Authors: Ada Rome
I walked through the
glamorous lobby, my soft heels tapping faintly on the marble flooring, and
pulled open the ancient elevator cage.
“Hold that, please,” said
an elegantly accented voice.
I turned to see the same
sharply dressed elderly gentleman from the day before. He wore a peachy coral
shirt with a pinstriped navy blue suit. He carried a long-handled umbrella even
though the forecast showed no sign of rain.
“Ah, it is
you
!”
He peered at me through his bottle cap glasses and broke into a welcoming
smile. “I see you made it inside the building.”
I pressed my hand toward
him. “My name is Kat. Kat Raney. Do you work for the magazine too?”
He shook my hand with a
loose and delicate grip. “Charmed, Miss Raney. I am Miklos Balik, the
magazine’s art director.”
I recognized the name
immediately and felt like a fool for not having associated it with this
grandfatherly figure. I had imagined that the art director for a publication
like
KTFO
would be someone young and edgy, in keeping with the trendy
vibe of the magazine.
My confusion must have
registered on my face because Miklos interjected to fill the awkward silence.
“And you are the new
intern, I presume?” He rolled the “r” in “presume” in a particularly
sophisticated manner.
“I am! Just started
yesterday. But, I guess you already know that,” I stammered.
The elevator opened to
our floor. Miklos twirled his umbrella in a dramatic arc and held the door for
me.
“Well, Kat Raney, I am
sure we will see much more of each other. In fact, I will see you at the staff
meeting in approximately two minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
Staff
meeting?
What staff meeting?
“I…um…look forward to it.”
Miklos disappeared down
the corridor of executive offices. I edged through the maze to my desk and set
my belongings on its cold metal top. I was just lowering myself into the chair
when Tony appeared from nowhere like a fast-moving apparition.
“Come on, Kat. We need to
go to the conference room. Tuesday morning meeting.”
He beckoned for me to
follow with a scooping gesture. I complied, hurriedly grabbing a pen and paper
and jogging to catch up with his rapidly swishing khaki steps.
The conference room was larger
than I expected, practically an auditorium. Tables were arranged in a large
rectangle around the borders of the room. Staff members filed through the
entrance alone or in eagerly chattering pairs. Tony directed me to an
inconspicuous location at the back corner. I slunk into a seat, observing the room’s
other occupants.
Most of the magazine’s regular
staff were in their 20s or 30s and dressed in a casual uniform of jeans and t-shirts
or cotton button-downs with rolled up sleeves. A few had the muscular body
types of former athletes, while others had the lean and lanky looks of perpetually
hungry writers.
I spotted Kill on the
other side of the room, leaning over the table where Miklos sat. The two were
talking. I sensed a tension in their exchange, but they were too far away for
me to hear the substance of their conversation.
“What’s the story with
Miklos?” I asked Tony in a hushed voice.
Tony squinted across the
room at the well-dressed art director.
“Miklos is great,” he
said simply. “He grew up in Hungary. I don’t know too much about his past, but
I get the feeling that he had some issues with the Communist government over
there. He doesn’t say much, but when he does speak, it has an effect. Trent
relies on him as a kind of mentor. One word from Miklos will decide most
questions. Anyway, he’s a good person to know.”
Quiet instantly enveloped
the room as if a volume knob had been spun to silent. Trent entered like a rock
star commanding a stage. I had been too flustered to notice his full appearance
when we met earlier on the street, but I now saw that he wore a plain black
form-fitting t-shirt that hugged the chiseled contours of his chest and
stomach. The short, tight sleeves accentuated the swell of his well-worked
biceps, which stretched taut as he perched on the end of the table and pressed
his arms backwards.
The vibrant colors of his
tattoos stood out vividly against the dark fabric. He was inked from his wrists
to his shoulders. Another tattoo, which looked from afar like gnarled tree
branches, curled around the side of his neck. His jeans fit snugly over his
hips. I fought a surging hormonal impulse to stare blatantly at his perfectly outlined
crotch.
He scanned the room with
a sharp eye. I tried to maintain an absolute stillness, not wishing to attract
any attention in the weighty silence, but my pen slipped clumsily from my
jittery fingers and clattered noisily onto the tabletop. It rolled over the
front despite my slapping attempts to control it and landed with a rolling
bounce and a clack on the tiled floor. I strained in vain to retrieve it with
the tips of my outstretched toes.
Trent stared hard at me,
the corners of his lips turning upwards in an obviously amused smirk. He pushed
himself from his perch on the table, his hearty biceps flexing, and walked the
length of the room toward me. He bent low, his eyes fixed on mine, retrieved my
traitorous pen, and handed it to me with a conspiratorial wink.
“Thank you.” My throat was
sandpaper dry. My voice sounded like a strangled croak. I was sure that my hot
cheeks were as red as a ripe tomato.
“Welcome, everyone,”
Trent said with a booming base as he turned to the assembled staff. “You may
have noticed a new face gracing our halls since yesterday. I would like to
introduce Kat Raney, our summer intern.”
All heads turned in my
direction. I gulped with anxiety and flapped my fingers in a feeble wave.
“Say, I’ve always enjoyed
those fun getting-to-know-you exercises,” Trent continued with a sarcastic tone,
swiveling his body to face me again. “Kat, why don’t you tell us an interesting
fact about yourself. Something that we would never guess on our own.” He
watched me, blinking expectantly.
“An interesting fact?” My
words were barely above a whisper.
“Yes.” Trent shot me a
sly grin. “You know, an interesting fact. As in, a fact that would be of
interest to us.” I heard a few chuckles from around the room. “Do you have any
unique talents or hobbies? Do you play the marimba? Read Sanskrit? Can you
touch your tongue to your eyebrow?”
More tittering and
chuckling erupted to my right and my left. I squirmed uncomfortably in my seat
and cleared my throat with difficulty, stalling helplessly for time while my
mind remained a complete blank. I grasped through the mental darkness for
something, anything that might be considered interesting.
Suddenly, just as I
despaired of ever breaking through the embarrassed silence, I heard myself uttering
words beyond the control of my scrambling brain.
“I’m allergic to nuts,” I
said weakly. Only when the words were out of my mouth did I realize the
magnitude of my mistake. I desperately wanted to snatch them back while they
hovered in the air.
“Nuts?” Trent leaned on
one heel, crossed his arms over his muscular chest, and cocked one thick
eyebrow. The corners of his lips twitched with a stifled smile.
“Yes.” I nodded
seriously. There was no turning back now.
“What kind of nuts? All
nuts? Or just peanuts?” He grinned mischievously, an unexpected dimple just
visible under the stubble on his left cheek.
“Just peanuts,” I
muttered limply.
“Well, that’s a relief,”
he declared in a loud stage voice. “Fortunately, my nuts are not of the pea
variety.” The room exploded into a chorus of guffaws.
“As for the rest of you,”
he said, turning to the smirking and giggling crowd, “please keep your nuts far
away from Miss Raney, and we should get through this summer just fine.”
My face burned with
mortification from my pursed lips to the tips of my ears, which blazed scarlet
under the sweep of my neat bun. At that moment, if someone had given me the
option of crawling into a hole and never, ever coming out again, I would have
accepted it with gratitude.
“Alright, that’s enough fun.
Let’s get back to business.” Trent’s abrupt shift to a cool and professional
tone extinguished any last flickers of mirth like a wind gust over a wavering
candle flame. He returned to his perch at the front of the room.
“The August issue will soon
be upon us. We need something big for the cover, something bold and different.
I want a cover that jumps off the newsstands and demands to be read. To that
end, I am announcing a contest. Whoever writes the best story will see his…or
her…name on the cover of our August issue.”
An undercurrent of
murmurings bubbled up from the assembled writers. Tony and I exchanged meaningful
glances. He raised his hand tentatively.
“Yes, Tony?” Trent’s
voice cut through the chatter.
“Is the contest open to
everyone?”
“Yes. As a matter of
fact, the contest is open to everyone at the magazine.” Though he was answering
Tony’s question, Trent’s eyes met mine with a searching force.
Kill emitted a wet
snicker like a horse. Trent turned and fixed him with a potent glare. Miklos
observed their interplay and smiled knowingly.
Questions piped up from
the room’s periphery.
“When is the deadline?”
“Who are the judges?”
“Can the story be on any
topic?”
Trent heard all of the
questions and reeled off his responses with a mechanical efficiency.
“The deadline is one
month from today. The judges will be myself and Miklos. Any topic is fair
game.”
At the mention of
Miklos’s name, I noticed Kill’s eyes flash upward at Trent, quick as a snake.
Trent met his gaze with a flat unconcern and turned back to the room.
“Any more questions?” He
waited for a few beats. “Meeting dismissed. Everyone get back to work.”
I exited behind Tony in a
whirl of rustling papers and sliding chairs. I looked back once and, to my
dismay and confusion, caught Trent watching me like a hawk eyeing a field mouse.
Our eyes met for an electric second. Then he huddled over Miklos, deep in an
intense conversation that noticeably excluded the fuming Kill. I was carried
from the room on a wave of shuffling feet and excited chatter.
“So, do you have any
ideas yet?” I asked Tony once we had found a clear space in the hallway.
“None yet, but that’s a
great opportunity. You should start thinking of ideas too. You heard what he
said. The contest is open to everyone.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said
with a glance at the conference room entrance. “That would seem a bit
presumptuous on my part, wouldn’t it? The intern?” Despite my apparent reserve,
my mind was already busily clicking through possible story ideas.
“Spare me the false
modesty,” Tony said with a dismissive flick of his hand. “It’s no more
presumptuous for you to enter that contest than it is for anyone else. Besides,
how do you think you get ahead around here? How do you get Trent to notice you?
Take chances. Take a risk.”
His serious, cutthroat
tone reminded me of Marcie’s earlier lecture on the subway.
Show Trent you
mean business
. An image of Marcie and Tony’s lingering handshake on the
street also flashed through my brain. Maybe those two could have a romantic
connection. I just needed to find a way to kick that sleepyheaded Vaughan to
the curb.
“I guess you’re right.” I
smiled up at Tony’s eager expression and perfectly parted hair.
“Get used to it. You’ll
be saying that a lot this summer.” He nudged me playfully with his elbow and
ducked when I countered with a light slap to his shoulder.
Kill emerged from the
conference room, his normally pasty skin an unhealthy shade of pink, his head
bowed like a battering ram, and his thin legs knifing through the air like
swinging scalpels.
“I wonder what’s going on
there,” Tony mused.
“Don’t know. But I get
the definite impression that he and Trent are not on good terms right now.
Funny, because they seemed like best buddies yesterday. What could have
happened?”
Tony looked at me with a
curiously quizzical eye and opened his mouth as if to speak but just shook his
head.
“Beats me,” he finally
said. “I gotta get to work though. Lunch at noon?” he called over his shoulder
as he turned and headed in the opposite direction.
“Absolutely!” I shouted
back, making my way to the desk I’d hastily abandoned a half hour earlier.
To my surprise, Kill was
waiting for me. He sat on the corner of my desk, one foot impatiently clanging
against the side and a scowl darkening his features.
“Hello, Kat.” His lips
moved in what I assumed was supposed to be a smile, but which looked more like
a cat bearing its fangs. “I have an important project for you.” His tone was almost
cheerful. My dark suspicions were momentarily overtaken by a hope that he had
decided to be friendly after all.