Tell Me Ariel, Are You Mine?

Chapter 2 - Confrontations

Chapter 2 – Confrontations

My boss was strangely quiet. If I stood any longer on this road and didn't get a call in the next ten minutes saying; 'I'd just like to follow up your progress, Ariel. When can I really expect my list though?' then strike me down because she was always calling me out for my over-optimistic estimated delivery time.

"What should I call you?" she'd once asked. "Ariel or Amazon?"

You think I was going to let her call me Amazon again?

I steam-rolled into the next shop for coffee no.2 because there's no way I was going without one after spilling coffee no.1. I had one job. Yet, as I paced ahead, the pressure of it got me good. Running my hands over my head I cranked my hair up till it fell like stress around me.

Jacey:

You've got two hours.

My boss came through with a clipped tone to her text and wasn't about to let me breathe. Not that I had much breath left, puffing and panting up this street, knowing there was no way I could walk into my boss's office and not know at least five companies in that building. Even as I fought the wrath of the abrupt wind on the way there, the Morditch building stared me down like a hurricane. I was going in the eye. I needed to look presentable. So here I was, making the best of my skirt riding around my knees and palming my windblown hair smooth while continuing the trick of keeping this cup in hand. No great sorcery or anything, but yep, managed it this time.

"We don't have any vacancies." The receptionist's eyes moved over me like cheat-codes on a game controller, up-down, up-down until she figured that combo wouldn't trigger any special moves. Like make me disappear from her desk so she could progress through level one of her day.

I had one main accomplishment to achieve today, but successfully managing to go from looking like I had a job fifteen minutes ago to looking like I needed one wasn't what I had in mind. It had me fixing my mouth to tell her that I was indeed employed. I think she straight forgot I was there now. She tapped those keys like an orchestral pianist.

"I was here earlier, actually. I had—"

"A one-time permit." Her nod was quick, followed by her attention laying back on her screen in nought-seconds flat. I'd bet any money she wished I was on the phone so she could put me on hold.

"Excuse me, but—"

"I'm sorry, but the moment you exit the building your visitation permit is up."

She typed again, her tested patience flaring her shiny nostrils. I stared her down. Really? This was how we were going to do this, was it?

"Is there a problem?" She said.

Took me a second to realise her speed-typing had stopped. Good. Maybe I could nab her attention longer than five seconds this time.

"Listen." I weighed my arms down on her L-shaped reception desk while she visibly swallowed like I'd smudge the glass. She didn't move a jot. "You have a job to do," I continued. "But I have a job to do, too. It's probably the only thing we're gonna have in common right now. Can you just take a moment to consider that, you know, we both have things to finish by the end of the day? That we're not the boss of ourselves and there's always someone else breathing down our necks? I need to get in this building, I need—"

She wasn't going to let me do this and I could see it. I held my sigh till I couldn't and it came out long. "Please. I can't afford to fail."

She looked me up and down from her ski-slope of a smooth nose, seemed to conclude I wasn't a terrorist, but still proceeded to churn out the probably usual spiel she reserved for those like me who weren't allowed in the place for a second time without the relevant accessibility.