When I get back to the floater’s computer, there’s an email in the inbox, asking me to report to Madilyn’s office. It’s a couple hours old, but I was in the filing room when it was sent.
I feel like running there but I force myself to slow my pace.
This is it. This is when I find out I get to work for Cameron Sanchez. Or at least I hope so.
When I get there, the door’s shut so I rap on it lightly.
“One second,” Madilyn calls out.
Her voice sounds a bit breathless.
It’s more than a second, and when she comes to the door she’s running a hand frantically through her tousled hair.
“Oh, Ruby, it’s you,” she says, looking relieved.
“Ruby.” Asher nods at me as he leaves the office, but I notice that he winks at Madilyn first. I also notice that the top button of his shirt is undone.
Katie wasn’t kidding when she said the two were getting extra cozy.
“Sorry Ruby, I didn’t know when you’d be coming up,” Madilyn says, straightening up her skirt and then taking a seat at her desk. She gestures to the chair on the other side of it— where clients usually sit— and so I sit down too.
“Sorry,” I tell her. “I was in the filing room when you sent the email.”
“Oh, I know,” Madilyn says. “And that’s what I like about you. Your work ethic. So, need to apologize.”
She smiles.
“In fact,” she says, “the reason I asked you to come see me is because I wanted to personally let you know that the job is yours if you want it.”
“The job?”
“Yes,” she says, blinking patiently at me as if I’m hard of hearing. “The job as Mr. Sanchez’s legal assistant.”
I can’t believe it. I was hoping this is what she was going to tell me but I still can’t believe it.
Nothing good ever happens to me. Then I got this job, and now this promotion and I get to be up close and personal with the hottest guy I’ve ever seen. It’s all I can do to keep from clapping.
“Thank you, Madilyn,” I tell her, doing my best to restrain myself.
I return her smile but I’m sure mine is a mixture of excitement and nervousness.
Don’t fuck this up like you fuck up everything else, I tell myself.
“When do I start?” I ask her.
“I believe that Shirley is available to start training you this afternoon,” she says. “So, you might want to go check with her and Mr. Sanchez now.”
“Thank you, Madilyn,” I say again, because I can’t even think of anything better to say and I’m actually very grateful.
“You’re welcome,” she says, with a little laugh.
I wonder if she knows how I feel. I wonder if this is how she felt the first time she was able to work near Asher.
My feet refrain from skipping on my way to Cameron’s office. But my heart doesn’t. I pass the filing room and peek in on Katie, who is actually showing one of the Barbies something in a file, instead of smoking her vape pen for once.
She gives me a hesitant thumbs up sign, as if asking a question, and I respond with a big thumbs up of my own. She smiles, obviously happy for me. I guess I’ve made a friend in stoner girl Katie. That’s something else I’ve never had: a real friend.
When I get to Cameron’s office, his secretary looks a lot happier to see me than he does.
“Welcome, Ruby,” she says, a big smile spreading across her face.
I’m sure she’s happy they found a replacement so soon, so she can train me and be on her way to Florida.
“Come right in.”
“Hello Mr. Sanchez,” I say, nodding my head to Cameron.
“Hello Ruby.”
His spine is stiff and he is barely even looking at me.
“Welcome aboard. I’m happy to have you as my new assistant. Ruby will be training you for the rest of the afternoon.”
He’s saying all the right words but his tone sounds like a robot. What happened to the flirtatious guy from before? He looks like someone has programmed him to talk like this.
“Great,” I say, even though I don’t think it’s great at all.
Thus begins an afternoon nearly as boring as all my other ones in the filing room or in Mr. Mack’s office. Shirley painstakingly shows me how Cameron likes his files organized and his pleadings formatted: all things I could find out myself just by looking at his computer or his files.
At first, Cameron works at his desk while Shirley and I move from her cubicle in the hallway— which will soon become my cubicle in the hallway— in and out of his office as she shows me things.
At times, I’m so close to him that I can smell his expensive perfume. It smells like cedar mixed with a touch of spring breeze. I can sense the chemistry between us and I can tell he’s watching my every mood, at least out of the corner of his eye if not sometimes straight on.
But he never makes direct eye contact with me and he doesn’t say any anything designed to catch my attention like it seemed he was doing yesterday.
Damn it.
I guess he’s being good now that he’s my boss. Perhaps I shouldn’t have gotten this job. It’s having the exact opposite effect that I wanted. It’s enough to drive me crazy.
At some point, Cameron excuses himself and says he has a meeting. And then he doesn’t come back.
An hour passes. And then another.
This is worse torture than being close to him yet not able to really talk to him. All I want is for him to come back.
I feel like some desperate woman, possessed by him, obsessed with him. I’ve never felt anything like this in my life.
At five o’clock, Shirley says, “Well, that’s it for me for today. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Have a good evening,” I tell her, but I don’t want to leave.
I’m left alone in Cameron’s office. I sit down in his desk chair and imagine what it must be like to be him. The power. The money. The masculinity.
I half expect him to come back and find me here like this. Maybe I want him to yell at me for being in his office when I’m not supposed to be. Maybe I want him to spank me.
But he doesn’t come back. I wait until 5:30 and then I just feel even more pathetic.
I head to the file room to see if for some reason Katie’s still here. Maybe she dozed off while hitting her vape pen again. I could sure use a listening ear right now and perhaps some advice.
She’s not here, of course. There’s no reason for her to be. All the normal assistants have gone home. It’s only me left, with this ridiculous crush on my new boss.
I notice that she left a book in the corner, where she always sits. A collection of Pablo Neruda’s poetry.
I sit down and begin reading it. The last thing I want to do is go home right now. Talk about being bored and lonely. I just want to sit here with my thoughts and with this sensual poetry.
I want to do to you what spring does to the cherry trees, I read.
That’s funny, I think. Because I want Cameron to do that to me. Too bad it’s not going to happen.
And then as if on cue, I feel a presence at the door. I look up and there he is. Cameron Sanchez. My new boss. And the guy I want to take my virginity.