8

Working Nine to Five

Helen got on the bus and took a seat near the front. She pulled out her iPhone and put her headphones in her ears. She could finally afford a cell phone plan.

It was April and she had just finished her last accounting exam. It was nice to have it off her shoulders. Her course at the college had been in administrative assistance. Now it was finished, she could go look for a real job instead of escorting guys. Helen wasn’t sure, but she thought the punk band in her headphones sounded like the hallelujah chorus.

As a bonus, there was one other reason she was excited about quitting her job as an escort. Once she had her evenings free again, she could maybe try to find a real boyfriend. She’d given up thinking there was a way for things to work out between her and Mark. It had been two months since Valentine’s Day and he hadn't made a request for her since then. Helen kept telling herself it didn’t matter. She had paid off Mindy, the college, and the credit card people as she'd planned. She was walking into the world with zero debt. All she had to do in March and April was keep ‘regular Helen’ away from guys and she was always fresh for work (which had been easy because she didn’t normally have to beat off the guys anyway). Helen thought the price had been very low until she thought of Mark and then she wondered if it had been too high. Since it was all over, she planned to put the idea of Mark behind her. She couldn't help what had happened with him and she wanted to find herself a boyfriend. All the recent dating had left her somewhat experienced and given her a clear idea of what she didn't want in a guy.

Most of her escort dates were really impressed by the facade Helen and Mindy put together. They thought she was cute as a button but was that important? A guy who was impressed with a solid rack (inserts), thick eyelashes (fakes), long luscious hair (wig), and everything else that went into creating the illusion of Vera… was a guy that was simply not for her. She found herself sympathizing with Laura. Helen thought her real personality was probably more like Laura’s than Vera’s. She wanted a guy who saw her as a person without all that excess, added, flare. The only thing that put Helen down was her suspicion that Vera was about a zillion times more likely to score Mr. Right than Helen herself was. Well, she’d worry about that when she found Mr. Right. Until then, she’d be herself—fully and completely—and maybe he would see her. Right? She kept her fingers crossed.

Over the next few weeks, Helen kept on working at the escort service. She wasn’t the only college graduate desperately trying to land herself a job. The competition was fierce, and Helen didn’t have anything special to recommend her, except a stunning recommendation from the pub she had stopped working at after Valentine’s Day. She had a few interviews, but nothing to get excited over.

Finally, she got an interview at Capier Incorporated. It was a job working as an assistant to a public relations officer. The lady who interviewed her was very sweet and she explained the job to Helen very thoroughly, but Helen was too excited to be there to do anything more than nod and promise she could do anything. She didn’t hear a word the woman said. When Helen looked back on it, it seemed like the lights in the room were so bright she couldn’t even see the woman’s face.

After Helen accepted the job, she went into her jewelry box and pulled out the glasses she hardly ever wore. Clearly, she needed them if she hadn’t been able to see the woman’s face. Helen would need to be able to greet her when she showed up at work Monday morning.

***

When Helen got to work on her first day she suddenly realized she had been interviewed in the Human Resources department and not on the floor she would be working. She was supposed to go to room 512 on the fifth floor.

All in all, Helen felt pretty chipper. She was wearing navy trousers and a white collared shirt with a baby blue sweater-vest over-top. She had gotten her hair cut again on Saturday. Mindy had done it as a courtesy because she couldn’t stand the idea of Helen going to a salon for something she considered to be little more than a buzz cut. Mindy never wore a wig herself. Her roan tresses were real. Mindy was a really good cousin to take such good care of Helen, even if she were snobby about her hair. She even got up that morning to make sure Helen sparkled for her first day at her real job.

Helen got off the elevator on the fifth floor and looked for room 512. The outer ring of the tower was lined in private offices while columns of cubicles filled the inside tracks. There wasn’t even a bullpen. Pretty spiffy!

Helen found room 512. It couldn’t be her office, she would probably get a cubicle, but there was her boss’s nameplate. So cute! It read: Mark Lewis, Public Relations Officer.

Her jaw dropped.

She was doomed! And she thought Valentine's Day had been rough. That had literally been dinner and a movie. The next ten seconds were going to be the dictionary definition of doom.

Did the woman who interviewed her say she would be working for Mark? Helen seemed to be under the impression she would be working for the woman who interviewed her. Unless, by some miracle, that woman gave Helen the wrong room number over the phone, Helen bet that woman worked for Human Resources and was simply interviewing for Mark’s assistant in his stead.

Helen stared at the door and thought rapidly. Had he seen the applications? Did he select her application because he knew she was the girl from the escort service? Helen bit her lip as heat came off her in waves. Maybe he was in his office and she should knock.