Chapter Twenty

“Harper!” Calvin’s voice boomed through the open air office and off the concrete floor and walls. “We were just talking about you!” His hands held tightly onto a thin stack of papers as his arms flew out in the air. I stopped like a deer in headlights as a small, fairly young, crowd of people turned around to look at me. 

I hadn’t realized that a week of training flew by. The past week I was coming in each morning to an empty office. A few minutes later Jacob, Morgan and Philip would come in after me. We were all new employees at SocialCircle. Calvin was the last to come in, usually strolling in an hour later. 

Lucky for him all of our training was done over the computer. A few writing exercises to make sure our voices were cohesive, some FaceBook-esque videos on the company and how it started, and legal docs no one really cared about sprinkled in between. 

I wasn’t expecting anyone to be in the office so early let alone a meeting taking place without me. “Everyone, this is Harper. She just moved back to Boston from L.A. She’ll be working in our Politics department.”

I reached up to grab the bagel between my teeth and slowly smiled. I’d never been so intimidated. This was like high school all over again. I was the awkward mess in a room filled with guys that looked like obnoxiously loud and outgoing jocks and girls that were so well put together it was hard to believe they were real. 

“Hey Harper!” One of the younger, tall framed, jocks called out. “Hi!” Another masculine voice from across the room chimed.  “Welcome to SocialCircle,” a red headed preppy girl added. “Hey! Welcome!” said a cheery little blond. “Love those heels!” 

“Thanks.” I felt my shoulders relax and my smile widen. “Thanks everyone.”

“As you probably have assumed, this is our relocated team from New York.” Calvin reminded me. “I’ll give you a few minutes to settle while we finish up our meeting here before I introduce you to everyone.”

I nodded my head and proceeded to my desk on the other side of the office. The office had changed dramatically over the weekend. When I’d first came in here it felt cold and empty with not much to distract the eye. There weren’t any cubicle walls, which I hated, but now that the office was filled with people the flow made a lot more sense, It was how I’d imagine any company with a young demographic throughout the outskirt cities of California would look. 

“What’s going on? Am I late or something?” I looked down at my watch. It was a quarter till nine, the time I usually got to work.

Morgan shook her head and leaned over onto my desk. “The New York team came in early for a briefing before they get started.” She leaned in closer and wiggled her eyebrows. “Did you see those babes!” 

I giggled quietly, rolling my eyes. There was no doubt the New York team had some suave looking gentlemen that would fit in perfectly with the New England preps of Boston.

I turned my computer screen on and opened up the Internet browser. Part of my job was to skim through news websites and blogs before I officially started my work for the day. What Calvin didn’t know was that behind my browser I hid a notepad document with my story about Nolan.

I peeked over my absurdly large screen to make sure no one was coming and pulled the browser down. I looked at the words on the notepad document. It was almost like the words were shouting at me . 

“Never expected,” “couldn’t keep my eyes off of him,” “No longer a stranger.”

I sighed as I read the few paragraphs I had over and over again. I wasn’t planning on actually writing this, but something about it helped me to keep Nolan’s memory alive. It wasn’t like he was responding to any of my texts or calls. I needed a way to keep myself grounded. Something that made me believe that for a brief moment in time I was a human with actual emotions.

I jumped out of my seat when I felt a hand gently land on my shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Harper, didn’t mean to scare you.” I turned around to find Calvin standing with a tall, olive skinned guy whose dark shiny hair was parted to the side. His stubble beard was neatly lined with edges so sharp it could seriously cut someone. He looked a bit roughed like someone who only speaks from experience.

I loosened my hand that was tightly pressed against my chest. “Oh, no, it’s okay. I don’t know what’s gotten into me today.” Without being too obvious I minimized the notepad and turned my attention back to Calvin. “What’s up?”

“I wanted to introduce you to Ricky. He’s going to be covering Politics as well.” Like a proud boasting father Calvin swayed his shoulder back to take a better look at Ricky and a grin grew on his face. “He worked with some major news networks before he left us to work with Brian Williams. Lucky for me I was able to persuade him to come back when word got out about our move to Boston.”

“Wow, Brian Williams, huh?” 

Calvin held the back of his hand next to the corner of his mouth, “to be honest he wrote all the goof stuff there.” 

“Well, if you were to ask Brian, it was all written by him.” Ricky shrugged casually.

Calvin erupted into laughter. It was hard to tell who was the editor and who was the writer sucking up to his boss in this scenario. “I get it!” He inhaled a breath and smacked the side of his leg. “I get it!”

Ricky uneasily laughed along. “Yeah.” he sighed.

I tried not to laugh at how awkward the exchange was. “Nice to meet you Ricky.” I held out my hand.

“Yeah, you too.” He nodded his head in the same motion that his hand rocked, up and down, as he shook my hand. “So, L.A huh? Who were you with out there?”

“I, uh,” I froze for a second. There was no way I could possibly follow up with never having an actual writing position after Calvin had just pimped out Ricky. “I did mostly freelance work.” I nodded my head as I made myself believe what I was saying. “Yeah, mostly freelance on government and economic issues.”

“Great!” Ricky smiled. It was obvious that he was underwhelmed with my answer. “So, there’s a presidential campaign rally happening tonight, I’m sure you’ve heard, but if it’s not too late of a notice for you we can swing by and scope out the crowd. Maybe even interview some of the supporters?”

Calvin agreed, “I know it’s a bit quick, but we really need to pick up the pace and steam roll a few pieces to make sure we can meet our first deadline.”

“Of course,” I nodded along. “I’m down.”  

The truth was I couldn’t find myself interested enough. Normally I would have been ecstatic to even be involved in something like this, but since leaving Los Angeles? Not so much. I furrowed my brows at the realization as I turned back to my computer screen and gave myself a good shake. 

“Hi.” I heard another new, gentle, voice on the other side of my screen. I peered over to see a petite brunette with a messy bun on top of her head and oversized glasses sitting on her nose. She cleared her throat and her voice became louder. “I’m Elise.” She smiled.

“Harper.” I smiled back. “This feels like the first day at a new school.”

Elise laughed. “I bet.”

“What department are you in?” I asked curious to know who my new desk mate was. 

“I cover entertainment, which translates to catty twitter feuds between celebrities no one really cares about.”

I shivered. “Twitter? Who even uses that anymore?”

“Right?” She laughed along, but then shrugged her shoulders. “It pays the bills, I guess.” We both laughed. “Have you gotten a chance to meet everyone yet?” 

“You mean besides the awkward introduction when I first walked in?”

“It wasn’t awkward. Here,” she pulled her chair over to my side. “see that guy there? That’s Brock, don’t talk to him unless your seriously into pumping iron. The guy can talk to you for hours about supplements and curling techniques.” She tilted her chin and widened her eyes to emphasize just how crazy she thought he was. “And the girl to the left of him? That’s Georgina. She’s a hopeless romantic. Total nut job about meeting Mr.Right and is severely obsessed with Romantic Comedies. She used to spend her weekends in Central park hoping she’d bump into the guy that she’d fall madly in love with.” I looked at Elise without any expression. “Tell me about it. Anyway, that group there, that’s Wren, Jessica, and Alex.They were all interns last year, and then got hired after college graduation this year…”

I cut Elise off, “so you’ve been working here for a while then?”

“Since day one.” She smiled. 

“Hey Harper.” Ricky was walking back towards me after he was finally able to break free from Calvin. “Change of plans, Just got word that press is going to be allowed in a bit early today, so we should probably head over now if we want a good spot.”

“Oh, okay.” I frantically grabbed my purse from below my desk and stuck a tiny notebook inside. I tried to keep it cool in front of Ricky, but I could feel my nerves shaking beneath my skin. This was the first time I was actually going out to do something that I’d prepared my whole life for. My first ever attempt at writing a real journalism piece. 

As I was walking away Calvin walked out of his glass walled office and called out for my attention. “Harper, we’re having tech support come by later to load a new system. Make sure to back any files up to your cloud or email them to yourself. Whatever you have to do to make sure they don’t get wiped.”

“Yeah, sure.” I nodded and turned back to my desk. 

“I’ll meet you in the lobby.” Ricky said as he headed towards the elevators. 

I knew he was in a rush to get to the rally early so I began to feel panicked and instead of backing my files to a cloud, which would have taken some time, I emailed them to myself instead. A few clicks later I shut off my screen and made my way down to the lobby.

The rally was taking place at a university a few miles away. Ricky and I were able to breeze through security and snag a couple of pretty decent spots. 

The presidential candidates came out briefly to answer press questions before everything officially began. 

“Raise your hand.” Ricky nudged my arm.

“What?” I whispered aggressively. “No way!”

“Come on.” He smiled knowing that I’d never done this before. “Ask them what changes they would implement on work equality wages.”

I looked at him like he were crazy. “There’s no way I’m raising my hand. I’ll just end up embarrassing myself!”

The room quieted down as the question was asked, “Any other questions?”

Without a second to fully comprehend what was going on I felt my arm fly up into the air, with Ricky’s hand holding it up. I gasped as I looked at my hand, then him, then back at my hand. and quickly pulled it down.

“Yes, you, young lady in the purple top.” The candidate behind the podium pointed at me.

Ricky laughed and I just sat there shocked and in denial that he was referring to me.

“Hello? Is this mic on? I said you, purple top.” He struggled to read the pin adhered to my chest. “Social….Social Circle.”

Ricky nudged my arm. “Come on, I know you can do it.” He whispered.

“Uh,” I looked around the room to see cameras and microphones all turned towards me. I couldn’t feel my face. I was having an outer body experience. Was this really happening? Was I really about to ask the potential new leader of the free world a question? “Uh, If, uh, elected what changes would you, uh….” I took a gulp in mid sentence. I wasn’t prepared for his level of anxiety. I concentrated on a deep inhale and tried my best to finish. “What changes would you implement on work equality wages?”

“Work equality wages?” He laughed. “I say don’t fix something that isn’t broken. Next question.”

I turned towards Ricky, confused. “Wait, what did he just say?”

Ricky couldn’t believe it either. “Oh…my…God.” It felt like he were talking in slow motion. “You just hit a gold mine!” He began laughing in excitement as the crowd of press went crazy. Flashing pictures, aggressively asking what he meant by his answer.

It turned out to be the highlight and topic for the rest of the night. Every news station plastered the words all over their channels.

It was half past seven by the time we were able to leave the rally. I was still on my high from earlier that day. Ricky and I both left laughing from sheer adrenaline.

“How’d you know?” I asked him.“… that I’d never done this before?”

Ricky’s laughter dulled down. “You were a little reluctant talking about your experience at the office. Plus, your face once we got in there was a dead giveaway.”

I rubbed the back of my neck embarrassed.

“My first big break was when my mentor put me on the spot. Did the same thing I did to you.” A slight curve formed at the corner of his lip.

“Really?”

“Yup.” He nodded. “Although I can promise you the rush never goes away.”

We both continued to laugh.

“I’m sorry. I should’ve been honest about my experience. It’s not exactly fair that your stuck with someone who hasn’t done this before.”

He gave me a look. “Are you kidding? You single handedly changed the whole conversation of his political career. He’s been outed as a money hungry sexist scumbag.”

“Well,” I shrugged. “I can’t exactly take the credit.”

After we left I went back home just in time for dinner. Elizabeth and Mark were over. As soon as I walked in I turned on the TV and put it on the news coverage for the rally. I watched as the anchor sure enough angrily spoke about wage equality and the candidates lack of support. 

I spent all of dinner and the rest of the night telling the story over and over again in every different angle that I could. Each time my family became more and more impressed. This is all I’d wanted since I started my career. To feel like what I was doing was making a difference. I was on a high and there was no coming down. It was exactly the confidence booster I needed.

The next morning I strolled into work with my shoulders held up high and a smile from ear to ear.

“Hey!” I ran right into Morgan as I stepped in. “Ricky told me about last night. That’s so awesome! Good job!”

I smiled. “Thanks!”

As I sat at my desk I heard Calvin’s voice from across the room. “Hey, Harper, can you come to my office?” 

I continued smiling knowing he was going to ask me about the rally and I would happily relive the whole story.

“Hey, how’s it going?” He asked, not giving me enough time to answer. “Just wanted to ask what this was.” He handed me a paper and with one quick glance my smile vanished and my eyes widened.

It was my story on Nolan.