"I'm going for a short run first," I told her. "I'll be back in 20 minutes."
"Make sure you cool down during that 20 minutes because you can't afford 10 more once you get back."
I nodded.
It was brisk out, but the run felt good. Veronica was drying her hair when I let myself back into the apartment. I threatened to hug her, which didn't earn me any points, so I just dropped all my clothes on the bathroom floor while she watched me, then popped into the shower.
I was clean, dry, lightly made up, and properly dressed in a professional style shortly before six. Veronica shoved some toast at me with a cup of coffee. "Bring those with."
We were the first in the office. We headed straight to her office where we each ate our breakfast while she did what she referred to as "the HR niceties". She had me sign various papers and took a photo copy of my social security card and driver's license. She explained what she was doing and why. Then she explained the typical work day.
She made a point of arriving at the office ahead of anyone else. It gave her a chance to review everything that needed to happen that day so she could stay on top of the projects her employees were working on.
"I am going to start by reading my email. You are going to do some of the mundane tasks I normally do. When you are done, come back here and we're going to go through my email together.
"Even the one from your girlfriend?" I asked innocently.
She looked at her computer and found the email from me. "You little vixen," she said. She opened it in front of me, sighed, and turned to me. "You're welcome. And I love you, too."
She slid a piece of paper across the desk to me. "Your morning duties. They're boring. Look it over and ask questions now."
I looked it over. She wanted me to make sure the break room was clean and properly stocked. Check the office for anything that looked improper. I asked her what that meant.
"Trash cans the cleaning staff didn't change, coffee cups left out, anything that's broken. Bums sleeping in someone's office. That sort of thing."
"Has that ever happened?"
She laughed. "Not to me, but it did to a client once."
I scanned the rest of the list. It wasn't that long. "Supply cabinets properly stocked? How do I know what that should be?"
"You don't," she told me. "I checked yesterday and it was fine. That should give you a base line for the future. We order more supplies before we need them, so stay on top of it. Check daily, as surprises happen."
I nodded and headed off to take care of the list.
The break room took the most time. The cleaning staff didn't wash dishes. Nor, it appeared, did the employees. I washed up the dishes and set them in the rack to dry, then wiped down the counters and started a pot of coffee. I checked that there were napkins and things like that, then stood in the doorway and imagined I was a client. I frowned, then walked over, dried the coffee cups and put them away. Checking from the doorway again left me more satisfied.
I checked the rest of the office. I made notes on what the supply levels were at. I would type it up later and ask Veronica to review it. That part probably took longer than she would have preferred, but I decided she'd deal with it.
Everything looked fine except the glass in the front door had fingerprints on it. I didn't want anyone walking into Veronica's office and seeing dirty fingerprints. I went back to the break room, found cleaning supplies, and dealt with it. Then I remembered a couple of the computers had dirty screens and keyboards, so I cleaned them, too.
All in all, the list took me over an hour.
"Did you make coffee?" Veronica asked as I stood in her doorway.
"Yes."
She pushed her coffee mug to the edge of her desk. So I fetched coffee, adding exactly the amount of cream I knew she liked, then tasted it. It seemed okay.
When I brought the cup back, she noticed the extra pair of lipstick prints on the rim. She looked at me and grinned. "Do you want to explain that?"
"I've never made coffee before. You always make it. I didn't know if I'd made it right. I've drunk from your cup before, it didn't occur to me you'd mind." I paused. "Was that wrong?"
"No. But if you do it in the future, cover your tracks. It's just a little too obvious."
"You don't think everyone in the office already knows about us? We walk right past this door getting to your place."
"Of course they know," she said. "The clients don't. The ones I've worked with for a while know my orientation. But if they realized you're my girlfriend, they'll assume that's the only reason you got the job, and then they won't take you seriously. I will not have my assistant dismissed so easily. So cover your tracks, at least until a particular client learns you're no vapid airhead."
I grabbed a napkin and cleaned the edge of the coffee cup, then slid it back to her again.
"Pull a chair around. We're going through my email. We'll do it together this week. In the future, you'll be doing this for me and flagging the email I need to handle."
I pulled a chair around and she went through each piece with me, explaining who it was from, what it was about and what she would have expected me to do with it. Getting through it took us until half past eight. "There's a staff meeting at 9. Normally by now I'd be reviewing any client needs, but I already know where we sit. I'm going to show you about my appointment calendar."
She brought up some software on her computer. "A good assistant knows her boss's calendar by heart. She also knows the birthdates of everyone in the office, their spouses or partners, their kids, and that of any especially important clients. It's your job to be my walking encyclopedia. I don't expect that from the start, but I expect you to do your best at it over the summer."
I nodded, intimidated.
"If your job is to be my walking encyclopedia, but you don't have a photographic mind, what are you going to do about it?"
"Laptop?" I said.
"Too bulky, you can't carry it around." She smiled. "We'll deal with that at lunch."
She reviewed her appointment calendar with me, discussing briefly what each appointment was for and talked about lead times needed for travel. Then she had me fetch my laptop and showed me how to sync her schedule onto my computer, going both directions.
"Every morning when we come in, you will come around and sync my computer and yours. You may have to sync each twice so that we both have all the updates. You'll do that leaning over me if you have to. You'll do the same thing at least twice more during the day and then as the last thing before leaving the office." She grinned. "But do not wave your ass around if anyone else is in the office."
That took us to 9 and we headed for the conference room for the daily staff meeting. "Bring your computer and take notes. I will review them after to see how you did."
She sat down at the head of the table and set me to her left, bumping the person who was already there. It was the last time anyone occupied the seat to Veronica's left while I was present.
Once everyone arrived, she introduced me. As soon as the introductions were over and no one was paying attention to me, I took notes of who was there, where they sat, and some distinguishing feature so I'd remember who they each were. I kept careful notes of the meeting including any decisions that were made. I didn't understand most of it.
Back in her office, Veronica asked to see what I'd written. "Shit, Shane, you have tricks to teach me." I beamed. Then she asked if she needed to explain anything to me.
"It depends on whether I'm supposed to understand more than one in three words said during the meeting."
She laughed. Then she explained everything. That took us nearly until lunch.
She had me bring paper to a short design meeting. "Don't bother with notes unless I ask you to," she said. "But you must always be prepared to take them. Never be without a means of taking notes."
"Grab your purse and bring my laptop," she ordered. "Make sure you have paper and pen. I have a client meeting at 1:15. I wasn't going to bring you, b
ut now I need to. You can be a fly on the wall."
So I toted and we got in her car and drove to the shopping mall.
"Lunch here?" I asked.
"Buying something first, then a quick lunch before the meeting," she said. She took us to the Apple store, walked up to the nearest sales clerk and said, "I need your top of the line iPad with a data plan and one of those cute little keyboards." She paid for it then she told the clerk, "Take it out and teach her how to use it."
"It's for me?" I asked her.
"It's a business computer. It's not for you. You will just be the one using it."
As we left the store, she explained. "If I'm going to have an assistant in this industry, she needs to be the best. That means using the best tools." She pointed to the shopping bag. "That can be carried anywhere, used while you're standing up, and carry all the data you need to do your job. I expect you to keep it with you at all times."
I leered.
"Don't be daft," she said to me, laughing. Then she thought about it. "And don't you dare use it for any of your naughty pictures."
"Damn," I said. "And he showed me the self portrait mode on the camera, too."
The client meeting was for a new potential client. "Fly on the wall here," she told me. "This is a sales call. It's potentially a very lucrative business, but she hasn't signed on the dotted line yet. And she's a prude, so behave."
We pulled up to a large home in suburbia. I carried Veronica's laptop and purse, my purse, and the new iPad in its case. We met with a woman named Sylvia Norbert, recent widow. She wanted a full house makeover while maintaining the existing charm of the house. I had no idea what that meant.
Veronica introduced me just as "Shane, my assistant," and then ignored me unless she was asking for something from her purse. I didn't sit at the table with them but stood a couple of steps behind Veronica and tried not to look bored. Halfway through the meeting, I was startled out of my contemplations when I heard Veronica ask, "Would you mind if my assistant photographs your home?"
"Of course," she said. "You may photograph anything you like, but please don't open any closed doors."
"There's a camera in my purse," Veronica told me. I found it, figured out how to turn it on, and took a couple of sample shots.
"Is there anything in particular I should make sure I get?"
Veronica gave me brief directions. I started by walking back to the car. I took photos from the street, both wide angle and closeups, making particular attention to the landscaping and trees. It was too early for leaves, but the snow was long gone, and I took photos of tree bark. I then gave myself a tour of the house, taking pictures as I went. Twice I checked on the status of the meeting before I felt I'd taken everything worth taking. I returned to the meeting but didn't say anything.
They wrapped up with the woman handing Veronica a check, which she slipped into a coat pocket. After that we left.
"Congratulations," I told her.
"Thank you," she said. She handed me the check. "You may look."
It was for fifty thousand dollars.
"It's a retainer," Veronica explained. "The final bill will be more than that."
"You just made fifty thousand dollars?"
"No, I just lined up about seventy five in business, but my profit on that will be around fifteen after all the related expenses." She paused. "That doesn't happen every day, so don't think I'm a rich woman ready to be fleeced." I laughed.
"When we get back to the office, load the pictures into the computer. I want to see them."
For the rest of the drive, we talked about how the rest of the day would go and asked if I had questions. Once we arrived back at the office, I followed her into her office. "Go load the photos, come back when you're done."
"Okay." I walked out of the room and walked right back in again.
"Shane, what are you doing? Go load the photos, I want to see them."
I walked over to her desk, fiddled with the iPad, then set it down on the desk in front of her. "From the street. Closeups of the flower gardens. They don't look like much right now. Bark off the trees, in case you wanted to use those colors as a design element. Front door. Foyer. Front door looking out the window. Details around the door. Crappy rug you need to replace." I stepped back. "I did it while you were still talking."
"Cheeky girl," she said, smiling and flipping through the pictures. "What's this?" She turned the iPad around.
"Some hideous sculpture in the back yard."
She looked at it again. I'd taken a half dozen photos of it. "If it's hideous, why so many photos."
"In case she likes it and you have to draw elements into the house."
"Go get Bob and Brian, please. And bring some coffee back for me."
I fetched the guys first, then the coffee. When I got back to her office, I entered quietly and set the coffee down for Veronica. I tried to be unobtrusive, but they all started staring at me.
"Do I have something in my teeth," I asked after a moment.
"You're her girlfriend," Bob told me. I looked at Veronica. She nodded.
"Yes."
"Where did she find you?"
"I picked her up at a party."
"You picked her up?" Brian asked. "Not the other way around?"
"I asked her to dance. Then I did a leg wrap on her. Her heart rate went up 20 points. I'd say I picked her up."
"You're in college." It wasn't a question. "Design school."
"No. I'm a freshman at Knightly. It's a liberal arts college. I'll probably be a business major. Economics, finance, management, that sort of thing."
By now Veronica was leaning back in her chair, watching the entire exchange and smirking at me.
"You took these pictures?" He paged through the photos on the iPad.
"Is there something wrong with them? Veronica told me to start at the front door and just get pictures of everything. So that's what I did."
"You took pictures of tree bark. And multiple pictures of this horrid sculpture in the back yard."
"I thought the old lady might like the sculpture, and if so, you might want to use design elements from it in the house. I thought the bark was interesting and that you might want to tie the inside of the house to what was going on outside. I tried to get shots of the garden, too, but nothing's blooming yet and it was just ugly."
The guys grilled me for another minute or two.
"It's my first day," I complained. "If there's something wrong with the pictures, go take them yourself." I stuck my chin out.
"There's nothing wrong with the pictures," said Bob.
"Then why are you being so mean to me?"
"They're trying to trip you up," Veronica said. "They think either I took the photos or that I coached you. Or maybe that you're a design student about to graduate. They're waiting for you to admit it." She smiled. "They made a bet. Bob thinks I took them. Brian thinks you're a design student. I told them if you could prove they were both wrong, that they both lost the bet and had to pay you."
"How big is the bet?"
"Twenty bucks," said Bob. "Who won?"
I smiled sweetly at them. "Does Veronica lie to you guys a lot? Is that why you didn't believe her?"
I grabbed my purse and pulled my Knightly student ID card and tossed it on Veronica's desk. I added my driver's license to show I was 19. "You can look up Knightly online. If they have design classes, I'll be shocked, but even if they do, I'm only a freshman. I wouldn't have taken any yet."
Then I took the iPad away, reset to the front of the photo album, found the photo I wanted, and then zoomed in. I handed it to Bob.
"It's blurry, but if you look in the window, you can see Sylvia and Veronica talking in the front room. Even if you can't tell it's Veronica," I played with my flaming red hair. "I don't think there's any way either of those people are me. Which means Veronica couldn't have taken the first few photos. I don't have any way to prove she didn't take the rest. I suppose if you're really really good you could tell th
at the photographer was my height, not hers, but I wouldn't know how to prove that. She could have crouched down for each shot, I guess." I took the iPad back then flipped through more images. I found one of the glass sculptures Syliva had that I'd photographed. I zoomed in on a reflection in the sculpture and gave them the iPad again.
"You can't make out any details, it's just a blurry smudge, but what is the hair color of the woman who took that photo?"
I put one hand on my hip and held out the other. "I'll take my money now."
Bob and Brian looked at each other. "We've been owned," said Bob.
"Totally," said Brian.
They fished out their wallets and each handed me twenty dollars. My back was up, so I folded the money and slipped it down the front of my blouse to sit in my bra. "Thank you, boys," I told them.
Veronica lost it at that point.
"I don't get what the big deal," I told them. "She told me to take photos. She told me where to start. She told me to shoot everything. I took the camera. I pointed it at stuff. I clicked the button. Rinse and repeat. What's the big deal?"
"Shane, sit down, the guys will tell you what you did right and what you did wrong."
So I sat down and they walked me through it. "Good," they said about the shots of the house. "Boring, but it's clear what house we're dealing with, and we can see exactly what the style of architecture is. Plus you took close ups of the more interesting architectural details."
They got to the tree bark. "Brian always shoots the plants when he goes out. For you to do it instinctively is surprising."
Then the gardens. "We didn't need these. They're ugly and don't tell us anything."
"I've got twenty bucks that says they do," I told them.
"Cheeky girl," Veronica said quietly, but she was still smirking.
I fished one of the twenties out of my bra, which earned a lot of attention from the guys. I slapped it down on Veronica's desk. "Let's see your money, boys," I told them.
They each fished their wallets out. Bob pulled out two fives. Brian pulled out a twenty and took the fives. Once there was forty dollars on the desk, I said, "I know they're ugly. But you needed to know she has gardens and maybe what shape they are. I also thought it was possible you could tell what kind of flowers they are, even though I can't. But most importantly, you can't ask me, Why didn't you take better photos of the garden?"
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