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As I sit down at my desk and I make a plan to call Dennis at lunch and give him a piece of my mind, Isabella looks at me. She raises her eyebrows. “So…” She pauses. “I just went down to the legal aids’ floor, and it’s really empty down there. I mean, like, really empty, Melissa.” She bugs her eyes out a little as I smile. I can tell by the bend in my lips, it’s a cruel, empty look on me. But I don’t care. I’m feeling cruel and empty this morning. “I heard rumors that you might’ve been involved in some part of it.”
I smile, giving her all the confirmation she needs and all the confirmation she’s going to get. I power on my computer, arrange my headset properly on my head.
I hear her say something under her breath. Some prayer or swear to the good Lord above. Something I’m sure her parents wouldn’t approve of if they were here. Then again, they don’t much approve of this job, so anything else she does on top of it all, is just icing on their little cake called “things Isabella didn’t turn out to be.” My parents have a cake like that too, but Dennis was the first person who told me that just because they baked it, didn’t mean I had to eat it.
“I merely gave those garbage-pale monsters the push they needed to get out onto the curb,” I answer cryptically as the first call of the morning comes in.
Isabella holds up her hands defensively. “Remind me never, and I mean never, to get on your bad side, Melissa. To anyone who thinks you’re a poodle, you’ve got a bite on you. I’ll remember that,” she says, and puts her own headset on for the morning.
I don’t say anything to this. I focus on answering the call. It’s for Maria. A change of pace, since usually it’s Kane or Ashton who gets more of the calls around this place. It’s either them or Ms. Vanacore, amazingly. I forward the call to the proper office and sit back.
It’s just in time to see Tommy hurry across the floor from the elevator. He’s got some newly-toasted breakfast item in his hand, haphazardly wrapped in a bit of paper towel. “Is that really all you’re having for breakfast?” I call after him. “That’s not going to be nearly enough to get you through the morning, Tommy.”
Tommy looks back at me, blushes, but puts the toasted breakfast goodie in his mouth (looks like a pop tart), and hustles to the back offices. The days barely started, and already he looks like he’s sweating bullets and having to hustle way too much for being on the executive floor.
Isabella looks at me. Now she’s got a smile on. A smile that hungry for gossip. For news. It’s just as I have scooted back the picture of Dennis. Back even further from its original place of honor on my desk. He doesn’t deserve such prominence. Especially when he won’t bother to call me.
“Whoa.” She pauses, sitting back in her chair a bit. It’s one of those therapeutic varieties. Once a specially designed for those with a bit of back trouble. “What’s all that about, Melissa?” She pauses. “I know y’all always say things about us American’s being dramatic, but you? You are definitely the drama queen of this office, Melissa.”
I don’t answer her. I just continue getting set up for the day — pulling up my spreadsheets and various calendars and appointment trackers and whatnot. The essential tools of a talented, indispensable secretary.
“So, that Tommy kid, was he the one that recently got promoted to an assistant lawyer for Ms. Vanacore?” Isabella asks. I nod. She makes a worried sound. A sucking, moaning noise. One I’m not sure how to translate. “Heard some interesting things about him. Not sure if they’re true, but I’ve heard he can get around, around, you know. I heard that’s one of the reasons he was so keen on moving up north. The south was starting to go sour on him, I heard.”
I’m not about to ask her where she heard such a thing. We receptionists, like maids or hired help in rich-people mansions, hear things.
But that’s not the real reason I don’t press further. I’ve gotten very suddenly, a very bad feeling. It’s like I’ve been stabbed or slashed through the abdomen, and I’m bleeding clear, invisible blood. Anxiety twists into the mix, and suddenly the little bit of Ms. Vanacore that I saw at the Cajun restaurant earlier in the week takes on a different flavor. It’s a different taste in my mouth. A sour one. And where I had seen some kind of mentorship between her and Tommy, I now see something that feels like control or domination.
