A Beautiful Struggle

by Lilliana Anderson

  I nodded that I would and thanked her for the tour before entering the library to start work. As I flipped through the items in my tray, I couldn’t imagine that I would need to call Priya for help, everything was very basic - all I had to do was sort books, microfiche and follow a simple instruction sheet for the law journal updates; take out page 22, insert new page 22 - I’d be fine.

  Alone, I took some time to look around my new work space, so I could take it all in. It felt peaceful being surrounded by books – the colours helped add to the calming effect; pistachio green for the small spaces of wall and a dim grey for the bookcases. There was only one wall without book shelves and that was the one with the desks, microfiche machine and photo copier. That wall had a large window taking up the top half of it so you could see inside as you walked past.

  The partition that separated my desk from the rest of the room, was a similar grey to the book cases with tiny flecks of white and black to add some contrast. The desk itself was a light grey, as were the other desks in the room. All the chairs were black padded swivel desk chairs – they looked comfy enough. I walked to the one situated behind my desk and sat down to test it out, adjusting the height setting to suit me. I twisted lightly from side to side and grinned to myself as an idea came to me, I peeked over my partition to make sure I was still alone and then tucked my legs in tight and spun around on my chair in sheer childish abandon. I placed my hands on the desk to stop the spinning and sighed happily; it was exciting to have my own space within an office – I felt a little like a girl playing dress up though.

  I reached out to my 'in' pile and took the law update that Priya had shown me, got up and collected the folder it belonged in and started to find and replace the pages required. I hadn’t gotten much work done before a woman a few years older than me with chestnut brown hair, and a Mediterranean complexion came in to introduce herself.

  “Hi, you must be Katrina! I’m Mary, Francis’s PA - you may have seen him on your tour – I’m the head of the social committee!” she announced it to me like there should have been a TaDa! at the end of it, she seemed very peppy. “I thought I would pop in to welcome you to Turner, Barlow and Smith, and also, to give you a rundown of the things we like to do here.”

  I sat silently listening to her chatter on about Friday drinks and other various social activities that come up throughout the year. I told her that I would try to make it to the next Friday night drinks but wasn’t really sure if I had anything on yet.

  “No worries, it would be great if you came even if it was only half an hour,” she smiled.

  “Ok, I’ll make sure I at least do that,” I said feeling the pressure to fit in.

  “So um, this is your first job is it?”

  “Yeah, very first,” I admitted.

  “I am sure you will like it here, there’s a pretty good group of people around. I mean, you get your cliques like you do everywhere but mostly people are pretty nice. I’ll see you around, if not, on Friday ok?” she said as she turned to leave and practically bounced out the door.

  “Sounds great,” I called after her, smiling weakly. I really didn’t know if I was a Friday night drinks person, but I figured I had better show my face if I wanted to make any friends here.

  After I got a little more work done I left the library to go and get a coffee at morning tea time. There were two PA desks outside the offices in front of the library door, and one of the girls, a small, slightly rotund girl with a friendly face and dirty blonde hair tied up in a bouncy ponytail, got up as I approached.

  “Hi there, I’m Kayley,” she said in an Irish accent.

  “Katrina,” I replied and we shook hands briefly.

  “I’m Greg’s PA. He's a bit creepy,” she whispered.

  “Is he?” My eyes skittered around nervously, I wasn’t really sure I should be having this conversation.

  “Yeah, sometimes I go in there to drop something off, and he is under his desk.”

  “Ok… doing what?”

  “Exactly! That’s the part I find creepy.”

  I laughed, my concern ebbing away, as we started to talk about how long she had been working there and what some of the other girls were like.

  When we reached the kitchen, I met Anne and Carl, who were the filing clerks, as well as Albina and Joanne, who were both PAs as well. I couldn’t help but notice that most of the people in the break room were all support staff. Any solicitors who came in made their coffee or tea, uttered some small talk and then left.

  Kayley must have noticed me looking around and read my confused expression. “They don’t really associate too much with all of us Plebs. The younger ones do sometimes, but they generally just talk to each other and hang out in their offices.” She handed me a cup for my coffee, and we moved along the line of people waiting for the water heater. “Although I wish this one would hang around a bit more,” she added as her eyes moved to the doorway, I looked around as Elliot walked in. He nodded and said hello to a couple of people but mostly stood there quietly, waiting for his turn for coffee, tea or whatever his chosen refreshment was.

  One of the other PAs moved towards him and started a conversation. I was stupidly standing there, openly watching him when he realised and looked at me, stopping mid-sentence for just a beat, this however, caused the girl who was talking to him to glance over her shoulder at a now red faced me. She squinted her eyes, shooting daggers in my direction, flicked her long honey streaked hair over her shoulder and continued her conversation with Elliot.

  Kayley leaned into me and said, “He’s pretty delicious huh? The one talking to him is Beth, she’s his PA and thinks she has dibs on him. But every woman here is lusting after the man. He is devine! Just look at that body! And the hair, the eyes! I could go on,” she sighed.

  I tore my eyes away from him and tried to focus on Kayley, “Priya told me there’s a 'no dating' policy here.”

  “That doesn’t stop anyone,” Albina added, eyeing Elliot up and down like he was a piece of meat, “It wouldn’t stop me if I got a chance with him anyway.” She let out an appreciative growl, and I grinned, enjoying her audaciousness but refusing to look towards Elliot again.

  The line moved along at a steady pace, and we all took our drinks to one of the tables inside the break room. At our table was Anne, Carl, Albina, Joanne – who prefers to be called ‘Jo’; Kayley and myself. It kind of felt like a scene from a high school movie were a group swoops in and claims the new girl - they all seemed nice though, and were filling me in on some of the office happenings. I found out that the IT guy was having an affair with one of the admin girls, they thought no one knew but weren’t very good at pretending nothing was happening, no one cared enough to report them though, so they were left to it.

  As is usual with a new person, they were very interested in my life, and wanted to know if I had a boyfriend and what I did with my spare time. I told them I had recently broken up with a guy I lived with for 3 months, and that I trained for triathlons around work and my law degree at university.

  “So you want to be one of them,” Carl commented.

  “I suppose, but I’ll make sure I’m still kind to the little plebs,” I replied with a smile.

  Chapter 2

  When morning tea was over, Kayley and I walked back to our area of the office. “Do you want to have lunch with us? We don’t do anything special, just gasbag in the break room while we eat and maybe go for a walk, and do a bit of shopping in Pitt St. It would be great if you could come,” she offered.

  “I really would love to,” I answered genuinely, “but I am actually going out to lunch with a friend today.”

  “Ok, never mind, maybe another time then,” she said as she sat down at her desk, and I continued on to the library.

  I managed to work steadily until lunch and was excited to grab my bag and get out of the office for a while to have lunch with my best friend David, we have known each other our whole schooling lives and are both studying together at Uni. He was
the one that had the idea of getting entry jobs in law firms while we were at university to get our foot in the door. He works a couple of blocks away from me as a filing clerk, so we figured meeting for lunch would be a great way to celebrate us both working now.

  Just as I was about to leave the library I was held up by one of the solicitors asking me where a particular book was, it wasn’t in the library, so I had to chase it down. In truth, it only took about ten minutes, but I was feeling really bummed that I was then running late to meet David.

  I rushed towards the lifts and could see the doors starting to close of a cab that was on its way down, so I ran for it – jumping through the shrinking gap before it got too small for me to fit through.

  “Whoa Indiana Jones! I think you left your hat out there!” said the only other person inside the elevator. I sucked in my breath when I noticed it was Elliot. He was leaning against the side of the car smiling his sexy and very amused grin at me. He seemed really friendly – a stark contrast of the stoic man I'd met earlier that day. I actually looked over my shoulder to check he was talking to me. Seeing no-one else, I responded with raised eyebrows.

  His brilliant blue eyes were dancing as he clarified, “You know - Indiana Jones? He just makes it under a door and then reaches back for his hat?” I shook my head, and he laughed putting his hands on either side of his head like his head might explode. I gulped as I noted the curve of his bicep through his shirt, “Oh my god! I can’t believe you haven’t seen that!”

  I shrugged my shoulders and offered, “Sorry?”

  He was still laughing as shook his head, “No worries; it's just a classic film – you should watch it some time.”

  “I’ll be sure to put that on my to-do list,” I told him.

  “You should,” he put his hands in his pockets and focused on the numbers as they counted towards the ground floor.

  Standing close to Elliot, I noticed his height – I guessed he was around 6’3” as he was just a notch above me in my low heels. Gorgeous and tall, I was practically a puddle at his feet. I could feel my body humming with attraction. It felt like there was some sort of force that was trying to pull me towards him. I wondered if he was feeling it too as images of him hot, sweaty and naked flashed through my mind. Don’t think like that! I chastised myself, not wanting to fall prey to my hormones and make a fool of myself.

  Despite the 'no dating' rule stating that I shouldn’t act on my attraction, I didn’t have time for men in my life. I had recently gotten out of a relationship and had no inclination to start another one – I needed to focus on my sport, my studies and my work; which I thought was more than enough for one girl.

  “How’s your first day going?” his rumbling baritone invaded my thoughts and snapped me to attention.

  “Huh? Oh, Not too bad!” I answered quickly, “just trying to figure my way around.”

  “It’s not so hard. The office is really just a big circle, if you keep going eventually you’ll work out where you are,” he said as the elevator doors chimed open. “I’ll see you around Katrina. That was a pretty cool elevator entrance, it made my day,” he beamed at me, and I blushed uncontrollably.

  He lifted his hand in a wave as he left. I lingered back in the elevator bay and shamelessly watched him walk away until David placed his head next to mine.

  “Who are we looking at?” he whispered.

  I blinked away my erotic thoughts of Elliot and turned to David. “Nobody,” I answered coyly.

  “Nobody huh? I wish you looked at me like I was nobody then. I wouldn’t mind doing whatever was in your mind making your cheeks all pink like that,” he teased.

  I swatted him on the arm. “Get your mind out of the gutter and come and get lunch with me. We've lost 15mins already.”

  “As you wish my dear Trina,” he said wiggling his eyebrows up and down comically, he took my arm and linked it with his as we set off across the street to the nearest food court and have a quick chat and an even quicker meal.

  David’s usually pretty popular with the ladies, and I noticed a few girls from my office in the food court looking at him with interest. In my heels, he’s the exact same height as me. He’s pretty easy on the eyes, with sandy blond hair and blue eyes that crinkle shut when he smiles his dashingly dimpled smile. Many a girl has fallen prey to that smile of his, and it has gotten him both in and out of trouble more than once. He is fairly fit, with a lean and wirey build with broad shoulders and a small waist. Occasionally, he trains with me, always holding his own fitness wise.

  His features are fairly similar to my own. We're often mistaken for brother and sister, second only to being mistaken for a couple - something that neither of us really wanted to cross the line into; a good thing for our friendship as David tended to have a new girl on his arm every week, and I tended to be more of a long term relationship kind of girl.

  “So, are you going to tell me who that guy was you were perving on before?”

  I rolled my eyes, knowing that if I didn’t tell David he would tease me mercifully until I gave up the information, “It was Elliot. He's the office ‘hottie’ that all the girls drool over.”

  “How about you? Are you all of the girls? Because that’s what it looked like to me.”

  “He’s hot yeah, and I admit that I was perving but I'm not going to make a fool of myself going after some guy I can’t have.”

  “Who says you can’t have him?”

  “Um! The fact that there is an office full of gorgeous girls in there, and he hasn’t dated one of them,” I said all indignant.

  “Maybe he’s gay?” countered David.

  “No, I don’t think so. There’s a 'no dating' policy.”

  “That sucks! Where’s the fun in that?”

  I laughed at this. “We can’t all be Mister Sex in the Filing Room with the Receptionist!”

  “Hey, I’m all about the pleasure,” he said with a cocky half grin on his face.

  “I don’t know how you get all of those girls to sleep with you, if they knew you like I do they’d run a mile.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yeah that’s so,” I told him only half-seriously. Truthfully, I thought that any girl that could hold David’s interest for more than ten minutes would find herself a very lucky woman.

  He laughed and threw his scrunched up napkin on his tray and looked around the food court, watching the people moving around us. I turned my thoughts inward for a moment before bringing the subject back to me again.

  “All joking aside David, I still don’t think I’m ready to start dating yet.”

  His face went sombre as he returned his attention to me. “I know you’re not Trina,” he reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry for teasing you about Elliot. I wasn’t thinking.”

  I blinked back the emotion that was suddenly prickling the back of my eyes.

  “It’s fine. You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m the one that needs to let go and move on,” I took a deep breath and put a smile on my face, pulling my hand away from his. “Besides, a bit of harmless perving on a guy I can’t have seems pretty safe to me.”

  David looked at me with an assessing gaze, “There’s no guy on this earth you couldn’t have Katrina. You don’t give yourself enough credit,” he cleared his throat and pushed his chair back, assuming the usual jovial persona that he likes to present to the world. I felt sure that his mother, and myself were the only ones who ever got to see David being serious.

  “Well,” he said. “I hate to leave the company of a beautiful woman, but I need to get back.”

  Flicking my hand down, I said, “Oh! That’s what you say to all the girls!” in a mock sexy voice.

  He shrugged and smiled at me as he started to walk away with his tray, he seemed to remember something and paused mid turn, spinning slightly on his heels before turning to face me again. That’s when I noticed something, “Are you wearing hi tops?” I commented, surprised to see them sticking out of the bottom of a pair
of dark grey dress pants.

  He gave me a half smile that showed his dimple on only one side, “What can I say – they’re comfy…Hey, you want to hit the town on Friday night? We haven’t been out in the city for ages,” he asked.

  “I do, but I have to go to drinks at work for a bit beforehand. The social committee chick was pressuring me so it seems pretty important - I will have a drink there and then meet up with you, ok?”

  “Sure, I’ll email or text you so you know where to meet me.”

  “Sounds good,” I said, standing to leave myself. We hugged good bye, giving each other a cheek kiss before we headed off to our respective jobs.

  The lift was more crowded on my way back up to the office; the snooty receptionist was in there with Elliot’s PA, Beth as well as maybe ten other people from other floors.

  The receptionist turned to me and said, “So was that your boyfriend I saw you having lunch with?”

  I frowned and looked at her, not understanding how we went from frosty glares to questions about my personal life so quickly – I didn’t even know her name.

  Taking my frown for incomprehension, she repeated herself slowly, “I said – was… that… your… boyfriend?”

  “I heard you,” I replied. “I’m just not clear on why you’re asking me.”

  She narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips while she exchanged glances with Beth. Beth smiled charmingly, in her stiletto heels, she was a half a head shorter than I was, her skin was creamy and flawless; she looked like a porcelain doll with large hazel eyes, full lips and a heart-shaped face. She was dressed impeccably and had a very slim build, looking like she just stepped out of a magazine ad.

  “Let’s try this again,” she said. “Hi, I’m Beth, and this is Bianca.” She held out her hand to shake mine, and I reluctantly took it.

  “Katrina,” I said cooly, not at all comfortable in this situation.