Amelia
I put on my pencil skirt before I plucked the matching suit jacket from the closet. Today was the day I would nail the job I’d been working towards for years. I was interviewing to be the CEO of a massive hotel chain development project, and I knew I was perfect for the job. If I could snag this job, then everything I had fought through and worked for my entire life would be worth it.
I slipped into my lucky black peep-toe heels, fluffed my hair in the mirror one last time, and blew myself a kiss.
This was the job that had been waiting for me, and I wasn’t going to do anything to blow it.
I got into a cab and gave the driver the address, but I saw the building looming far before we arrived. When he dropped me off at the entrance, I was suddenly glad I had allowed time to get there 15 minutes early. The expansiveness of the building was astounding. It had to be at least 40 floors, and it had black-tinted windows that ricocheted up all four sides. It easily took up half of the block it sat on, and it was unlike anything I had ever seen in my entire life.
I knew whole hospitals that could fit into the vicinity this building utilized.
I felt that telltale tremor in my hand begin and I clasped it tightly before I began to ascend the steps. This was no time to get nervous now, the hard part had already happened. I had impressed someone enough for them to call me in for the interview.
Now, it was just a matter of showing them exactly what I was capable of.
I went up to the 29th floor as instructed and walked up to a secretarial desk. She smiled with her pearly whites and asked me what I was there for, but the moment I mentioned my name she got all excited.
“Oh my gosh. Go ahead and take a seat. I’ll let them know you’re here,” she said.
I sat down in the lobby and couldn’t help but jiggle my leg. Even the rooms in the building were expansive, with high-vaulted ceilings, massive double doors into every room, and sprawling furniture that threatened to swallow you whole.
Or worse, attempted to put you to sleep.
Before my nerves worked up the back of my spine, a man appeared in the doorway. He stood there with a tall back, and his shoulders stood sturdy on his looming frame, even though his face spoke of a kindness behind his demeanor.
“Miss Wilson?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. That’d be me,” I said.
“I’m Drew Lyons and I’ll be conducting your interview,” he said.
“Wonderful to meet you, Mr. Lyons. It was you who I spoke on the phone with, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was. How are you doing this morning?” he asked.
“Feeling confident,” I said.
“No nerves?” he asked.
“Oh, there are always nerves. The key is to push through the nerves and do what you know, despite them,” I said.
“I like that,” he said, smiling.
We pushed through another set of double doors that dumped into a stately office, and he ushered me over to sit on a couch. I sat in the corner before I crossed my legs, and he sat beside me with that goofy smile still on his face.
“What makes you think you can do this job?” he asked.
“Setting aside my education and my work history, the fact of the matter is that this is what I enjoy,” I said.
“Building hotels is what you enjoy?” he said.
“No, selling a better life is what I enjoy. Building them is for the contractors. I convince people the hotel is what they need to make their life easier and their experience in the city more valuable.”
“So, you’ve worked in hotels before,” he said.
“Are all of these pseudo-questions simply a vague assumption of my life, Mr. Lyons?” I asked.
“I’ll stick to asking the questions, Miss Wilson,” he said, grinning.
“If you would ask them, I’d be happy to answer them.”
“Have you worked in hotels before?” he asked.
“Did you read my resume?” I asked.
“You’re a shark, aren’t you?” he asked.
“I just don’t enjoy having my time wasted. Here is why I applied for the position. While I was going to school I worked as a housekeeper in a hotel near campus. I was privy to many things about my college compatriots I’d rather not indulge, but I found many things that needed revamping. Things that were done that didn’t make sense, and things that could’ve just been better.”
“Like what?” he asked
“Hire me and see,” I said, smirking.
“If you could change any one thing about hotels across the world, what would it be?” he asked.
“The way the managers are trained. They are trained to follow rules, not give customer service. There’s a difference,” I said.
“If you could add something new to every hotel across the world, what would it be?” he asked.
“Better fucking towels, Mr. Lyons,” I said.
He chuckled at my statement and I felt myself relax. He turned his gaze towards the massive floor-to-ceiling windows of his office and I could tell his gears were turning. I wasn’t going to walk into this interview and be anyone less than myself, but the longer he sat there debating, the longer I started wondering if I had come off too strong.
“I like you, Miss Wilson,” he said. “I like you a great deal. I do need to inform you that although Lincoln Collins owns the developing hotel chain, you won’t be seeing much of him. You’ll be working directly with me on all the projects, and anything he needs to know will be relayed through me.”
“That would be a nice piece of information to know if there was a reason I needed to know it,” I said.
“It depends. Do you want the job?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
“Good. Because I’m giving you the position,” he said.
I sat there for a second and digested what he had just told me. The interview didn’t take any longer than 15 minutes, and was only conducted by one man, and suddenly just that quick, I was the CEO of an entire developing luxury hotel chain?
“We are in an expansion process, Miss Wilson, and are in need of some help. I dive between the hotel business and the investment banking conglomerate for Mr. Collins, so I can’t always be here to oversee everything that needs to have our eyes and hands in it. That is where you come in,” he said.
“I’ll need all your notes, numbers, and any other information pertinent to the expansion process that you’ve garnered up until this point,” I said.
“Oh, that is not a problem. It’s all located in this office,” he said.
“I just come pluck it out of your office when I need it?” I asked.
“Who said this was my office?” he asked, grinning. “Will you accept the position?”
“When do I start, Mr. Lyons?” I asked.
“How does Friday sound?” he asked.
“Sounds like I’ve got some time to enjoy the new life I just acquired,” I said.
“I look forward to working closely with you, Miss Wilson.”
“And you, Mr. Lyons.”
I shook his hand before he ushered me out to the elevator, and I held my excitement in until the elevator roared to life. I jumped with my fists in the air, jostling the sliding tube as I squealed and clapped my hands. I had gotten the position of my dreams, and in the process I could dig myself out of some of the debt I’d occurred over the course of my schooling.
And over the course of my life.
The elevator dumped me out onto the main floor and I held my head high as I walked through the main lobby. None of these people knew who I was now, but I had a feeling that come Friday they would know exactly who was walking into the building. I was going to be able to head up one of the most media-driven hotel expansions this generation had ever seen. This job would set me up for whatever I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
I flagged down a cab and got into it before I kicked my legs in excitement again. This afternoon called for a celebratory lunch at my favorite place downtown, so I gave the cab driver the address before he pulled away from the dark, looming building in the middle of the city.
The building might be a dark black tower that parted the city in half, but to me it had just become a blinding beacon of hope.
The fighting I had done up until this point had been worth it, and I wasn’t going to let this moment go to waste.