A Story to Tell Your Friends

“I’m going to be late!” I groaned, running around the new apartment in just a top and my underwear, with an odd sock in my hand. “Where are my clothes?” Tammy laughed from her spot in front of the TV, mouth half full with cereal as she pointed to a box in the far corner. It was my first day at my new job and, as you can guess, Tammy and I were nowhere near unpacked yet. Well, okay, I was nowhere near unpacked, but Tammy only had about two boxes of stuff left to unpack, while I had procrastinated until I could procrastinate no more. Which is what led me here, running around with cold toast and no clothes. I ripped the first pair of slacks I could find out of the box, shoving them onto my body (almost falling over in the process of hopping around the room to shimmy them up my legs) and snatching a pair of black pumps to fling onto my feet, forgoing the socks.
“I told you that you should have unpacked instead of binging on Netflix,” Tammy told me, giggling at the flustered look on my face.
“Maybe next time we sort the internet after I’ve unpacked my clothes,” I accused, knowing for a fact she had arranged for us to be connected the day we arrived so she could listen to music and binge on Netflix herself. It’s shame I don’t know how to prioritise like she does. She shrugged as shoved the last bite of toast in my mouth and made my way to the door.
“Good luck, honey! Have a great day!” I waved her off, mouth still too full of food to respond, and made my way to my car, taking a deep breath before starting it up.
“And this is where you’ll be spending most of your time,” Clive, my new boss, told me, showing me into a fairly open room with five or six desks tucked inside, each with its own unique form of decoration, excluding the one directly in front of us which was totally bare and I assumed was mine. “The rest of the guys aren’t here yet, mainly because they were up late last night finishing up a big project, so I gave them a late start to make up for it. You’ve got plenty of time to get yourself settled in before they start coming in.” I nodded, grinning. It was well into the morning now and I’d pretty much been shown around the entire building, having the usual new-girl-tour, including a couple of trips to IT and HR to fill out paper work and get my pass to get into and out of the entire building, but I was finally here in the department I was to work in. I’d managed to bag a job in Promotion for Hopeless Records, which basically had me as some insane cross between a PA, Marketer and that girl you all knew in college whose sole mission in life was to get you to go that one club. It pretty much promised to be the best fun I’d ever had working, ever.
Now, before you all get excited, yes I know exactly who was signed to the label I’d snagged a job in, because I’d had it in my ear since I’d told Tammy. She was more excited for me than I was, though that was, for the most part, related to her crazy dreams of becoming BFFs with All Time Low. I’d spent the last month insisting that she was crazy and assuring her that I’d probably never get to meet any of the guys I was promoting. My job consisted mostly of arranging interviews, working on promotional material for new albums and tours and basically just running around like a headless chicken making sure I was doing everything I could to build the hype around whatever band I was assigned to at the time.
“So, what big project were you guys finishing up?” I asked Clive, sitting at my new desk and pulling a few bits and pieces out of my bag to make my desk feel a little more like my own, including a couple of pictures of Tammy and I with some of our friends from back home. I wasn’t fantastic at making small talk, but it seemed like a natural thing to ask.
“One of the bands has a new record coming out in a couple months and it was our deadlines for the promo plan,” he told me, rubbing his eyes and sitting down at the desk next to mine. “Um, Taking Back Sunday, you heard of them?” I let out a short laugh, stopping myself quickly, realising I’d just laughed in my boss’s face.
“Fifteen-year-old me freaking loved Taking Back Sunday,” I explained and he chuckled, understanding a little.
“Yeah, you’re about the right age where they were huge with certain groups of teenagers.” I shrugged, grinning sheepishly. He was right, Cute Without the “E” was definitely my emo jam way back when. But then, who could say it wasn’t theirs? It was crazy big in my group of friends. “And we’ve got a couple of other bands in the area over the next few weeks as well, finalising the release of anything and everything. All Time Low are about for the next couple of weeks, so you might get to meet them, if you want.”
“Met most of them a couple of days ago,” I laughed. “My friend is kind of obsessed and we bumped into them at the store, so of course I had to say hi.” Clive laughed too, nodding along, probably understanding that the ten year age gap between the two of us meant I pretty much knew of everyone signed to the label and was about the right age to be a fan. We continued to exchange small talk for another twenty minutes or so, as I made my desk a little more homely and he explained what projects were coming up over the next few weeks. The rest of the team slowly started to seep into the office, and I was steadily introduced to everyone, though I knew I would be mixing people up and asking for names again multiple times over the next few weeks, which I apologised for in advance. Everyone waved me off, telling me it was exactly what they expected and wouldn’t hold it against me. Clive left us to it after a little while, telling us he had to go and present the Taking Back Sunday plan and leaving me to get acquainted with the office and its inhabitants.
“Please tell me we have coffee,” I asked Sam, the guy who sat next to me, looking at my empty mug and feeling the drag of my first day back at work. The excitement had kept me going for hours, but now I was starting to lag and needed a fix, despite the fact it was only 2pm. Sam was quite a typical jock, muscular with floppy blonde hair and a sharp jaw line: one of the very last guys I would expect to find out majored in Design, though he had admitted to an athletics scholarship funding his degree.
“I’ll show you where the best machine is,” he laughed at me, picking up his mug too. We bypassed the closest canteen on the way to ‘the best machine’ and made our way almost to the other side of the floor, making small talk about where we came from, what we did in our spare time, all the usual stuff.
“Hey! Look! It’s Jack’s new- oomph.” I turned my head sharply to the right, seeing Alex rubbing his side, Jack glaring next to him and the two remaining band members laughing along behind them. I smiled, waving slightly.
“Nice to see you again,” I said. Sam raised his eyebrows at me and I shook my head slightly, knowing it was a fairly lame story to tell.
“What are you doing here?” Alex asked, recovering from the pain in his side and making his way over to Sam and I, the rest of the guys in tow. “Are you being a creeper again?”
“I work here,” I explained, still smiling. “I’m the new girl in the office. I’m Clara,” I added, looking at Zack and Rian. The pair looked sidelong at Jack, before looking at me again. I raised my eyebrows a little, but ignored it.
“So, you’re the girl with the Rapunzel towel who ruined Alex’s day?” Rian asked.
“Guilty. I promise I’m not being a creep today and I left Tammy at home, so I’m a little less prepared to ruin anyone’s day.”
“Well, you didn’t ruin Jack’s,” Alex responded, quickly dodging a punch from Jack, who shook his head at me.
“Oh, no, I definitely did. I told him he’d find Jared Leto and he got stuck with Pokémon.” The rest of the guys laughed at me and I smiled again. “Not that I’m not loving the cryptic remarks, but I’ve gotta get back to work. You know, first day and all, don’t wanna anger the new boss. It was nice to meet you guys.” Sam and I turned and left the four boys in the hallway and made our way back to our office. “Are they usually that weird?” I asked Sam, just as we were rounding the corner back to our office.
“Well, not that I’d know personally, but I’ve heard they’re never exactly normal,” he told me. “Though, that was a little weird.”
“Hey, what took you guys?” A dark haired girl asked as we sat back at our desks. I’m pretty sure her name was Hannah, or Anna? Maybe Tanya? I told you I was no good at this.
“We got cornered by a band on the way back from getting coffee and I’m pretty sure the guitarist has a crush on Clara,” Sam laughed. I blushed and protested, quickly explaining what had happened. Anya (hey, I was close) laughed and told me it sounded like Sam was right and Jack most definitely did have some sort of crush on me.
Well, there’s a first time for everything.

Notes