The woman scrolled through the photos, her eyebrows pinching close together. “I have to agree with you, you did look rather dreadful.”
She handed the phone back to me, her gaze running up and down the length of my body. “You’ve recovered very well. I can respect a girl who starts out like that, puts herself back together and then doesn’t take no for an answer.”
“Does that mean you’ll forgive me and possibly give me a second chance, Ms…?”
“Orson. Mary Jane Orson. I work for Mr. Williams Senior. If you get the job, you and I will end up coordinating schedules often.”
“I’m excellent at scheduling.” Or at least I was pretty sure I could be. “It would be an honor to work with you.”
She arched an eyebrow. “That’s very sweet of you to say.”
“Perhaps, but I’m being honest. I could learn a lot from a woman who’s survived a place like this working directly for the Commander in Chief.” I was angling for flattery, but it wasn’t a lie. “I don’t know how you do it, even this building scares me a little.”
I probably shouldn’t have admitted it to her, but I was rolling with the honesty approach that seemed to be working with her. Mary Jane chuckled and glanced at her watch again.
“It is a little scary, but you’ll get used to it. Let me tell you what, young lady. You’ve managed to impress me enough that I’m willing to go out on a limb for you and reschedule your interview. Mr. Colman is conducting the interviews this morning. It’s nearly lunchtime, but he might have a few minutes free before lunch if he finishes the interview he’s conducting at the moment in as good time as he’s been making this morning.”
“I will love you until the end of time if you can make that happen.”
Mary Jane chuckled again. “Polite, sweet and humorous. I would be able to work with you, but you don’t need to make any declarations of love. I’m merely doing my job.”
She hurried off as soon as a tall girl who looked like she might need clothes sizes in the minuses came striding in through the inner door. The girl flashed me a haughty smile, like she was sure she was going to be the one hired, then took off down the hallway to the elevators.
Mary Jane was back a second later. “Follow me, please.”
I did as she asked, letting her lead me past numerous closed doors and down a wide hallway to the corner of the building. The doors were spaced far apart, hinting at huge offices behind them. I didn’t know who Mr. Colman was, but he had to be pretty important to be up in one of the corners.
To my surprise, the man who waited for us in the doorway of the office where Mary Jane left me was young. I’d been expecting someone much older, but this dude couldn’t be more than very early thirties if that. He was tall and willowy, with big blue eyes and freckles. He looked like the quintessential best friend or brother. I liked him immediately.
“Neil Colman.” He extended his hand and gave mine a firm shake. “Come on in. MJ didn’t tell me much, just that you were running late, but you showed promise nonetheless. Her words, not mine.”
A warm feeling of confidence spread through my tummy at hearing her praise. She thought I showed promise. I was definitely chalking that up as score one for the home team.
“Stephanie Donavan. Mary Jane was very kind to allow me to reschedule.”
“Kind isn’t usually a word people use to describe MJ. Tell me, Ms. Donavan, what did you do to convince our fearless gatekeeper to let you pass when you committed the cardinal sin of tardiness?”
“I owned up to my sin, took responsibility for it,” I started solemnly. Amusement sparked in Neil’s blue eyes, so I carried on with the metaphor he started. “I confessed fully, took her into my confidence and convinced her I would never fall prey to that same sin again.”
He chuckled softly. “Other than telling her the truth about what happened and making her believe it was a one-time thing, which even getting her to listen is a feat in and of itself, why does she think you have potential?”
I shrugged. “No idea. I was just polite, honest and I showed her pictures to prove I would’ve been worse off coming in looking the way I did than being late.”
“You must’ve looked terrible if she actually agreed. I swear that woman was born with a stopwatch in her hand. Guard your soul if you don’t make the correct time.”
“I did look pretty terrible.” This was the most laid-back interview I’d ever had. Neil was so easy to talk to. He made me feel like we’d been friends for years.
He held out his hand, curling his fingers in a “gimme” motion. I pulled out my phone and handed it over without him needing to tell me what he wanted. We hit it off that well.
We talked for a few more minutes, and though Neil was kind, he was also meticulous about getting information from me. I could tell he was working with a very specific list in mind. Jeremiah Williams had to be quite demanding in what he expected from a secretary.
It had to be time for lunch by now, and my stomach was growling all the way through the interview. I just hoped Neil couldn’t hear it.
He walked me to his office door when we were done. “Look, let me level with you. I’m going to okay you to go through to the next round of interviews, so you can hang around and have lunch with the groups while you wait for round two, or you go out and be back later. When you see Jeremiah this afternoon, if he’s not interested in hiring you, come talk to me. The guy can be a little prickly, but he’s a good guy. Good luck, Stephanie. I’ll see you later.”
Nervous butterflies swirled around in my stomach as I headed for lunch in my group. I’m going through to an interview with Jeremiah Williams himself.
I was nervous as shit, wracking my brains for any information I could remember having read about the guy, but I was coming up empty. All I knew was between my studies, my own family drama and his, I hadn’t seen him in the media much recently. I couldn’t even remember what he looked like.
Before I got to that portion of the day, however, it was time for lunch. I was put in a group with two other girls, one who thought the sun shone right out of where it doesn’t actually shine and one who was mousy and quiet.
A guy got put in with us too, a super proper guy on a super high horse. Dear Lord. What kind of candidates were all interviewing for this position?