by Jack Harbon
She stood out from the rest of the crowd, not only because of her clothing choices—which were, to put it kindly, a bit outdated—but because she didn’t seem as talkative as the rest. Her chestnut hair fell down to her shoulders, her makeup was gorgeous, and her cheeks went rosy when she caught Kit staring. He realized he was watching her intently and apologized, smiling in embarrassment.
“You’re fine,” she assured him. Her voice was like honey, and he instantly felt welcome being around her. If Kit had to guess, she was in her mid-to-late forties. “Can I just say that not all of us are like Yolanda? She can be rude sometimes, especially to Roman’s assistants, but the rest of the team doesn’t get that way. Barbara Lovejoy, by the way. Everyone here calls me Barbie.”
“Don’t worry, you guys seem fine. Today’s just weird for everyone. And it’s good to meet you, Barbie. I love that name.” Kit laughed and looked towards Roman’s office. He wasn’t sure whether or not he was being watched. Maybe that was exactly what Roman wanted his employees to feel. After all, the head of the Creative Team couldn’t let his employees start slacking.
“Well, you did a great job with the coffee. Mine’s—”
As Barbie tipped her coffee back to take a drink, the lid came off, spilling down the front of her wool sweater. She let out a startled cry and put the drink down. Kit jumped up and rushed to the small kitchen across the room, grabbing a handful of napkins next to the microwave. He returned and helped clean the woman up.
“Damn these cheap cups,” she said under her breath. When she took her sweater off, she found that her dress underneath was completely dry. “Thank god,” she said, laughing at herself. “I’ll just wring my sweater out and drink what I can get from that.”
“Here,” Kit said, securing the lid on his cup and handing it to the woman. “I really shouldn’t be drinking coffee anyways.” The surprise on Barbie’s face made him glad that he’d offered her the drink. She seemed touched.
“I couldn’t—”
“Somebody’s gotta drink it,” Kit shrugged. Behind her, he could see Roman wave him over. “I just got plain coffee, but I did add a little sugar.”
“Thank you so much,” Barbie said, her eyes crinkling with a smile. Kit grinned as well and slipped away. He closed the office door behind him and took a seat. Roman glanced at Barbie and shook his head.
“She’s lucky she’s the best at copywriting or she’d be fired,” he said stuffily.
“You of all people should understand a spill,” Kit retorted, instantly defensive of Barbie.
Roman rolled his eyes and reached under his desk. He returned with a stack of papers, a small box, and a credit card.
“What’s all of this for?”
“The papers are everything you need to sign before you become an official employee. Bank account forms so you can get paid, confidentiality agreements, all of that. The card is for company purchases. Expenses around the office mostly, like catered lunches and coffee runs. Remind me to pay you back for what you spent this morning. And in that box is a tablet. It’s to be used only for work purposes. You’ll plan my schedules, organize my calendars, and occasionally respond to emails if I’m unable to. Think you can handle all of that?”
Kit nodded and looked everything over. It was a lot to take in. “Yeah, I can manage.”
“Good. Once you get finished with those papers, I’ll need you to start working on your first assignment. You’ll be redecorating this floor.”
“Um…”
“’Um’ what? You said you could handle it, did you not?” Roman asked impatiently.
“Okay, well, it’s just that I’m not one of those interior designing, HGTV bitches. This wasn’t in the job description,” Kit replied. Roman glared at him from across the desk.
“Then hire one to do the work for you if you don’t think you’re up for the task.” Roman said this as if it were as simple as one plus one. “And I don’t want to hear you say anything more about ‘bitches.’ We don’t use that type of language at work.”
“Right,” Kit said, stuffing the company card into his wallet. “You only use it when describing employees like Yolanda.” He gave a pointed look at Roman and saw the stern look on his face soften for a moment. His frown twitched like he was about to smile, but he kept it together and continued to look at Kit without amusement.
“I don’t want this place to look ugly, understand?”
“Because it’s so gorgeous now,” Kit muttered. Roman narrowed his eyes.
“Do you want this job or not, Kenneth?”
“Yes, I want this job, jeez.” Kit hated hearing his name spoken with the same level of frustration his parents used. It brought him back to dark places, where respect was something only for adults. “Please stop calling me that, by the way. If you all can call Barbara Barbie, you can call me Kit.”
“Okay,” Roman said, shrugging impassively. “Start making some calls. I want this to be done by next month.”
“You want me to redesign the entire floor in a month?” Kit exclaimed. This really was an HGTV show.
“I believe in you,” Roman said without any real support in his voice.
Kit sighed through his nose and stood up. He pulled his phone from his pocket and tried his hardest to keep from storming away. Roman was right. If he wanted to keep this job, he needed to start acting professional. He couldn’t get angry and throw temper tantrums anymore. This was the adult world, and it was a mean, mean place.
As Kit opened the door, he heard Roman call out to him.
“Thank you for getting the coffee orders correct. You did well.”
So maybe it wasn’t so mean after all.
5
No Days Off
Roman didn’t look up from his desk as he said, “You’re late.”
“You’re the reason for that,” Kit replied, reached over the desk and placing the cup of coffee in front of the man. Beside that, he put down a bag of fresh donuts. To top it all off, he moved to the shelf behind Roman and set up the bouquet of flowers. “You do know that most people order flowers ahead of time, right?”
“I didn’t know I wanted them until this morning. They look nice.” Roman’s eyes remained on the paper in front of him. He circled a paragraph with his pen and leaned back in his chair. After another moment of reading, he finally looked up at Kit. “What?” he asked.
“This is where normal people say ‘thank you.’” Kit cocked an eyebrow up at him. Roman gave him a humorless smile and shook his head.
“Be thankful I haven’t fired you yet. What’s your schedule look like today?”
Kit flipped open the cover on his tablet and tapped open his calendar. Before this job, he’d only ever used that to type in when the biggest parties where scheduled and when his favorite shows were coming back from their hiatuses. “Well, I’m meeting with Alma Middleton in like, ten minutes. After that, I’m free. Do you need me to do something?”
“Alma Middleton?”
“She’s the interior designer I found. Have you never seen her show, Middleton Makeovers?”
“Do I look like I watch that channel?” Roman asked.
“Fair enough,” Kit shrugged. He reached into the bag and pulled one of the donuts out. Roman’s eyes grew in surprise. “What?” Kit asked, his mouth full. “It’s a middleman fee.”
“You’re the one who should be thanking me, then, correct?”
“Anyways,” Kit exclaimed, “Alma is hella talented. I watched her shows back in school.”
“I keep forgetting that you’re a child,” Roman sighed, adjusting the silver tie that hung from his neck. It was messy in a way that still looked attractive. GQ who?
“Old age will do that to you,” Kit mumbled, finishing off his donut. He licked his fingers clean. When he looked back, Roman was staring at him intently, dragging his thumb across his chin as if in deep thought.
“What?” Kit asked. He turned around and swiped his face for any crumbs. He didn’t want to meet with Alma looking rag
gedy. Roman continued to look at him with an indecipherable expression on his face.
“I have to get going,” Kit said finally.
“Do I need to sign your permission slip?”
“You attract more bees with honey than with vinegar.”
“Go, Kit,” Roman said, shaking his head. He grabbed his pen and flipped to the next sheet of paper. Kit watched him for a moment longer before he cracked a smile and spun around, marching out of his office.
Just as Kit exited Roman’s office, the elevator doors opened and a Chinese woman in a pinstripe skirt suit stepped out. Her black curls fell over her shoulders in waves. She looked TV-ready—and for good reason. When she met eyes with Kit, her expression warmed.
“You don’t know how excited I am to meet you,” he said when they were close enough. Alma smiled bashfully and adjusted the black portfolio binder up against her hip.
“Please, I should be the one who’s excited. I’ve done work for plenty of homes and home offices, but this… This is something else entirely. Are you absolutely sure we can’t film an episode here?” she asked, persuasion in her voice.
As much as Kit wanted to jump at the opportunity, he doubted he would even get the OK from his coworkers, let alone Roman himself. The man didn’t seem the type to want his face all over television.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s possible. You can still take pictures and do a shoot here if you want?” Kit had been to the woman’s website and seen that after every makeover, her team took pictures of the work to add to her resume. She was slowly becoming one of the top designers in all of New York, even without her show.
Alma brushed a strand of hair from her face and said, “Hey, that’s a pretty amazing consolation prize. Now, show me what you want to do with this office? Hopefully we’re getting rid of this all-glass theme?” Her tone was hushed, as if she didn’t want anyone but Kit hearing.
“We should be so lucky,” he chuckled. “My boss wants to keep the mirrors around his room, but I’m sure I can convince him to cover them or something. Maybe we can get half the wall to be mirrors and put some chairs underneath it?”
“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Alma said, pulling her pen out and quickly scribbling that detail down. “It should take a bit longer since we’ll need to remove the whole mirror and place a half wall there, but it’s doable.”
“Fantastic,” he grinned. Kit guided her to the center of the office, aware that nearly everyone in the office was looking at them. With all of the walls being glass, everyone in the office could see him talking to Alma. No pressure.
“Right here, I want to get rid of all the glass walls?” Kit pointed to the room where Yolanda and three others were talking.
“Okay…” Alma said slowly, adding that to her notes. “What do you want there instead?”
“I’m thinking a sitting area. This place feels super cramped with all these glass walls. It would be nice to have something that’s more open,” he said a bit more confidently. He’d thought about this all night and decided that what this office lacked was a sense of familiarity.
“In the sitting area, there should be a sectional. People can relax, read a magazine if they want. Throw in a bookshelf or a TV or something. Fluffy pillows, too.” He’d seen some online and knew he wanted those. Fluffy pillows made everything look better.
“Noted,” Alma smiled. When she was done jotting that down, Kit continued the tour, pointing out what he wanted changed and what he wanted kept the same. He loved the small kitchen but didn’t like the linoleum on the ground. Instead, he wanted it replaced with hardwood. Something that would complement the new dark brown carpet he wanted put in.
By the end of their conversation, Alma had filled up a page and a half of renovations that needed to be done. “It seems like you’ve put a lot of thought into this,” she said, smiling at him as she closed her portfolio. “Should I be worried that you’re going to step in and steal my job from me?”
“That’s honestly such a compliment coming from you,” Kit said, one hand pressed over his heart. The most experience he’d ever had with designing a room was when he tried getting artsy on The Sims. It never turned out all that well, but he still loved the planning portion of it. This was much different. Not only did he have to worry about the act of putting this all together, but he wanted to make sure that the final result was something that Roman would enjoy seeing.
A small voice in the back of his head wondered whether he was more interested in making him happy because he wanted to succeed at his job, or because he wanted to please Roman. He forced himself to ditch that train of thought.
“Yeah, yeah,” she teased, giving him a wink. “I’ve got my eyes on you, Kit.”
After the two of them went over the details again, Kit walked Alma outside and hailed a taxi for her. Just as the woman began climbing inside, she looked up at him and said,
“I’m going to send you an email of all the stores I usually pick out furniture from. If you’re not too busy, you should really stop by and look around. They have a lot of beautiful pieces.”
“That would be awesome, thank you!”
And just like that, Alma Middleton was gone.
Kit put his hands on his hips and shook his head, smiling to himself. He’d been here for less than a week and he was already meeting the woman he’d drunkenly watched on TV at three in the morning, some passed out frat boy’s head in his lap. And to think that was only four months ago…
He turned on his heels and made his way back up to the sixth floor. He collapsed in one of the seats and sighed, staring at himself in the mirrors of Roman’s office. Though there was no way to know for sure, he had a strong feeling that the man on the other side of the glass was staring back at him.
*
Kit stood in the candy aisle of the bodega, flipping through his third catalogue today. Beside him, Chad grabbed another bag of Skittles and a box of Milk Duds. He turned to hand them to Kit, but his face was too buried in the catalogue to notice.
“Ahem,” Chad said, glaring at him. Kit looked up in surprise, and in realization, apologized and grabbed the candy. “Are you sure you want to hang out today, man? We can totally reschedule if you’re busy with work stuff.”
“Naw, man, it’s just this one big assignment that has me stressing out. I’m not gonna be out here looking like a moron who can’t do his job right.”
“But that’s what you are, though,” Chad said, confused. Kit cracked a smile.
“I know, but I can’t reveal that until my first paycheck. Then I’ll be all, ‘Damn, I don’t know how to use a copying machine, oops,’ or something.”
“Well, do you need some help or anything? I mean, I’m not the gay one here, so interior design isn’t necessarily my best skill.” Kit laughed and pushed Chad into the shelf of chips. “Hey! I offer my services and this is how you repay me? The gall.”
“Cry about it,” Kit teased. They placed their items on the counter and Chad whipped out a few dollars to pay for it. “Help would be nice, though, yes. I’m trying to redesign an entire floor of an office building. I’m kind of like a fish out of water.”
“And he gave this to you as your first job? Thank you, have a nice day,” Chad said to the cashier. The two of them stepped outside and he dug around in his bag for the Skittles.
“Yeah, he’s kind of a dick about a lot of things. I’m surprised he hasn’t gotten his ass beat by now.”
“No, we saw him at that club. I’m sure that ass gets beaten on the fucking regular.”
“Consider me officially jealous,” Kit chuckled. He closed the book in his hand and sighed.
He knew if he put too much pressure on himself to do this job right, he’d end up making a mess. He needed to calm down, take it slow, and tackle it in chunks. He and Alma had already done quite a bit of work in terms of the base of the room, now all he needed to do was hammer out the finer details.
“You know you could be getting the same kind of play if you
actually put yourself out there,” Chad said lightly, glancing at Kit out of the corner of his eye. Kit rolled his eyes and began walking towards the crosswalk. “Don’t give me that look,” Chad said.
“Don’t suggest stupid stuff, then.”
“It’s not stupid, it’s true. If you just got back in the game, you could be smashing all kinds of dudes. I know this one Puerto Rican dude that deadass told me he wanted to get in your guts, bro,” Chad said, giving his friend a pointed look.
Kit almost wished he wasn’t such close friends with Chad because there was no way Chad would let him forget that they used to be the biggest hoes in school. They had plenty of wild stories to tell, especially when it came to guys who so bluntly explained what they wanted to do. “All I’m say is, you have options, Kit. Jaylen’s not the end-all be-all. You’re cute, you’re single, and you can do a split on the dick. Stop sleeping on yourself and start sleeping on top of other guys.”
“Yeah,” he said quietly.
If only it were that simple.
Every thought of intimacy ended up bringing him back to Jaylen. Every time he thought about himself sleeping with someone, he was dragged back to the times he’d spent with his ex. He couldn’t shake the memories. They were stuck to him like magnets, each of them decorated with a different lovely event they’d experienced together. He ached to tear them all off, free himself of the oppressive thoughts, but as hard as he tried, he couldn’t. Hating the other man was all he could do, now.
Before the silence between them could get too uncomfortable, Kit’s phone went off. He glanced at the caller ID and sighed. Just what he needed. “Yes, Roman?”
“Drop what you’re doing and get to the office.”
“What? I’m in the middle of something right now.”
“Get to the office, now, Ken—” Roman caught himself. “Kit.”
Kit could see that Chad had a vague idea of what the call was about. He felt bad for inviting his friend out only to ditch, but he couldn’t just ignore Roman’s demands. Eating Skittles wouldn’t pay the bills, unfortunately.