New Job (Hazel)

I would be lying if I said I didn’t dress up nicely for Markos. He’d given me an address of where I would go so I could start my new job. Putting aside my pride and accepting his help was the hardest thing I had to do.

Especially when I used to have everything handed to me.

I was dressed in the nicest clothes I could find. I was in a short sundress and cute flats. I had on minimal makeup and my hair was free. I didn’t have a curler but I improvised with the items in my tiny apartment.

I had to take three subways and walk through the busy streets of New York to the Upper East where his hotel was. I’d googled it but the name of the owner was not listed. I guess he must have been serious when he said he didn’t want his name on blogs.

The hotel was modern, extravagant, and a sight for sore eyes. I was almost too embarrassed to walk in because of how bad I looked in comparison. The floors were white marble, too clean for my shoes that had just been from the Bronx.

“Hello, I’m here to see Mr. Markos Petrakis,” I said to the receptionist when I got there. The receptionist eyed me up and down before giving me a questioning look. You could tell she didn’t believe me.

“What’s your name?”

“Hazel Thompson.”

She clicked a few times on the computer before smiling and getting up.

“Derek, the manager, is waiting for you in his office. That is who you will be seeing about your employment.” She said as she gestured at a door on her right.

I smiled at her and went in.

“Sir, my name is Hazel and I was sent here by Markos for a job,” I stated.

The man behind the desk was in a fitting suit and perfectly slicked back hair. He lifted his eyes to look at me and gave me a scornful look. You could see he thought of me like dirt on his shoes.

If it had been a year ago when I had everything, he would have kissed the ground I walked on. I hadn’t realized how much people who weren’t financially stable were treated badly until I joined the club.

Derek was nowhere near as nice as the receptionist. He was judging me off the clothes I was wearing. They weren’t designer and they were a little bit faded.

I still had some designer clothes from my old life but they barely fit me anymore. I had grown too small and thin for them. Putting food on the table was a problem in itself. It wasn’t common for me to miss meals.

“Where did Markos find this filthy girl?” He grumbled under his breath, not caring that I heard every word.

“Pardon?” I asked, daring him to repeat his words.

“Sit down and read your contract.”

I sat opposite him and took the document from his hands. He shivered in disgust when our fingers brushed and I tried my best to ignore his obvious disdain for me.

The position was for a housekeeping job at the hotel. I was to work from 9 am every morning to 6 pm. Those were doable hours because I needed the money.

I was a bit thrown off that Markos had gotten me a job as a housekeeper. I had expected…more. You would expect that a man who knew I was overqualified for that kind of job would help with a job of my qualifications.

I had a degree in Economics and Finance. He would know because he and I were in the same class in college. We graduated in the same class.

But I was in need and I couldn’t afford to be picky or ungrateful. I was in desperate need of employment. At least he helped me. Most people wouldn’t have bothered.

At the end of the day, pay was pay. Plus, the working conditions were decent enough and the pay was good. I had no reason to complain.

“You can read, can’t you?” The man asked as he sized me up.

I wanted to inform him that I studied at a prestigious Ivy League college but that would beg the question of why I wasn’t employed. I would have to explain that my grandparents and the people my father had burned as he laundered money had blacklisted my family from the job market.

No one wanted to hire me or my sister. Especially when we had no experience, having been groomed all our lives to be rich housewives. We all paid the price of belonging to the Thompson family when everything went down.

All my father’s friends pretended they didn’t know us when he was arrested. It was sad and a good thing at the same time. It proved rich people were never your friends.

“Are you deaf, filthy girl?”

Derek’s words didn’t move me. I’d been called worse and gotten used to it.

I shook my head and blinked back the tears at the memory. “I can read.”

I ignored the curiosity swirling in his eyes and read the rest of the contract. When I was done, I put down my signature and handed the document back to him.

“Good. I’ll show you where you can get your uniform and you can start.”

I nodded and followed him to a room where uniforms were kept. It consisted of black pants and a bright red shirt with long sleeves and white stripes on both the collar and sleeves..

At least it wasn’t slutty.

After changing, I put my hair in a bun and got to work. I busied myself with work to forget about the fact that I wanted to see Markos again. How was he doing? Was he thinking of me as much as I was thinking about him?

I knew I should not have been thinking of him. It was clear he thought of me as an acquaintance rather than a woman he used to roll in his sheets with.

I hoped that our time together at least meant something to him. But I couldn’t help but think it didn’t. If it did, he would have gotten me a job that lined with my qualifications.