A Beautiful Struggle (2 page)

I immediately rose, dwarfing Priya with my
six feet of height, smiled and shook her hand. “Yes, that’s me. It’s lovely to
meet you.”

Priya looked up at me and said the first
thing most people say upon meeting me, “My, you’re a tall one aren’t you?” I
smiled and nodded to be polite while inwardly rolling my eyes. “Follow me and I
will show you around the office.”

I did as I was told, following closely
behind her and trying to take in as much information about my surroundings as
possible.

Priya spoke over her shoulder and pointed
things out as we went along, “In here are the conference rooms, you only need
to know about them for drinks on Friday nights – there is a social committee
that is in charge of all that, you can join if you like. Mary runs it all and
should come to talk to you about it at some point today.”

We continued down the corridor, past
different offices and cubicles. Priya explained that the corner offices were
for the partners, and the middle offices were for the junior and senior
solicitors. Outside the offices were the personal assistant's cubicles and then
there was a row of offices inside for accounts and other support staff.
Administration had a cubicle section all of its own, and in the very centre of
everything were the filing room, the library and the break room.

“Here is where you will be working,” said
Priya. I looked at the large room lined with built-in bookcases that reached
the ceiling, as well as two rows of smaller bookcases lining the centre. There
were two desks against the outer wall with a reference computer on one, and a
microfiche reader on the other, in between those was a photocopier. 

My own desk was in the corner. It had a low
cubicle divider around it with a computer and an in/out tray that was piled
high with mail, law journal updates and microfiche slides.

“Wow, this is bigger than I expected,” I
stated.

“Not too big I hope,” Priya smiled before
launching into the next part of my orientation. “Now, you will be responsible
for making sure all the books are in the correct place of course, as well
fetching any books that people have removed. They have to check the book out,
but sometimes they just take it, so you may have to do some hunting at times.

“You will need to stocktake once a
fortnight to make sure you have a list of any missing books. Most importantly,
you need to keep the law journals up to date; new updates come in regularly.”

She pulled an update from my in tray and
showed me the instruction sheet that told me what pages to add and take away, I
couldn’t see myself having difficulties with it. “Also, you have to sort these
microfiche into order and then give them to one of our junior solicitors,
Elliot; he is responsible for updating the system with those.”

“Oh, I thought the microfiche would be in
here because the readers are here,” I interrupted.

“No, they are kept with the files, but you
will get people leaving them in here, sometimes in the reader itself. Just sort
them and return them all to Elliot, he will deal with them. He also catalogues
the law magazines that get sent to us. I will take you to meet him now so you
know where his office is.”

Priya led me down the corridor and into an
open area, where a group of PA desks were clustered, surrounded by window
offices. She came to a stop outside a small windowed office right next to the
Partner’s, and tapped on the door before opening it. A man in his early 20s
looked up from his work revealing the most vivid blue eyes I had ever seen. My
breath caught a little as I drank him in. Even through his dress shirt I could
see how well muscled he was, his face showing that smattering of stubble I
loved on a man. I don’t know how else to describe him except to say that he was
beautiful; those blue eyes, that full mouth, his light golden-brown hair and
those broad shoulders! I felt myself swoon a little but came back to reality
when I noticed him arch one of those perfect eyebrows of his at us in question.

“Sorry to interrupt Elliot but I just
wanted to introduce you to our new librarian Kat,” Priya said.

“Um, Katrina,” I said, hating having my
name shortened to that of a furry animal.

“Sorry – Katrina,” Priya corrected with a
slight eye roll.

Elliot didn’t speak at first; he just sat
there studying me.

 My cheeks flushed involuntarily and the
discomfort of being stared at caused me to start nervously looking around the
room, out of the door; anywhere but at him.

My apparent unease seemed to make him
realise he was staring. He quickly cleared his throat and said, “Hello
Katrina.” His voice was as beautiful as the rest of him, it had a deep rumble
to it that sent chills up my spine.

I was trying desperately to be cool, so he
didn’t notice my immediate attraction. A guy like this must have women swooning
all over him, and I wasn’t going to let myself be one of them – despite his
hotness. I had met guys like him before, and it never ended well.

Despite my efforts, I didn’t manage much
more than a tight smile, a small nod and a, “Hi, um, uh, Elliot.”
You sound
like an idiot!
my mind told me. There was a silence after that; nobody said
a word and this awkwardness enveloped us like a thick woolen blanket while we
all tried not to make eye contact.

I felt like I needed to say something to
break the silence, “Ah…I didn’t think a junior would get a window office,” I
observed, regretting the comment the moment it left my mouth.

Elliot looked over his shoulder at the
window behind him and shrugged, “Every solicitor gets one. It comes with the
office. Mine is a very small one though.” His blue eyes met mine but revealed
no emotion. I could imagine that he must have thought I was a complete ditz! I
could feel the heat as it rose in my cheeks while moths of embarrassment
churned through my stomach.

Priya raised her eyebrows at the exchange,
smiled and commented, “Well; this was fun.” She ushered me out of his office as
she told Elliot, “Just thought you should meet Katrina so you knew what she is
doing leaving things on your desk. Enjoy your day Elliot,” she gently closed
his door and led me back towards the library. “So, your bright-red face tells
me you noticed he’s a bit of spunk huh?” she said quietly to me when we were
far enough away. I tried to act nonchalant and just shrugged my shoulders a
little. “Don’t get any ideas though, all the girls are after him but he doesn’t
show interest in any of them. There’s a strict no dating policy here and he
adheres to it; there’s a list of junior solicitors a mile long wanting to work
here and I really don’t think he is going to risk his job.”

“Fair enough,” I said, mentally kicking
myself for feeling a little disappointed.

“Someone nice to look at though huh? Stops
the office being so boring.”

“I suppose it does,” I answered carefully.

“Well, here we are, back at your new home
away from home,” she said stopping in front of the library’s entrance, “If you
need anything today, don’t hesitate to call me.”

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.