“Er, sorry. What did you say?” I muttered, still pushing the painful thoughts to the back of my mind.
I cringed as I watched my boss roll her eyes at me, as if I was grating on her last nerve. Jesus, someone clearly had taken a handful of happy pills with their morning coffee. Kate McKenna was the top dog at Blue Stone PR. Everyone wanted to be her and if they couldn’t be that, they did the next best thing; they worked for her.
Well, that doesn’t make me sound like a damn creeper!
I’d worked at Blue Stone PR for three years as Kate’s personal assistant. The job wasn’t glamorous; in fact, most of the time I was awake all hours trying to work through the shit pile of paperwork that never seemed to end. Blue Stone PR was one of the best PR companies in New York City, planning and promoting the most sort after events in New York City.
Kate McKenna was like marmite: you either loved her or you hated her. She started in the PR business much like I had, working as a personal assistant to a top PR boss, working day and night to prove within an inch of her life that she’s worth the risk, that she’s good at her job. After working as a PA for just short of twelve months, she was given her first client. That particular client was still with her after all these years. Her background spoke for itself, but at the better side of thirty-seven she was, in fact, bitter. An ice queen who believed no one could do her job better, and what’s worse? People knew it.
Sometimes I wondered if this would be my life, running around after a grumpy, control freak boss for forty plus hours a week. Where I wanted to be was nowhere near where I really was. Bottom of the PR cesspool, hoping that one day I’d be given a leg up the first step of the ladder.
Not freaking likely.
I lived and breathed PR, from meeting with prospective clients to planning red carpet events to working with some of the richest businessmen in the city. My passion for PR stemmed from one summer break. My aunt Liza had moved to Chicago when I was ten, wanting to move as far away from our small home town in Arlington, Kentucky, to a large city shortly after my uncle died. She wanted to make something of herself, maybe to fill the void of losing her husband, but whatever it was, it worked. She was hired by a large PR firm and slowly but surely made her way up. I was offered an internship at the firm, all expenses paid while I was in Chicago. I stayed with my aunt Liza in her cozy two bedroom apartment for six weeks; it was a major step up from what I was accustomed to and although I missed my parents, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of newfound ambition. Between working as my aunt’s personal assistant and getting coffee for her clients when they arrived, I was shown the ins and outs of PR, the parts that could only ignite and fuel a passion you never knew you had. Every day was a new experience, a new idea, a new client, a newfound sense of knowing that PR was where I wanted to be. All too soon I was back on a plane back home to my house that was crumbling around us, a town that only housed one set of traffic lights and a place where everyone knew everyone. It was right then I knew I had to get out of there.
I had seen the lifestyle a job in PR could give you, the security and the paychecks. I wanted something my parents could never provide for me: financial stability. I wanted to make something of myself, to earn enough money to help them fix their home back to its original beauty. I loved my parents dearly and being so far away from them broke my heart.
A cough quickly pulled me out of my past. Pushing my wayward thoughts away, I finally concentrated on what Mrs. Grump had to say.
“I said, I need you to meet with a client on my behalf.” Kate sighed, as if this client was getting on her nerves. “I have a facial I just can’t get out of.”
I sat there stunned for a couple of seconds. What the hell? She wants me to meet with a client? I didn’t meet clients unless I was bringing them coffee in Kate’s office, and even that was few and far between. I pondered for a moment, wondering why she hadn’t asked Phil, one of the account managers for some of our smaller clients.
“Of course,” I said. Well, it came out more like a freaking squeak than anything else.
Kate nodded her head sharply and turned to leave.
“Er, Kate?” I mumbled.
She paused, turning back to me and raised her brow.
Oh, that’s my cue to talk.
“Shouldn’t Phil be dealing with this? I mean, I’m truly honored that you asked me, but I would’ve thought this would be more suited to an account manager who has some experience.”
There. I said it. I basically told my boss that I’m an incompetent ass and I shouldn’t be trusted with the simplest of tasks. Well, not in so many words but that’s basically what I had said.