A long, low black bookshelf lined the entire length of the wall they were facing. There were two doors, the one they stood in and one that led out into the lobby. There was a black and white hound's-tooth love seat situated between both doors. On the desk, was a computer with an enormous flat screen monitor as well as her own phone and various office supplies. Situated on top of the bookshelf, was a printer and her own fax.
"Oh," she said, sounding a little breathless even to herself. It was a lovely room. It was hers. She didn't have to share or wait for someone else to leave their desk so that she could sit and type up something quickly before they returned. She had a fax machine. If she moved the coffee pot in there, she would never need to leave her office. And she had a sofa. A sofa! She could actually sit on something that wasn't going to make her back, and shoulders, and butt ache in under fifteen minutes.
Elliott's lip turned up at the side as he watched her take it in. He never really thought much about having an office of one's own, as he had always had one for himself. But seeing Hannah, the way she ran her fingers over the soft material of the loveseat, the shiny surface of the desk, and even the computer monitor, he realized how important such a little luxury could be for someone.
Hannah sat down on the chair at the computer, having to pull the bar to lower it significantly. Whomever had occupied this office before her must have been considerably shorter than her.
"In the top drawer of the desk," he told her as she looked around, "there is a company credit card. Use it for anything that I ask you to do that requires money- food, errands, plane tickets." She nodded at him, picking up the credit card and putting it into her purse. "You may charge your own lunch or dinners on it if you are here past six at night," he said. "So, well, now you know your place. You may go home now. The checkbook is not an urgent thing," he told her and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.
She could charge her lunch and dinners to the company credit card? What had gotten into him? That was completely inappropriate. He powered down his computer and shoved some papers into his briefcase that he wanted to look over before he went to bed. He had no reason to pay for her meals. She was his employee, not his girlfriend.
Maybe he felt guilty. After all, she would be working unjust hours for a pay that he would have scoffed at. And she was going to do so without complaint. Without any hassle. Without any red-rimmed eyes that suggested she had cried all during her break. The least he could do was offer dinner on him if he was going to make her work until eight or nine some nights.
There must have been someone missing her. He had kept her for eleven hours straight. He saw her walk out into the lobby, her eyes looked small and tired and she rubbed her temple absentmindedly as she waited for the elevator. She glanced back toward his office with what he could only describe as distaste. She hated him. He couldn't exactly blame her for it. He kept a breakneck pace and was demanding that of her. And it hadn't exactly escaped him that he wasn't as accustomed to praising employees as some other employers might be. She had certainly made it clear she didn't appreciate how often he forgot to say thank you.
He smiled to himself. She was a character. And she knew how to hustle. In the past five years, he had yet to find a assistant who had been able to finish all the tasks he gave them the first day. He was rough on them on purpose. He needed to weed out the ones who couldn't handle it as quickly as possible because he couldn't hold anyone's hand through the long, hard work days that were certain to come eventually.
Elliott grabbed his bag. He noticed she had left the light on in her office and went in to turn it off himself, despite the fact that the cleaning staff would be there in under an hour. As he reached for the switch, he noticed a stack of something on her desk and walked over to investigate. Next to her keyboard was his checkbook, receipts, and a intricately compiled spreadsheet. She had even put the receipts in chronological order and stapled them before putting them into the envelope.
Elliott smiled. Her pride wouldn't let her go home without finishing every last thing he had thrown at her.
She was going to work out nicely.
--
Hannah promised herself she wouldn't, but she cried the whole way home. Though, she told herself, it was from pure exhaustion and not the result of a arrogant, demanding boss who seemed to view her as nothing more than another piece of office equipment.
When she got home she noticed her mother had left her two messages- the first asking her how her first day went and the second a bit more concerned-sounding asking if everything was alright and telling her to call back at any hour.
She slipped out of her shoes and cringed at the feel of blisters on the pads under her toes and on her heel. Apparently, there were no shoes that could compete with running around all day. She made a mental note to drag out her old pair of server shoes from her closet for the next day. If they could survive eight hours waiting tables, maybe they would stand up to eleven hours waiting on a high-powered CEO's every need.
Her cell phone rang and she groaned as she reached for it, irrationally dreading the possibility that maybe it was EM calling her back into work. He didn't even have her number, she reminded herself.
She looked down at the screen and saw Tad's name lit up. "Don't you sleep?" she said as a greeting. "You get there even earlier to me. What are you doing up?"
Hannah could practically hear the shrug in his voice as he said, "You get used to the long hours after a while. In a month or two you won't need a full night sleep anymore."
"Need? Maybe not. But want is another thing," she said, pulling off her clothes and falling into bed in only her bra and panties. "Oh," she said, sitting up. "how come you didn't tell me I have an office?"
"An office," Tad repeated, sounding confused. "I've never seen one of you girls get an office before."
"Yeah," she said, feeling her heart pound a bit. Why was she getting an office then? "The one right next to his."
Tad let out a whistle. "Well, Hannah-Banana, what did you do?"
"What do you mean 'what did I do' ?"
"Well, in the two years I have been here, there have been like twenty of you. And none of them have been given the permanency of an office. Frankly, I didn't even know that was an office. I thought it was a bathroom seeing as I've yet to see him use the one on the floor."
"I thought the same thing," Hannah said, feeling a bit giddy from being so tired. "I gave him like fifteen cups of coffee and he like never left the office."
