GABRIELLA
Mr. and Mrs. Wilson walked us out of their restaurant roughly an hour after we arrived. They were both in high spirits, and I heard them whispering excitedly to each other as Lewis opened the back door of the car for me. I thanked him, slid across the backseat, and buckled up while Jake got in behind me.
Lewis closed the back door.
“That felt like it went well, right?” I asked.
Jake put his seatbelt on. “I feel confident that it did, yes. Good pitch by the way. Where did that come from?”
I shrugged. “I have no idea. It’s just what I saw in my mind’s eye when I walked in there. It felt so romantic, and soft, and unique. A wedding would be beautiful there. But they wouldn’t be restricted to only the wedding business. I suspect there are a lot of wealthy people in this city who would book it for other parties, like sweet sixteens or quinceañeras.” She bit her bottom lip and fidgeted with the leather cover of the tablet. “I hope I didn’t overstep.”
“Not at all.”
The drive back to the office wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as the drive to the Wilsons’ restaurant. Jake and I still didn’t speak much, but that was okay because there was so much for me to review on the tablet. I couldn’t fathom how much he had on his plate. He had calls on some days from seven in the morning until seven at night, after which he’d sometimes have in-person meetings at night that were a half-hour drive away. When did the man eat? Or rest?
I was beginning to think he might have been a robot or a cyborg. It would explain the good looks and total lack of social skills.
As promised, we stopped to grab some food on the way back to the office. I was grateful for that. The little finger sandwiches hadn’t filled me up enough, and I hadn’t been comfortable taking more than two. We picked up power bowls at a local place that seemed to know Jake, and brought them back to the office, where we abruptly went our separate ways. He returned to his office, the crow’s nest, and I took my seat at the reception desk, knowing my days here were limited. Sooner or later, he was going to move me to either one of the desks on the deck or into one of the private offices off the second floor closer to his.
Donna rolled her chair over to mine. “How did it go?”
I shot a glance up at Jake’s office. He stood facing away from me talking on his phone as he looked out the window to the street below.
“Really well, actually,” I said. “It was kind of a nice change of pace for me, and I think I proved that I could handle the job. At least, I can handle the interpersonal part of the job. I had some ideas that he liked. It was… surprisingly not terrible.”
Donna blinked in surprise. “Well, that’s unfortunate.”
“Excuse me?”
She lowered her voice. “A few of us placed bets on whether or not you’d come back here at all or if you’d quit.”
I arched an eyebrow. “You bet that I’d quit, didn’t you?”
She nodded solemnly. “Now I’m down twenty-five bucks.”
“Shouldn’t have bet against me then.”
“I wasn’t betting against you, not technically. I was betting against Jake. Most of us did, to be honest with you. We sort of figured he’d push too many of your buttons and you’d quit in a blaze of smoke and fury. Which would have been epic, let’s get that clear.”
I peered up at his office again. “He was surprisingly fine.”
“Fine is as good as we can hope for with him, I suppose.”
A notification popped up on my tablet. I opened it and found an email Jake had just forwarded me from the Wilsons. They wanted to go ahead and hire the photography team to shoot some wedding shots at their restaurant. I grinned, felt a rush of satisfaction, and then read the rest of the email from Jake, which detailed all the things I needed to complete before the end of the day in order to get the ball rolling. I felt the blood drain from my face.
“You good, Gabi?” Donna asked.
“Yes.” I shooed her with one hand. “But it looks like I’m going to be here late. Go back to your desk. Don’t bother me. I have things to do.”
She saluted me. “Yes, ma’am.”
Grinning, I turned on the computer at reception and began researching photography teams. Between making phone calls and sending email inquiries, I opened a photo editor app and began playing around with designs for the gallery wall I’d mentioned. Jake was an investor, and I was a creative visionary. All the creative energy I used to put into flipping furniture had fizzled out on me, but designing the gallery wall and using stock photos of weddings made me excited to create again. I wanted to give the Wilsons a visual the next time we saw them so they had a reference for what I was talking about.
I enjoyed the work so much that I didn’t even notice hours had passed after everyone else went home.
* * *
At ten to nine, I turned off my computer monitor and pushed away from the desk to rub at my eyes. They ached from staring at the screen too long, but my whole being thrummed with fulfillment of the likes I hadn’t felt at work ever before. Not working here, at least.