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“Thanks,” she said. It felt like that was all she said to him today.
He put the tray on top of the other once nice and steady, his knuckles faintly brushing her silk shirt, but she didn’t give any indication that it happened.
“Morning,” Caroline said to her when she walked in. Caroline worked the front desk and let people into the office beyond. She knew what that was like as she did some of that at her last job. Working for a small company she did just about everything that was asked of her.
Here, she’d find it boring to sit there all day long, answer the phone, pass calls on and send people up for meetings, sign packages et cetera.
“How was your holiday weekend?”
“Busy,” Caroline said. “Labor Day shouldn’t be spent working, but all I did was a bunch of fall cleaning.”
She knew Caroline lived in a brownstone outside of the city and took the subway in. She wasn’t so sure she’d want to do that, but it might be a plan in the future. It’d be cheaper and give her more space.
“One good thing about having a small place,” she said. “Easy to maintain.”
Caroline buzzed her in since her hands were too full to get her badge and card out. She didn’t like it on her neck until she got to her floor. It was better that people didn’t know where she worked.
She moved to the conference room first rather than her small cubicle and set the coffee trays down, found hers and then went to put her things away to get ready for her meeting in ten minutes.
“How come you didn’t bring me my coffee?” Stella asked her, standing in the opening of her tiny workspace.
Stella was the Communications Manager. She’d thought for sure when she was interviewed it was to assist in more than getting Stella’s coffee and running her errands. Stella had been great in the interview. Not so great when she’d been hired.
“Sorry,” she said. “I just set everything down to get my stuff and then get ready for the meeting. The food should be there by now and I’ll set it all up.”
Lilian grabbed her laptop so she could take minutes in the meeting. She’d been told to keep her questions and opinions to herself. To bring them to Stella personally.
Guess her first meeting she shouldn’t have spoken up when she made a suggestion that many loved and Stella later told her never to do it again. She suspected Stella felt it made her look bad. Since then, Stella was taking credit for all of Lilian’s suggestions.
She rushed back to the conference room and started to take the drinks out of the trays and placed them in front of the nameplates after checking her phone for everyone’s order. When she got to Stella’s she rushed back to give it to her boss, then hurriedly returned to the conference room and finished setting up.
The food was wheeled in and she arranged that just right and tried not to roll her eyes over the pastries being presented. Her sister made pastries that were so much better and she was spoiled.
She missed Quinn’s food and didn’t think that would happen.
She missed her sister and her sister’s family too but tried not to let it be heard in her voice when she had her weekly call with Quinn.
If it weren’t a five-hour drive, she might have gone to see her sister for the long weekend. But since she had no car, that was out of the question, and she didn’t want to take a rental car.
Quinn had even offered to fly her home, but she’d said no. Though the flight was two hours, between driving to the airports and waiting around for flights, it was more than the five hours to drive. Too much travel in three short days.
Had she been here longer she would have had the ability to use a vacation day on Friday and then might have considered it.
She was going home for Thanksgiving though. She’d planned it out and bought her ticket this weekend. She’d let Quinn know the next time they talked over the weekend.
One by one, everyone filed in for the meeting and Lilian took her place at the back corner of the table out of the way to start her notes.
Stella sat at the head of the table and started and talked most of the meeting as she normally did.
Two hours later, everyone was exiting and leaving a big old mess like always.
“Hey, Lilian.”
She looked up to see Evan standing there while she gathered the empty cups and paper plates to throw them out. She wanted to sigh but wouldn’t.
“Hello,” she said and went back to what she was doing, hoping Evan went on his way to some meeting. He was the Compliance Manager or something. Nothing she had to deal with other than some policies that came across her desk, though Stella and Evan met a lot.
Evan was probably late thirties she was guessing. Single because he’d asked her out a few times and then finally stopped when he saw the ring on her finger.
