The lady on the phone said to dress professionally to which Luke was positive was in relation to how he’d come dressed for the interview.
“Dress how you usually dress, they want to see you for who you really are,” Sarah had said.
“Feh,” Luke said out loud. Although, he did get the job, so Sarah’s advice might have worked to his advantage as unlikely as that seemed. He looked at his reflection in the glass doors and saw a stranger peering back at him contemptuously. He’d bought some new cloths at Target that weekend and still wasn’t used to how they looked on him. He’d worn a plain black jacket over a white shirt with a black tie and black dress pants and with his hair combed back as well as having shaved fresh that morning he looked the part of a lowbie techie.
Luke met the man from his interview and the man had seemed disappointed to see him which was a little odd to Luke considering how friendly he’d been during the interview. He must have been the one who had disliked his choice of attire which would mean the lady on the phone was his superior. It did seem strange that he received the conformation of the job shortly after leaving the office via telephone from a lady he hadn’t spoken to. As he got closer however the guy cocked his head and seemed to brighten to Luke’s disposition. He reintroduced himself as Raymond. Luke guessed his change of cloths at least impressed Raymond and he almost seemed to be assessing Luke purely on his looks which seemed rather odd for a guy, unless he really was gay.
“Hey Darling, This here is Shauna she’ll show you around,” The man had said. ‘Yep, Ray Ray’s a fag,’
Sarah had seemed wrapped in the new cloths. She’s spent the entire bus ride nuzzling against him with uncharacteristic affection. He didn’t mind that side of her however and it felt strangely uplifting to be admired. It was a feeling he hadn’t felt in a long time. They’d grown lax in their relationship and she generally accepted him as property and no longer clung to him like she did when they were so young. It was a sort of desperate clinging back then and gradually grew into affection and then complacency. Every now and then Sarah would have an episode and revert back to the clinging but that wasn’t the same as genuine affection. Luke felt his thoughts drifting to images and events in the past. Past or dream, fiction or fantasy it was hard to say anymore.
“Star light, star bright, the first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish come true tonight,” she said facing out of the window. Their mothers were still talking and it had quickly turned to dusk. She didn’t seem too shy now. She kept smiling at him and then looking away but she rarely spoke. Her sudden outburst now seemed unprecedented and lulled him into a sort of trance.
“What did you wish for,” he asked hesitantly. When she turned to face him and those dark eyes locked onto him there was no uncertainty in them.
“I wished that I could be your bride,”
Luke blinked away the vision from his mind and resettled on the reality of now.
Washing his hands he left the bathroom and spotted Shauna and Raymond talking across the hall.
“.. I haven’t spoken to her, she seems okay, a little Distant, I really don’t know how to brooch the subject with her you know? What’s with this guy anyway, I thought you said he was really cute?” Shauna said to Raymond.
“He’s not the one I thought was getting the job, I don’t know what happened. I think the cute one wanted too much money, I don’t know. But anyway he’s not so…” Raymond cut short when he saw Luke’s approach smiled in greeting and left Shauna to complete the tour.
Shauna was the receptionist and seemed chatty enough to fit the role of reception. Luke let her do all the talking as she lead him to through the metro office pointing out bathrooms, kitchens, conference rooms and key employees and their offices.
He was eventually led into Human Resources where he met the lady he’d spoken to on the phone.
She seemed like a woman use to being in charge. Her office had family photo’s on the wall and desk and although was cluttered with paper work had the look of organisation to it. Gillian had been with the company since its meagre begins, or at least that’s what she’d told Luke. She herself admitted to being completely computer illiterate and made all sorts of claims how he was going to get sick of her annoying him all the time. Somehow, Luke found himself liking her straight away. She was honest and kind with a sort of clumsy sense of humour to her that he found himself smiling to.
“Good to see you could smile,” Gillian said with a smirk, “I was worried for awhile there but don’t worry you’ll fit in well at Fairfax International. We are like one big family and we encourage our employees to feel relaxed and comfortable with each other.”
Gillian had shown Luke to the server room he was going to be using as an office with instructions to start up and meet with her later in the morning.
His first task was to clean out the room he was to use for an office and when he walked in there for the first time he was dismayed by the amount of junk that had piled up there. As discerning as it was to use a server room for an office the concept of using it for storage was a little more alarming. The company had outsourced their IT needs and had grown enough now to require their own IT staff. His main task so far was to clean up and liaise with the current contractors and provide help desk support for the staff. He made some leeway with the Server room and set up a work area to test the old computers that were dumped within the room. It seemed most the staff didn’t really have a large knowledge base when it came to computers.
What was typically believed to be the more efficient machines were the flat screens and fancy cases on the dell workstations and a quick look at the other machines suggested some of them might have some decent specs a typical workstation didn’t have. The Server room however was a decent size and well ventilated suggesting the contractors that had originally built it knew what they were doing.
He made his way back to Gillian’s office at the allotted time and found her door shut and hearing muted voices inside decided to wait till they’d finished talking. After a short while he heard some scuffling of chairs and stood back to allow the person to exit the office. The office door opened to reveal the back of a blonde haired woman whom was still facing Gillian as she exited the office.
“.. And Don’t worry Evvie sweetie,” Gillian said to the woman, “you’re a good worker and sometimes things happen. Raymond came in and told me straight up, so we just said you went home sick okay?”
“Thanks, I’m sorry for the trouble and it…” She stopped short as she turned around and saw Luke. Those familiar blue eyes staring at him in shock her hands went limp and she dropped the files she was carrying. Her mouth twitched trying to find words but coming up mute and time froze as recognition filled in and he was face to face with the girl that had kissed him last week.
“Hey Luke, good timing, this is Evelyn, she’s my assistant. Evvie honey you sure you okay you seem jumpy,”
Moments passed and he saw the surprise seep out from those icy blue eyes replaced by a sort of cold fury and she bent down rigidly and picked up her file. When she stood up and faced him again all emotion was gone and those eyes looked right through him.
“Hello Luke, Welcome to Fairfax International, I need to go now, so I’ll see you around,” Evelyn said in a cold distant voice. She walked past him as if she had already forgotten he existed and he watched make her way up the hall speechless.
“Evelyn is like a daughter to me, she’s a very lovely girl once you get to know her,” Gillian said. There was something in her tone that suggested a warning under the surface. Luke turned to look at her and she gestured for him to come inside.
Gillian continued to talk as if nothing had happened but all the while Luke could feel her scrutiny wondering what his relationship was with Evelyn. He was given a contact list and further instructions but could hardly keep his mind on the job. He left Gillian’s office feeling drained and confused and made his way back to the server room to start his work.
The server room already had a phone that was part of the internal system so he set it aside on his new desk and started building a computer he would use for his own. As he went to work his mind was going crazy.
‘What the hell is she doing here?’ Luke wondered,
‘Well, obviously she works here dumb ass,’
‘Well, thank you captain obvious! Oh crap, what am I going to do,’
‘Only thing you can do, just do the job, try to pretend nothing happened,’
‘Nothing did happen! Well, she kissed me, that’s all’
‘She kissed you, and you didn’t want her too? You didn’t kiss her back?’
‘Well….. shit. I don’t know, it just happened,’
‘What, you’re trying to justify your actions to me?’
‘What, who are you anyway?’
‘I’m your daddy!!’
‘What?’
‘Why am I your Daddy! Cause I did this to you’re Mamma,’
Putting down the computer, Luke slapped his forward trying to reign in his thoughts.
“Damn Super Fly!” he said out loud.
“Super Fly?”
“It’s this stupid Joe Cartoon Flash thing…” abruptly Luke realised someone was talking to him and turned and found Evelyn watching him with a blank look on her face.
She was calm and beautiful in her serenity her long blonde hair braided into a pony tail. Her ice blue eyes were looking at him expectantly her soft red lips pouting impatiently. She was a stunning young woman with an air of superiority almost completely different to the woman he’d met before. The woman he kissed. His lips twitched involuntary remembering the feel of her kiss and that strange desire that had came over him.
“Your extension is 226. The contact list you received from Gillian has the extensions for everyone else in the office and that second sheet has the external numbers you need to know. It’s all on the intranet as well but I’m guessing you’ll know all that better then I will well at least you will soon enough,” Evelyn said indicating to the half assembled computer on his unorganised desk.
‘Maybe she doesn’t remember,’ Luke thought but then remembered that look of surprise and then anger. ‘She remembers, I guess she wants to pretend it didn’t happen either,’
“If you have any questions, just see myself or Raymond. Should you need me, I trust you won’t just kidnap me like you did before,” Evelyn said in a tone so flat she could have been talking about the weather.
“It might be better I speak to Raymond then, at least he wont try to rape me,” Luke said before he could stop himself turning back to his desk to continue his work.
He watched her through the corner of his eyes. She stood deadly still, her eyes a fiery blue blaze that burned into the side of his head and made his legs weak.
“You’re the one that tried to molest me!” Evelyn fumed.
Turning to face her he responded before he could catch himself again.
“Molest you? I was just giving you a sympathy hug; I didn’t expect you to shove your tongue down my throat!” ‘This isn’t helping,’
“I did not shove my tongue down your throat! I..” Evelyn let out a frustrated scream and stormed out of the server room.
“Well, this is going to be a very interesting job,” Luke said to himself.