Unstuck

UNSTUCK

A novel by Liliana Camarena

Copyright © 2015 by Liliana Camarena

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Table of Contents

One
             
1

Two              2

Three              3

Four
             
4

Five
              5

Six              6

Seven……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..7

Eight……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….8

Nine……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..10

Blending in. What a difficult thing to do. I don’t think I ever managed that. Sure, I had a lot of accomplishments in life but the art of going unnoticed was never one of them. I always stood out and I always loved every minute under the spotlight… until one day I didn’t anymore.

“Stuart, Lucinda Stuart” The blonde girl at the front desk smiled at me. I nodded to the sound of my own name. “Mr. Johnson will be with you any minute now” I nodded again and brushed my hands on my black pencil skirt, straightening down what was already ironed perfectly.

Sitting down and waiting for job interviews was another thing that I was definitely not used to. I never felt the hellish nerves of being the one sitting out in the waiting room, holding my breath for the interview that would define my fate…. Until that moment. It was a weird feeling. Not knowing. I didn’t care for it at all.

“Mr. Johnson will see you now,” said the chic receptionist as she stood up to guide me through a glass door. I quickly checked my strawberry blonde hair perfectly straight one last time, my red lips perfectly outlined. I totally looked the part.

“This way,” the girl pointed towards a big office where I was greeted by a blond man, probably mid-thirties, looking a bit… stressed. He stretched his hand out. “Miss Stuart. Nice to meet you.” Now, I recognize that name. The only one I responded and reacted to, the way most of the people I know call me.

I shook Mr. Johnson´s hand and sat on the black leather chair in front of his desk. “Thank you, Lauren, that will be all.” he smiled to her and she was out of sight.

“So…” Mr. Johnson seemed to be looking for something in particular stashed somewhere in between all the papers on his desk. It made me want to grab them all and stack them in alphabetic order for his convenience. “I seem to have misplaced your resume,” he continued on his search through his drawers.

“I have another one with me,” I said as I handed him an unwrinkled perfect blue folder with my name printed on it and my extra résumé resting comfortably inside it.

“Oh! What a life saver,” he said and without even taking a look at it, he gave me the
smile
. I knew that smile; I’d given that smile, for what seemed like a million times. I
invented
the smile. The smile meant I wasn’t going to get the job. Why was I there then?

“Miss Stuart, I’m sorry to inform the position you applied for has been filled.” Big surprise. “However,” he continued, “I noticed something in your resume that made me call you. So, let’s take a look, shall we?”

In the span of one sentence I felt pain, nausea, relief and hope. I never thought that looking for a job would be this hard on my nerves.

“Hmmm,” I heard Mr. Johnson hum as he went through my resume, nodded, then turned the page and looked up at me with a smile on his face. Without even realizing it I was leaning forward in my chair, expecting to hear words come out his mouth, any words. Any sound.

“You DO know this interview is for the position of personal assistant, don’t you?” I just nodded and he looked directly at me again. “Ok,” he seemed to give up making sense of my resume.“I want to know why,” he leaned back on his chair and crossed his arms across his chest.

I had no idea what he was talking about. “Why?” I looked around and back at him. “Why what?” I spoke so soft it was almost a whisper.

“Why do you want this job? It’s obvious that you are overqualified for the position and that you could be anywhere else looking for something more like….” He held my resume up and pointed at it.“…this.”

“Oh,” I said.  My brain started to work on a possible answer.  I knew people were going to ask me this exact question. So I might as well be honest and not care about it since it seemed the job wasn’t going to be for me.

“I got tired,” I shrugged and he narrowed his eyes, looking attentively.

“Tired…?”

“Yes, tired.” I said with a smile.

“Do you think being a personal assistant is not a job that will get you tired too? Even more so?” he gave me a questioning smile.

“I got tired of the attention,” I said immediately knowing what he had meant. It only got another puzzled look from him and I sighed. I was going to have to elaborate.

“All my life I was an overachiever, it came natural to me. All I had to do was work and focus and achievements just arrived at my front door. And I loved every minute of it, until one day, I didn’t. Suddenly, I was tired beyond comprehension. I was ‘Miss Stuart’ and nothing more. And then everything, every little detail in my life, was planned around the Miss Stuart persona I’d built through the years. And just like that, I gave it all up.” I shrugged and smiled.

“You gave up being Vice President of Administration at a major publishing company?” he asked in disbelief. Oh God, he probably thought they fired me because I slept with the entire board of directors or committed tax fraud. Or mail fraud. Or both.

“Yes, I gave up being ‘Miss Stuart’. It got tiresome.” It was the truth. True-ish. All I had to lose was not getting this one job so I just smiled back at him.

“Ok, then...” he said and it seemed he had no idea where to go from there. “ As you know..” he patted the desk and looked up to meet my eyes. “We are looking for a personal assistant that has experience in the administration and H.R. areas. What’s your experience in the field?” he said, seeming troubled.

“Which field? Administration or Human Resources….?” My question lingered in the air while I looked at the poor man. It seemed that he needed help to make it through the interview.

“Oh, Jesus,” He threw his hands up in the air and I jumped a little in my chair. “I don’t even know how to interview you. It’s obvious that you know all of this. What I really want to ask is,” he leaned forward, almost getting up from his chair and looked me deep in the eyes, “ Are you willing to take a job where you will no longer have the upper hand and all your activities are going to be dictated by the comings and goings of someone else’s life?”  Oh! I was worried I was being interviewed by someone who had no idea what to do, but now I see the Director of HR in front of me. I gave him the widest, white-toothed-est, red lipped smile I could and answered, “Yes!” as excited as I could sound. Was I? Was I really ready to do that? Isn’t this change of life supposed to be that? A 180 degree kind of change.

He nodded, typed something on his computer and looked at me again. “Ok, then.  What’s Next?” He asked but I didn’t answer, assuming it was a rhetorical question and also assuming he was about to remind me that the position had been filled. “You’ll go on to the final interview in New York.” New York? “You’ll fly right now; We’ll fly right now to the Manhattan headquarters.” He dialed a number on his cell. “Scott, I’m going to New York…. Good…. See you there”. He looked at me and smiled again. No, no that smile. “After you,” he said as he pointed at the door. Maybe it wasn’t
that
smile after all.

I was a bit thrown back. What was he talking about? New York? Last interview?
Flying?
“Wait,” I said, still not moving from the chair. “If there’s a last interview to go through, then that means it’s is not to be
your
personal assistant?”

“Oh no, no! This one’s for the big leagues!” he let out a small laugh, “Follow me, let’s go,” he motioned his expensive leather briefcase towards the door and I grabbed my humongous red bag, clearly the wrong choice to travel, and walked through the door.  “New York?” I asked still not getting what was happening.

“Yes, Mr. Maynard is there right now,” Did that mean I was moving to New York? Did it matter?  All those thoughts were mixed and racing in my brain as I stepped into a shiny black Lincoln that took us to a small and fancy airport.  As Mr. Johnson helped me step out of the car, I saw the words “May, Inc.” plastered on the side of the jet waiting for us on the tarmac.

My brain kicked back to life as I processed what had transpired in the last 30 minutes. “Is Patrick Maynard interviewing me?” I asked incredulously while walking toward the staircase that led me inside the luxurious insides of a private jet. A private jet! I mean, my old job was great and I got to meet rich people and travel a bit here and there but never, ever, ever on private jet. This was pretty cool. Score one for the former Miss Stuart.

Mr. Johnson took my hand and helped me up with a smile, completely oblivious to my question. “This is what you meant by Big Leagues? Patrick Maynard? THE Patrick Maynard?” I asked as I went up the stairwell and into the cabin, with fancy fuzzy carpeting and all the seats in creamed colored leather, not to mention you don’t have to share seating space with anyone. It was incredible. I took a seat as Mr. Johnson did the same. I gave him a quizzical silent look, letting him know I was still waiting for his answer.

“Yes. Yes, Miss Stuart. You’d be working for Patrick Maynard.” He put his briefcase aside as we sat down and buckled our seatbelts. “Have you met him. Ever? In your line of work it wouldn’t be too hard to had run into him once or twice.” Of course it was hard! I had never met the man, not ever. I once heard his voice over a speaker phone during a brief and pointless conference call and that was all. It wasn’t as if I was the owner of the company. I held a lot of power within my sphere of influence, but that rarely translated to the world outside. In the end, I was just another employee and I hardly ever met any big gun from outside. I had to admit I always wanted to meet the guy. In the business world he was a myth, bigger than a legend, someone only a few people got to know and those who did were CEOs and CFOs, the only ones worthy of breathing the same rarified air. I looked down at my shoes as the jet began to turn around the runway, gaining speed. “Nope, never met him,” I said, trying to sound calm and not too disappointed. I looked out the window and wondered if I should even pursue this job in the first place. Truth is, even though I would be paid just as much as I was paid when being Vice President of Administration of Little Black Book Publishing, working for Patrick Maynard would probably be as hectic as being “Miss Stuart.” I sighed and let myself be comfortable. The position had already been filled and this interview was only going to take place because Johnson liked my resume. I wasn’t going to sweat it. And yet…

“Mr. Johnson, I thought the position had been filled.” I asked again. 

“It has,” he took his eyes away from his newspaper and up at me, he smiled and said, “and please call me Brian. If you get the job we will be working together A LOT.” He then closed his eyes and let out a big puff of air.

I was off to New York for an interview with Patrick Maynard. I felt the jet taking off and I kissed Philadelphia goodbye, at least, for a few hours. Private jet or not, taking off had always made me queasy.

One hour later I was at the New York offices of May, Inc. playing with my bag and pretending to look for something important in it. Mr. Johnson, or rather, Brian, was pacing around the offices attending to important matters on his phone, while we waited for Maynard to see us. I had enough alone time to think what was happening and if I wanted it. My life needed to take a big turn, I needed to relax (not that being a personal assistant was going to help me with that,) and started taking a bit of time for myself. Money wasn’t going to be a problem with this job, time would be, I was sure, but I still would have more time for myself than I had ever allowed. I might had the chance to read a book, while Maynard was in meetings and was pretty sure I would get to have a day off every once in a while. What was the worst that could happen? I didn’t like my old life and I just quit it, it’s not like I was going to sign a contract in blood for the next 100 years. Right? Right?

“Brian!!!” I jumped as the door to Maynard’s office opened and his voice was clearly heard throughout the floor, or maybe the entire building. Brian practically ran to the office and stood in the door. “What do we have for today? Did we plan on meeting today?” I heard the same voice that I once heard on speaker phone one day not too long ago.

“No, we didn’t,” I finally heard Brian explain. I could only see his back against the entrance of the office but he seemed relaxed. More relaxed than when I met him that morning in his office. “But I want you to interview someone--” Silence. “Yeah, it’s—for the personal assistant job.” Dead silent again.

“I thought we’d gone for the…uh, mousey blonde girl, the one with the master’s degree?” What do you know? I had a Masters Degree too.

“We did, yes but, Patrick, I really believe you should give this girl a chance,” Brian confidently said. He felt at ease around Maynard, as if they were close in some way that predated their business relationship.

“Fifteen minutes. That’s all I have.” I could feel my stomach jump.

“It’s all I need,” Brian said and I could hear the smile on his face.

“Miss Stuart, please come in,” Brian motioned for me to get up and come inside. I felt like throwing up. What the hell was wrong with me? Where was my confidence? I was a business woman asking for a job that could have easily had been done by any one of my former assistants and still I felt the nerves running through my veins. Ugh! Job hunting was the worst.

“Patrick, this is Lucinda Stuart, she is here for the personal assistant job,” Brian said as I entered the room. The office was immense, with huge floor to ceiling windows from where you could overlook the city. It was beautiful. I couldn’t deny that Maynard wasn’t beautiful to look at either. Jet black hair, white smooth skin and deep, piercing green eyes. He was a looker. He stood up as I walked toward his desk; he had his sleeves rolled up and his blue silk tie half undone. Seemed he was not having a good day. I smiled as best I could and extended my hand.