Hannah peered over at me from the corner of her eye. “Well, good luck. Hopefully we’ll both be starting here soon.”
A few minutes later, Hannah’s name was called from the front of the waiting room and we both looked up to see Beatrice standing behind the desk, gesturing for Hannah to stand up.
“You’ll be our first candidate,” Beatrice said.
With a final “here goes nothing” smile, Hannah stood and walked toward the front desk while Kelly simultaneously picked up her full cardboard box from the desk. Her personal items shuffled around inside the box, announcing her departure to the quiet waiting room.
When she passed me, she stopped and glanced down.
“Here,” she said, starting to rustle through her box. “If you end up working here you’ll need this.”
She pulled out a small object and tossed it onto my lap before proceeding to the elevator. I looked down to find a small blue stress ball with the words “Grayson Cole” written across the latex in black Sharpie.
I smiled and picked it up, wishing there was a picture of his beautifully annoying face on it. Maybe if I did land a job, I’d modify it.
…
I sat in that waiting room for three hours. As each applicant’s name was called, they stood and made their way through the double doors behind the front desk, one by one, until I was the only one left. It was excruciating to have to sit there, even after I’d finally landed a coveted seat. (My ass had gone numb from sitting on the ground, or maybe from the blood loss from my knees. Whatever.)
To pass the time, I alternated between checking my phone and squeezing the stress ball. In the end, I sat there with my arms crossed, staring up at the ceiling and wondering for the hundredth time that morning, just how cruel Grayson would be that day. Surely he intended on actually interviewing me; it couldn’t all be some cruel joke.
“Ms. Heart,” Beatrice spoke.
I looked up in time to watch the blonde guy with glasses—I’d dubbed him Flashcards—make his way through the waiting room with tears streaming down his face. Oh, jeez. Grayson made him cry?
“You’ll be our final applicant,” Beatrice said with a bright smile, seemingly unconcerned by the blubbering young man passing by her.
My walk to join her at the door seemed far less dramatic than it should have. In hindsight, a violin should have been playing a sad song to accurately portray the tone of the moment: dead man walking.
“Don’t worry, Grayson always likes to save the best for last,” Beatrice assured me.
Chapter Three
I highly doubted that Grayson was saving me for last because he I thought I was the best applicant. There were many possibilities for why I was last:
1. He wanted me to sit and sweat, torturing me slowly. (In which case, joke’s on him, because it took about 3 hours for me to stop sweating from my sprint up the stairs.)
2. He wanted to have ample amount of time to criticize my resume and everything listed on it.
3. He’d actually forgotten I was even there for an interview.
Beatrice held the door open for me as I walked through, and then I got my first glimpse at the company Grayson had built from the ground up. The office was shaped like a giant square with four arms branching off at each corner. The main room itself was the biggest space in the office. It housed the architects, dividing them into small teams of four or five. It was a collaborative work environment with zero privacy.
Each arm that branched off from the main room housed a different department: in-house engineers, accounting, interiors, and the company’s conference room. Industrial signs hung artfully from the ceilings, directing guests to the various departments. There were three offices on the back wall of the main room, across from the front reception area, each reserved for the company’s executives. Grayson’s sat in the very center, nearly twice as big as the two offices surrounding it.
I walked toward his open door, letting Beatrice take the lead as I hung back and tried to get a feel for the work environment. The open floor plan allowed for collaboration, and most of the employees had their heads together as they worked through design problems. A few of them looked up and nodded at me, but most of them stayed busy, drafting and designing.
I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting—maybe more of a prison-like atmosphere, especially after the scene Kelly had pulled in the waiting room. Most everyone looked happy though. That is to say, no one was flashing me signs inscribed with “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”
I smiled at the thought just as Beatrice and I arrived outside Grayson’s doorway. Beatrice stepped to the side, and I inhaled a sharp breath. I had a clear view of Grayson sitting behind his large black desk with his phone tucked between his shoulder and ear. His hands worked furiously, jotting down notes while listening to whoever was speaking to him on the phone.