Chapter 7 – Carolina
It’s Monday: my first full day in a new city, and my first day at my new job. I wake up disoriented and, at first, frightened for my very sanity. Here I am, alone. My husband had left me. And then I’d left town— and state— to take a cushy job for which I was less than qualified, to say the least. I’d also left everything and everyone I had ever known.
As my glaring alarm goes off for the thirtieth time— I don’t want to be late on my first day, but damn that snooze button is always so enticing— I lift my head and then let it fall back onto the pillow.
This is not a dream, I tell myself. You made your bed, and then you unmade it to sleep in, so now get up out of it.
The bed in question is surrounded by boxes. Indeed, the entire townhouse I’m currently in is full of boxes. I’d rented it in a hurry; it’s the first one I could find in my rush to move to Albuquerque that looked half decent and it’s in a nice area of town— Nob Hill. The only things I’d unpacked were the outfit I planned to wear my first day at work and the coffee maker, both of which I now start scrambling to put to good use.
I sigh, fearing I’ve made a big mistake. My inner voice starts screaming at me.
Don’t cry, Carolina Abbott. Don’t you dare cry. Now is not the time. Don’t do it.
I gulp hard and drag myself to the kitchen to grab my coffee from the coffee maker I’d just plugged in and turned on. As I drink the steaming elixir while standing on my new balcony, I notice a little red robin mailbox in the yard across the street.
That mailbox gives me such a laugh. It’s no damn Twitter bird, but it’s the closest thing to one that I’ve ever seen. I calm down, thinking maybe that fate is letting me know it had wanted me to rent this place so I could see an ironic mailbox after all. Perhaps everything is going to turn out okay.
Suddenly, I realize a kid about 12 years old is watching me as I sit in my tank and undies. Much to his disappointment, his mother spots me and covers his eyes. She shoots me a disapproving glare and hustles the kid back into the house.
Geez, I think, it’s no worse than a bathing suit. Then I look down at my boobs and realize that my nipples are standing at attention in the slightly chilly air. But still, the kid’s probably gotten tons of hard-ons by now. Take a chill lady.
I quickly get dressed in the clothes I’d left out— a conservative yet flattering gray skirt suit, which I assume is how legal assistants dress, although I have no idea— and head to my new job.
When I arrive, I realize the parking lot is behemoth. This is no small-town firm. Back in Stone, when people need a lawyer for a will or God forbid a criminal case, we just park on the street in front of one of their little offices, which is usually out of their house. Apparently they do things very differently in Albuquerque.
I park on level three and get lost. I have to take an elevator to the lobby level and then take a connecting bridge to the B building and then take the second set of elevator banks to the Penthouse, where the law firm is located.
It is so overwhelming that for a second, I almost turn around and go home. Except that the new townhouse is only my “home” because my job is here, and I have no idea why I’d need to live there if I didn’t have it.
Had Garrett Mack been mistaken? Why had he hired me to work here when I can’t even find the damn place? What if I can’t cut it here?
I gulp hard for maybe the three hundredth time since moving and suck back tears— again. I have got to learn how to silence my inner critic or else stay paralyzed in fear.
Finally, I reach the law firm and take the elevator up to the fifteenth floor. The posh blue carpeted double doors open to the reception area.
I put on my biggest smile and step forward. There’s not just one but two receptionist desks. A prim and proper man sits behind one, but he doesn’t look up at me, as his nose is in some kind of paperwork.
Instead, a snarky-looking female receptionist looks in my direction and holds up a finger at me. She’s answering a few different lines and clearly not enjoying it. She wears black cat-eye glasses and has matching hair— black, not cat-eyed. She stabs at the buttons on the telephone with wicked-long bright red fingernails.
Occasionally she adjusts the mouthpiece on her headset as if this is a must, and she lifts up her butt in the chair and repositions herself. Still, she never looks up at me although she must know I’m here.
“Marks, Sanchez, Reed and Mack, can I help you? Connecting. Marks law firm, this is Erin. No, you didn’t call a dry cleaners.”
She slams her finger down onto a button on the switchboard and rolls her eyes in exasperation. Finally, she looks up at me again, during a pause in phone calls. I know it’s now or never, so I open my mouth.
“Hi, I am starting today. I am Carolina Abbott. I’ll be executive assistant to Garrett Mack.”
She sighs and, as if it’s killing her, utters, “Yep. I’ll page him.”
I back away.
“Mr. Mack, she’s here. Yeah, your new hire. Caroline or Carolina or whatever. Yep. I’ll tell her.”
She looks at me yet again, and says, “He’s ready for you. His executive assistant.”
She snickers. I just stare back at her.
“You know that’s just a fancy way to say old fashioned legal secretary, right?”
I nod, having already thought it was a silly title. But because it’s what Garrett had used as the job description on the phone, I figured I should go with it.
Suddenly the male receptionist behind the other desk looks up and glares at her.
“Erin, don’t be rude to the new hires.”
She ignores him.
“Go down there, take a left at the watercooler and a right as soon as you hit the men’s room,” she instructs me, pointing a scarlet-nailed finger toward a long hallway to her right.
I have no idea what she means, but I start to head off on my way. I’m not about to challenge her and start my new venture off on the wrong foot. Who knows, I might need her help sometime.
“Thanks, Erin,” I say with as much sincerity as I can muster, even though she hadn’t introduced herself to me.
She manages a half smile. I smile back as I think, damn, something must have crawled up your ass and died. Thank God, I’m not working for you. My goodness.
I look back at her after I start walking, a bad habit really, and then I see that she’s watching me walk.
I immediately become self-conscious and feel around to make sure I’d tucked in my blouse in my hurry this morning. Yes, it’s tucked in.
I smooth my hair with one hand and resist the urge to turn around again to see if Erin is still looking. She’s probably just messing with the new girl, and if so, what a bitch.
It’s probably a good thing my thoughts are stuck in my head and have no way of being broadcast. If I had Tourette’s Syndrome or some other affliction that forced me to say what is forbidden, on any given day of my life, I’d surely lose friends. That I’m certain of, if nothing else in this moment.
After making a complete circle of the Penthouse floor, I finally end up back where I’d started from. I’m so embarrassed, but then I’m relieved to see the male receptionist stand up and walk in my direction, before Erin— who is busy answering phones again— has a chance to notice.
“I’m sorry some of us are so rude,” he scoffs, under his breath. “Let me show you the way. Clearly since you’re new here someone should have escorted you, but someone did not.”
He glares at Erin, who luckily is still distracted on the phones. She doesn’t care that he’s talking shit about her, and I’m glad she doesn’t seem to notice that I’m a little lost sheep.
I follow him down the hallway— a totally different one than I had taken the first time— and he says, “I’m Claude, and that was Erin. I’m sorry she’s so rude. Welcome to Marks, Sanchez and Reed. And Mack.”
He adds the last part as an afterthought.
“The Mack is new to the name,” he explains, gesturing around as if a new presence had invaded the law firm. “And so is Erin. Garrett Mack recently joined the firm; he was a solo practitioner but his dad is a bigwig, if not nearly senile, partner here who pulled some strings for him to come.”
He looks at me expectantly, probably wondering how much of this I already know. I don’t really know any of it aside from what a cursory Google search revealed, so I nod at him, encouraging him to continue filling me in, which he does.
“Plus, he has money and good cases, and for some reason— probably because they like increasing the workload of all of us staff— the original partners decided they want to venture out into plaintiffs’ cases, which is what Garrett does,” Claude continues.
His slight French accent clips the end of his words, making everything he says sound prettier than the subject matter deserves.
“Erin came with him, and at first I wasn’t sure why, because as you can tell, as receptionists go, she’s not the friendliest,” he says, making me giggle. “But don’t worry, she grows on you and ends up being quite nice to people she likes. I’m sure she’ll like you.”
He smiles at me, but in a sincere way, and not as if he’s hitting on me. I’m pretty sure he’s gay. I’m glad he’s helped me out and I hope I can ask him the questions I’m sure I’ll have later.
“Well, here you go, Miss Carolina,” he says, pointing to an office. “Have a great first day.”
He heads back to the lobby from where we started off. And here it is, right in front of me— my destination— as evidenced by the words on the office door just beyond the men’s room.
This is it. The start of a new life. Let’s hope I don’t screw it up too much.