This elevator is sweltering. Or maybe it’s just the combination of my nerves and this suit that’s making me feel like the air is thick enough to choke on. I tug at my tie. After two years of wearing nothing but jeans and T-shirts, the silk feels like a noose. The only piece of clothing I am comfortable in are my socks.
I stand shoulder to shoulder with a guy almost my height, in a similar suit and tie. Though his looks much more expensive and he seems more at home in it. His blond hair and Rolex glare under the fluorescents. The volume on his phone is turned up so loud I can hear his horrible taste in music clearly through the earbuds.
“Hold the elevator!” a woman calls as the doors start to roll closed.
I step forward, pressing my hand to one side of the sliding doors as she darts in. Her head is down, her thumb scrolling quickly across her phone’s screen.
“What floor?” I ask, but she doesn’t respond, instead tapping the toe of her high-heeled shoe in a metallic rhythm. She sighs audibly, shaking her head at the screen. I shrug and step back again.
“You part of the Hill City internship?” Bad Music Guy pulls an earbud out. The tinny sound of his music fills the small space. What I wouldn’t give for the dulcet tones of the Beastie Boys’ mid-’90s discography so I could avoid conversation with him. I was such a nervous wreck this morning I forgot my earphones on my bedside table.
I nod and hold out my hand. “Wesley Chambers.”
“Mark.” He smiles wide, showing all his teeth. Like a chimpanzee. “Who’s your mentor?”
My father’s friend Richard Skyler is the CEO of Hill City Marketing & PR, one of Boston’s premier agencies. Dad considered his paternal duties fulfilled when he got me a spot in this program two years ago. After that, it was back to sporadic emails and missed birthdays. I’m not mad at him, though. My father is just a dick. He can’t be fixed.
Luckily, his buddy Richard isn’t an incurable phallus.
“Uhhh.” I scratch the back of my neck, stalling for time. “I actually interviewed for this internship two years ago and I was going to be working with Richard? The CEO? But...” I clear my throat. Sneak a peek at Mark. The sharp edge of his smile assures me that I will not explain the past two years of my life to this guy.
“But I had to defer it,” I say. “So, now I have to work with Corrine Blunt.” I can’t keep the dismay from my voice.
I’d met Richard Skyler when I was a kid and he’d remained friends with my parents until their divorce. When I interviewed for the program, Richard and I got along like old buds. And when I had to decline his offer of mentorship to take care of my mom, Richard promised me a spot when I was ready. And he kept in touch: emails, even the occasional phone call.
“Honestly, I’d assumed Richard would be my mentor again. But...it didn’t work out.”
I rock back on my heels, surprised by how disappointed I feel in this moment. The woman is a powerhouse, after all: graduated with an MBA from Boston College at twenty-four. At thirty years old, she’s one of the youngest executives at Hill City Marketing & PR and the only woman in the executive suites. She’s won countless awards for her marketing campaigns and was Richard’s protégé in the first Hill City mentorship program years ago.
Plus, I know I’m not supposed to think about my boss this way, but it’s not the worst thing that she’s pretty. In her picture on the website she sported a bouncy, dark bob and a bright smile. She seemed happy and welcoming and young, like whatever they mean when they say “bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.” I’d felt an affinity with her immediately. I shouldn’t complain about having to spend a whole year working with her. In truth, I’m excited, if not mildly intimidated.
I open my mouth to admit that but bite my tongue when Mark says, too loud in this small space, “Dude, your mentor is Corrine Blunt?”
I rub my hand over my closed mouth and wince through a nod.
“The lady boss?” Mark laughs, and the cruel sound sends a shiver up the back of my neck. I’ve been the subject of a laugh like that before.
“You know what they call her, right?”
I stifle a cough and avoid his gaze, staring at my fuzzy reflection in the chrome elevator doors, at the digital numbers counting our ascent. I look anywhere but at this asshole. My eyes finally come to rest on the back of the woman standing in front of me. She stares up at the numbers as well. Her neck is long and elegant. The red temples of her glasses hooked around her ears are the only pop of color on her otherwise crisp black outfit. The scent of coconut wafts from her long, dark hair, pulled up into an intricate, tight bun, not a single strand out of place. It looks painful, to be honest.
She’s wearing a black blazer and the type of skirt that makes a woman’s ass look spectacular. And the blazer has that ruffle thing around the waist. “Peplum, Wes,” Amy’s voice echoes in my head, tinged with frustration at the number of times she’s had to repeat an irrelevant fashion-related fact to me.
“Wes, my man, you’re in for quite a year,” Mark says, as if I haven’t ignored him for the past thirty seconds. The elevator dings our arrival on the Hill City floor and the woman walks down the hall, her head lowered over her phone again.
“My frat brother Sean got an internship here and worked with her. He coined her nickname: Blunt the Cu–”
I make a spluttering sound. A combination of no and what and stop that comes out sounding like, “Nuhwst.” I don’t need him to finish his sentence to know what he was about to say.
“Look, buddy,” I say, and a shocked, stilted laugh tumbles out of my mouth before I can close it. Relief that she didn’t hear him washes over me. “Can you not say that word?” I hiss into the empty hallway.
Mark throws his head back and laughs, the sound booming down the halls, solidifying exactly how much I don’t like him. He grabs my shoulder, shaking me roughly. “Oh my god, Chambers. You’re precious.”
All the interns gather for a breakfast meet and greet in one of the conference rooms. I lean against a wall with a plate of fruit and a mini chocolate chip muffin, chasing a piece of melon around with my plastic fork. Everyone here seems to know everyone else. They’re fresh from the same graduating class and it shows in their excitement, the overlapping convocation stories. After two years, my own graduation is a distant, hazy memory. I’ve launched a few smiles at some fellow interns, but mostly I eat my complimentary breakfast alone, watching people avoid eye contact with me.
While I’ve grown into my legs, feet, and hands and gotten better at shooting the shit with the guys, I still feel like the sore thumb in any crowd. Amy calls it Ugly Duckling Syndrome. I call it being lucky a twin is a built-in best friend.
The piece of melon slips off my plate and bounces off my shoe. I hike up my pants to stoop down to get it and when I rise, Mark stands in front of me.
“Come on, bro. Let’s mingle.”
By mingle, Mark means hit heavily on the only women of color in the room, two interns from Finance. Marisol, a Northeastern grad from Pennsylvania, ignores us for her phone. But the one Mark lays it on thick for is clearly uncomfortable with the attention. With every one of his jokes, Abila’s smiles morph into cringes. Her shoulders inch toward her ears when his hand brushes her arm. He stares at her chest and she pulls her cardigan together. I open my mouth. Close it again. If Amy were here, she’d let fly with some asshole-puckering swear words. If my best friend, Jeremy Chen, were here, he’d find a calm way to explain to Mark why his behavior was inappropriate.
I’m just afraid that if I open my mouth to do either, another nervous laugh will end up escaping, especially if Abila has it in hand. I catch her eye, lifting a brow. She rolls her eyes, shaking her head.
“I’m...going to get another coffee,” she announces, earning a glare from Mark for interrupting his story of “epic drunken debauchery.” “Please don’t follow me,” she says, her voice laced with quiet disdain.
“Christ, uptight much?” he mutters.
Or maybe she didn’t feel like being sexually harassed on her first day, Mark.
Mark’s elbow digs into my ribs, spilling my, luckily, lukewarm coffee. I pat at my hand with a napkin, putting the cup on the conference table behind me.
“Wesley! I see you’ve met my intern, Mark.”
Richard pats my back hard enough that I buckle a little under the pressure and I’m so glad I’m not still holding my coffee because I would have spilled over more than my hand. Mark and I greet Richard, Mark smiling that chimpanzee smile again.
“If you’ll excuse us, Mark. I need to borrow Wes for a moment.”
Something shifts in Mark’s smile as we walk away, his eyes snagging on Richard’s hand on my shoulder. He suddenly seems a little less primate-like and a little more sharklike.
“I’m so sorry I couldn’t be there for Laura’s funeral,” Richard says, once we’ve found a private space in the corner of the conference room away from Mark’s dead shark eyes.
At the mention of Mom, my stomach drops.
I really don’t want to talk about this today.
“Did you get the flowers I sent?” he asks.
I nod, swallow past my dry throat and dread, and try to get the words to come out. I’m at that point where I think it’s okay. I think I’m okay with my mom being gone. But then someone asks about her or how we’re doing and my stomach clenches, my tongue ties. I realize I’m not okay. I’m small again, a skinny, scared kid who really, really misses his mom.
“Yes, we got the flowers. Thank you,” I manage.
Richard smiles and not for the first time, I wonder how this kind man could ever be a friend to my father. Richard speaks fondly of Mom, repeating stories he’s already told me about the three of them—my mom, my dad, and Richard—in college. The longer he talks about her the less my lungs feel like they’re being crushed in someone’s fist.
“I’m sorry.” He smiles ruefully. “I’m sure I’ve told you all of these before.”
He has, and each story hurts like a knife to the gut, but I’m starving for them nonetheless. Memories of Mom where she was the happy, healthy version of herself. Our last few months together, when she was sick and so tired of being sick, are imprinted on my brain. It’s a relief to be reminded that she wasn’t always that way.
Richard walks me through a maze of hallways, pointing out departments. We pass a large, open concept area he calls the Pit where teams already work together, walking until we reach a sandblasted glass door, the words Marketing Director etched across it. He claps his hand on my shoulder and squeezes, smiling warmly.
“This is Corrine’s office. I know the two of you will get along well.” He points to me and winks as he walks away. “Pay close attention. You’ll learn a lot from her.”
I take a moment alone on this side of the door. I check my tie, catch a glimpse of any stains on my suit in the reflection of the glass. But all I see is a blob of brown on top of my head and dark shapes where my glasses sit. Fuzzy and undefined. That feels depressingly on brand.
I adjust the pant leg I’m in an ongoing battle with, but it creeps up my leg again, displaying my lucky socks. Taking a deep breath, I knock.
“Come in,” a voice calls from the other side of the door.
I step into an all-white office. It’s so bright I squint. So clean, so sterile I want to take off my shoes to not to leave footprints. A small white couch, an armchair with no arms, and a glass coffee table sit in the open space in front of a white desk. Two pocket doors bracket the crisp white wall behind the desk.
And standing across the room, one dark eyebrow arched, her red lips tightly pursed, casting a stark black silhouette in this crisp white space, is the woman from the elevator.
My brain stutters, stalling on the image of her there and now here. Her hair shining under the elevator lights still lingers on the backs of my eyelids. The smell of coconuts doesn’t belong here. That scent belongs back in that elevator. But after two good sniffs, here it is still.
I close my eyes tight, like if I turn my brain off and on again it will work better. But when I open them, it’s still her, with that severe bun and the peplum top and red glasses. The Corrine Blunt I found on the company’s website looked nothing like this woman, who glares at me like she eats bright-eyed and bushy-tailed things for breakfast. Whatever similarities I thought we had have been surgically removed. Every possible reason for why this woman is in Corrine Blunt’s office runs through my head. But it keeps returning to the only horrifying explanation:
Corrine Blunt is the woman from the elevator.