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“Interns do the work that no one else wants to do. You work when I work, and you do exactly what I tell you to do. If you last the next nine months, and if you’re lucky, you’d get offered a full-time position,” I explain, and Wyatt nods. “Boyfriends get in the way. I hope you're not the type of girl to let a guy get in the way of your ambition.”
“That’s a pretty cynical way of thinking,” Wyatt says.
Hearing everything I need to hear, I pick up my phone, not looking directly at Wyatt. “Miles,” I say into the receiver. “Can you please come in?”
Wyatt leans forward, placing her hands on the desk. “I should have just told you what you wanted to hear.” She shakes her head and stands up, gathering her jacket.
I look up from the phone. “You did,” I reply kindly.
Miles enters the room, tablet in hand. Looking between us, he reaches for the box of tissues, and I shake my head.
“And that’s why you got the internship,” I tell her.
Wyatt’s eyes widen, a smile breaking out on her face. “Really?”
“Miles will take you to HR to get all your paperwork completed,” I say, looking at Miles as he nods. “You can start on Monday.”
I stand up and extend my hand to her as she shakes it, still in disbelief.
“You won’t regret this,” she says, excitedly.
“Let’s hope not.” I take a seat while Miles escorts her out of my office.
Before the door closes, he sticks his head back in.
“Put her on the Waterman acquisition and get her access to all the files,” I tell him.
“On it,” Miles says as he closes the door behind him with a big smile on his face.
* * *
“Well, that was painful,”Miles groans, walking beside me as we head back to my office. Looking at my watch, I’m happy the day is almost over and I can take these heels off. I’d been walking to and from meetings all day with barely a break in between.
“Oh, the new intern’s not that bad. I’m sure she’ll grow on you,” I tease.
“Not the intern.” Miles glares at me. “I was talking about the Asa Waterman meeting,” Miles clarifies. He usually accompanies me in meetings to take notes while I present, and this time he was witness to me complaining about Waterman’s CFO being unresponsive to sending over the files we’d asked for weeks ago.
“Painful for Waterman I’m sure,” I say, about to push my office door open when Glen, our CEO, catches me.
“Have a minute?” he asks, looking from me to Miles.
I hold up my finger. “One minute,” I say kindly and enter my office while Miles scurries over to Glen, working out my schedule to allow for a few minutes.
In the meantime, I check my emails and start a draft to the team detailing a list of items we need to go over next week.
Glen sticks his head inside my office, and I wave him through. “I heard you're giving Waterman hell,” he says, motioning down the hall to the conference room I just left.
“Nothing he can’t handle.” It’s mostly true.
Glen is in his sixties, tall and lean with hair that has almost completely turned gray – except for the pieces of dark brown that peak through on the sides. He’s been good to me which is why I’ve given him so many years of my life, but lately, the pressure is wearing on me. I started working for him back in college to earn extra cash when the company was small and only had a handful of employees. There was no plan to stay here for nearly twenty years, but when I got pregnant with Noelle, I quickly had to get my shit together, and Glen was very flexible with my time.
He picks up a picture of Noelle from my desk, smiling as he looks at it.
“I still can’t get over how much the two of you look alike.” He sets the picture back down and sits on the edge of my desk.
“I remember when she used to raid the break room back when she was this tall.” Glen gestures with his hand just below his hip as he chuckles. That was back when it was a family company; less employees meant less rules. Over the years Glen has become less about family and more about leaving behind a legacy.
Looking over at the picture he was holding, I remember the day at the San Diego Zoo, one of those silly photos where you stick your head through a cardboard cutout of an animal. Noelle was a zebra, and I was a monkey. We share the same dark brown hair and blue eyes.
