Autumn put the bag over her shoulder and made sure there wasn’t anything in it she didn’t need. There was a cell phone, an MP3 player, a note pad, two pens, her wallet, and a laptop. The laptop was more just a glorified typewriter. She could barely play Solitaire on it. Pretty much nothing but typing. Not even music. It didn’t do anything, but at least it was cheap and unreliable.
She’d have to take the bus. Walking was too risky. White shirt, sweat. Bad combination. She had to look respectable. That’s what Charlie had said. If she wanted the job, she’d have to look respectable. She didn’t want it. But she needed it.
Charlie had done more than she could have hoped. He didn’t just send her an address. He’d actually gone ahead and made an appointment with the guy for her. He’d put in some effort. That meant there was money involved. He was entitled to fifteen percent, so there had to be something that was enough to pique his interest. Enough to make him get off his ass and do something. Enough to tell her to look respectable. That was encouraging.
Bruce Jennings. That was the guy’s name. Sounded like a stiff. Probably wanted her to write his autobiography so that he could feel all self important, and yet still be humble because he could tell his friends it was ghost written. He was probably some big shot investor or something, and wanted to leave a memoir of all the great hot shit he’d been spewing for the past fifty years; how to build an empire, that kind of crap.
The appointment wasn’t in an office. That was good. It meant that this Jennings character wouldn’t feel like he had some kind of advantage. She didn’t want him thinking that he was the one in control, that she was coming and begging him for a job. Even though she was.
It was a lunch meeting. At an expensive restaurant. Which meant, hopefully, that this rich jerk would pay the bill regardless of whether or not she got the job. A free meal. That was good.
***
Autumn stood outside of the restaurant, just staring at the door. Her bag was over one shoulder and across her chest. She didn’t need to hold it or anything. It wasn’t a purse. But still, she had it clutched in her right hand. She looked at the door and she gave a deep sigh.
There were people coming in and out of the restaurant. It was a real place, not a chain. Called Pelicans, with private owners, beholden to no corporation. And the people who were going in and out, they looked like business type people. Stock brokers, lawyers, doctors, gynecologists, whatever. People with educations. People with serious money. People who could buy and sell Autumn on a whim.
And somewhere, inside, there was this Bruce Jennings guy who had a job that she might want to take. A man who literally held her future in his hands. Without that job, without it paying a whole lot of money, she’d have to give up her whole writing thing. She’d have to give up what, to her, had been a dream, but to her parents had been a ‘phase’. Like it was something she’d grow out of.
Well, if she couldn’t make some money at it soon, it might become something she’d have to grow out of. Or, really, to wake up from. Sooner or later, everyone has to wake up from his or her dreams.
Autumn just didn’t want to do it yet.
People walked out of Pelicans and looked at her. It seemed like they were looking a long distance, all the way down their noses at her. They walked a little bit faster after they saw her, and she swore she saw at least one woman grip her purse more tightly.
She took another deep breath, wiped her hand down the side of her pants, and stepped forward, forcing her shaky hand to grab the door and push it open.
She walked through the door, and there was a guy at the booth. What was that guy at the booth called? Garcon? No, that meant boy. Concierge? Yes. That was it. The Concierge. Or guy at the booth.
No, wait. Concierge was the guy at the hotel. What was this guy called? Maitre D? something like that. Didn’t matter.
She had to wait a little while. She was lucky they weren’t busy just then. The guy at the booth seemed to want to serve anyone else other than her first. He looked over her shoulder like she was a plant someone had rudely placed in front of his station. He tried to find a group past her, asked them for their names, and then told them the wait would only be a few minutes.
Autumn wouldn’t move, no matter how many times he looked at her like she was annoying him. It took her a few minutes and a few of those glares before she stepped forward and slapped her hands against the little booth he was hiding behind.
He looked down at her hands, then up at her. She glared right back. He looked down again, as if her hands were dirty or disease ridden. She still wouldn’t move them. Finally, he rolled his eyes and actually looked at her. The smile on his face was about as convincing as the clown at a miniature golf course.
“Can I help you?” He asked, in a tone that told Autumn he wanted to do nothing of the sort. Great. It was a snobby place. Well, what did she expect at a place named after a bird that flies out to sea and eats whatever it can scoop up while skimming the grime off the water?
“Hi,” she said, giving a smile that she hoped would bring some warmth to his face. It didn’t. “I’m supposed to be meeting someone. His name is Bruce Jennings, and, um—“
At the mention of the name, the Concierge, or Maitre D, or asshole at the booth, wiped the look of tolerating disgust off his face and painted on the smile of someone who is forced to handle something distasteful. “Right this way, miss—“
“Autumn. Autumn Masters.” She felt herself blushing, but had no idea why.