Chasing the Dream: Dream Series, Book 3 (5 page)

My turn. Well, if I’m going to be a communications major, I’d better communicate. I stood up, but my heel caught on the carpeting, and I fell back into my chair with a
thud
. Snickers filled the room. Suddenly, I felt like my blonde ponytail was pulled too tightly and that my face was as pink as a sunburn, but I cleared my throat and stood again.

“Well, my name isn’t Grace,” I said with a curtsey. Thankfully, the snickers turned to genuine laughs. “Okay, so I’m Phoebe. I’m transferring to NYU from a small private college in Ohio, but I’m from Northern California. So I’m kinda from all over. I’ll be majoring in communications with an emphasis on broadcasting. I’m working with Valerie in Public Relations for the summer,” I said quickly, then sat before I fell again.

Okay, that wasn’t so bad.
It would have been better if I’d had a script, or one of those tele-prompters that Dickwad Danny and I played around with one afternoon, but I didn’t suck.

After the meeting, Ben went straight up to the bigwigs and started schmoozing. He was a confident son-of-a-bitch. I had to hand that to him. I looked around for Valerie, my mentor for the internship, but I didn’t see her. In an email I received this morning she said that she wasn’t sure she’d be at the meeting, and if I didn’t see her there, I should just report to her office after the meeting wrapped. Jenny spotted Allison, and we exchanged quick hugs, agreeing to meet up after work for dinner to compare notes.

I scrolled through my email messages and read Valerie’s email about where her office was, then headed to the elevator bay and pressed the up button. As I was waiting for the elevator, a couple of girls joined me. I grew very self-conscious as I listened to them pick apart everyone who was in the meeting.

“Do you think Gary knew his socks didn’t match?”

“Do you think he cares? Remember last week when he had crumbs in his beard?”

Then the other girl joined in, “For the whole entire meeting.”
Good grief,
I thought. It was like the high school mean girls.

“Oh wait, how about Sarah? Someone needs to tell her that spandex is a privilege not a right.”

“Totes.”
Ugh! I hated that slang!
“And someone should introduce her to carrots!” Who were these girls? They made me sicker with each word that fell out of their whiny mouths. In fact, I really did start to feel sick. Nerves? Lack of breakfast? I probably just needed more coffee.

“But you, Emily—you look great!” I heard the other girl say as she laid a hand on my shoulder. I turned and saw the two gossip-mongers.

“Me? Oh, thanks.” I looked down at my wide leg trousers and cornflower blue top that matched my eyes, although I was regretting the simple, yet sleek, ponytail that I’d pulled my long blonde hair into. They were dressed to the nines. Their hairstyles were perfectly set and their makeup impeccable. I couldn’t tell if these bitches were being honest or snarky about how I looked. “It’s nice to meet you. But my name is Phoebe, not Emily,” I said, trying to sound like a grown up in this oddly high-school feeling moment. I stuck out my hand to shake with them.

“Erin Montgomery. I’m a paralegal in the legal department,” said the blonde. “Sorry about getting your name wrong,” she apologized, taking my hand and giving a quick shake.

“Jade Anton. I’m in H.R.,” said the brunette, taking my hand next. “So, news broadcasting? You’ll be working with David?” I got the distinct feeling she was possessive about some guy named David.

“I don’t think so. I’m majoring with a focus in broadcasting, but I’m actually working with Valerie in Public Relations,” I smiled, repeating what I’d only said a short while ago. What was with these girls? Why were they trying to be friendly when they clearly didn’t really listen?

“Valerie is, um, sweet,” Erin said, bumping into Jade and the two shared a knowing glance.

“So,
rumor
has it that Jack Stevens got you this job. Is that right?” Jade sneered.

What?
“Um, well, he’s a friend of my mom’s. He got me the
interview
with Alex last month,” I clarified.
Jack didn’t pull strings to get me hired, did he?
I doubted everything now.

“But you
know
him? One of New York’s ‘Top Ten Most Eligible Bachelors’ for the past ten years,” Jade pushed. So that was their deal. They somehow knew that I knew Jack Stevens. What they thought I, or he, could do for them was beyond me.

“Yeah. Sure,” I replied. The two looked at each other again and raised their eyebrows.

“So, is Jack as aloof as he comes off in the tabloids?” Erin asked.

“I met him at a fashion show last year and as gorgeous as he was, he was equally distant. Had a bimbo on his arm like always. Does he ever date anyone longer than a week like Page Six says?”

“But, there is that new girl on his arm for the past few weeks,” Erin interjected.

“No, he is very nice and relatable. And I have no knowledge of his dating life.” I had only met him a couple of times and that was because he was a friend of my mother’s. How did they find out we were connected at all? Maybe because Jade is in human resources? I did have to reach out and thank Jack for helping me get the interview for this internship, though. And now I had to talk to him to see if I got this position on my own merits, or if he’d called in favors.

“Do you think we could meet him one day?” Jade asked, pulling me from my thoughts.

“Um, I don’t know. Maybe?” I replied. I glanced around looking for the stairs. I didn’t want to be in an elevator with them. They were making me feel terribly nervous.

“Well, if you need anything, just ask. We’re more than happy to help. Want to join us for lunch today?” Were they genuine? Were they setting me up?

The elevators dinged and the pair pushed past me and tucked themselves in the elevator. My cell phone rang, thankfully giving me an out for being trapped in the car with them.

I glanced at the screen and saw it was my mother calling. “Oh, I have to take this call. I’ll catch the next one.”

The two waved with the doors closing as I answered my mother’s call.

“Hi, Mom. What’s up?” I asked, grateful for the excuse to not take that ride.

“Oh, I was just calling to wish you good luck on your first day. How’s it going? Have you met the other interns yet?”

“Yeah, there are eight of us, Ben, and Jenny and some others I haven’t gotten to know yet. Jenny seems the best of the bunch. We’re going out for dinner tonight to talk about our day. How are you?”

“I’m great, hon. Just great. Is everything at the apartment okay?”

“Yeah, no problems. It’s great. I met Mrs. Hanlon on Saturday. She’s sweet. I borrowed some baking powder from her to make those A to Z Muffins.”

“You and your baking,” she laughed. “And Kevin?”

“Yes. He checks in every day. But, you know that, don’t you?”

“Yes. He’s texted me a couple of times.”

I checked my watch. It was almost ten in the morning, which would be almost seven in California. My mom is usually making breakfast for my dad before he left for work. “Well, thanks for calling, Mom. I should let you go so you can get Daddy’s breakfast ready.”

“Oh, um…. yeah. Well, be sure to call me later today and tell me how your day went, okay?”

“Sure, Mom. Bye,” I assured her and ended the call, then stuck my phone back into my pocket.

I found my way to Valerie’s office, and we spent a half an hour talking and getting to know one each other, outside of the emails and files. Valerie was one of six key players in the News and Public Relations, a liaison between the two departments. She was chic, she was professional and she was a hard worker. She was frank about her age, twenty-eight. It didn’t take much effort to figure out how she’d gotten to the status so quickly. Everywhere she walked as she showed me around the offices, people were very respectful of her, almost fearing her. Jade and Erin’s words came back to me
‘Valerie is…um…sweet.’
No matter. I could hold my own. Right? I was determined. After all, it seemed I was learning from the best.

For the rest of the day, Valerie exhausted me as she plowed through the day with meetings, phone calls and showing me the files I’d be handling for her. The job she laid out was all fairly straightforward kind of stuff. I couldn’t tell if she was happy to have me working for her, or if I was a nuisance, but we did seem to work well together. Lunch was a non-event. Even though we were eating, she was connected to her Android phone and her tablet going over all the things we had to take care of every day. By the day’s end my head was spinning with contacts and policies and schedules.

J
enny and I met up in the lobby at the end of the day just as we’d planned.

“A food kind of dinner? Or a happy hour kind of dinner?” she said in her beautiful accent, a mix of East Indian and British English.

“Oh, I’m only nineteen,” I said, surprised at her offer.

“Food kind of dinner, it is,” she said. “I thought you were twenty-one? You seem older, anyway.”

“Not yet. Two years to go. You’re twenty-one?”

“Actually, I’m twenty-four.”

My eyes bugged out of my head. “You don’t look it all.”

“Which would be why I’m carded for everything,” she said rolling her eyes. “What kind of food would you like?”

“How about Greek?” I suggested. The last time I was here in the city and went out to dinner with Jack and my mom, we’d had amazing Indian food. I loved it, but I felt it would be odd to ask for Indian to an Indian person.

“Yum! I know a place that has incredible baklava!”

Jenny navigated us, expertly, through the subway system to the upper west side, giving me tips on figuring out the subway, suggesting apps for my phone that would help me navigate the whole complicated mess. It was good to be with someone who knew the system. I was sure if my dad knew I was taking the subway he’d be upset, but it wasn’t like I was on my own. The subway wasn’t the cleanest way to travel, but it was cheap and much faster than taking a cab.

As much as I wanted to talk to Jenny about how her day went, the subway car was full of business people and everyone was incredibly quiet, keeping to themselves in the fantastically crammed car. It just seemed out of place to chat, so I held my questions and hoped I would remember them when we sat down to eat.

The restaurant was tiny. There were only seven tables, and they were all along one wall. I think my apartment was bigger than this place. In fact, many of the eateries I’d seen here were tiny. We settled into a table and waited for a server in the quiet place. The only sound was what I guessed was a Greek version of MTV from a TV mounted high on the wall behind the glass counter that was full of gorgeous Greek pastries.

While we waited, we swapped stories about our day. She was feeling pretty comfortable with everything going on and generally happy with her assignment. I shared that I was feeling very overwhelmed, probably a symptom of my lack of knowledge in the area of communications since I’d not really taken communications classes, just sat in on them. I decided to not delve in and talk about why I’d chosen to leave that school. At least not yet, although, I felt like Jenny and I would be the best of friends in no time at all. She just had that way about her.

After a good ten minutes, a server finally came and asked what we wanted to order. I quickly grabbed my menu/placemat and scanned the choices while Jenny rattled off what she wanted. I settled on something I knew, spanakopita, and a Diet Coke.

“So, how long have you been in the city?” Jenny asked.

“Today is my fifth day. I got here late on Thursday, and slept half of Friday and just did a little running around. So, maybe those days don’t even count,” I laughed. Thankfully, Jenny laughed too. “How about you?”

“I’ve lived here since two thousand and eight. I was nineteen. I moved here with my parents.”

“What brought you here?”

“My younger brother. He has autism. My mother read about the organizations and advancements in the field going on over here, and connected with a doctor in New York. My father would do anything my mother wanted, and she wanted to come here. He’s a very respected research doctor in India, in oncology, and he was able to find a position at Mount Sinai Hospital, in Manhattan.” She went on to talk about what she missed from India, and as she talked, images of snake charmers and the movie
Slumdog Millionaire
filled my head, not that Jenny gave any impression that she was from the slums of India. Quite the contrary, she looked like every other American girl I knew.

“And how is your brother doing?”

“Very well, thank you. He’s made a lot of progress.”

“You speak English very well,” I said, hoping I wasn’t insulting her. “I love your accent. But it doesn’t sound completely Indian.”

“Thank you, I went to British private schools in India. And how about you? What is Phoebe’s story?” Jenny asked.

“Not much to tell,” I shrugged. “I grew up in Napa Valley California. I have two brothers, Bradley and Carter. Bradley is the boring one getting a business degree. And there’s Carter. He’s the adventurous one. Right now he’s in Pompeii excavating the Ruins. Originally, I had hoped to travel to Italy and visit him this summer, but then—well, plans do have a way of changing. Anyway, I was at an offbeat private university in Ohio. I don’t think it was a good match for me, for several reasons. So, I hustled and have my transfer to NYU mostly settled, with the help of my mother’s friend, some big wig here in New York, apparently.”