MEARA
Of my three new bosses, I could tell that Kent was pissed. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure, but I thought it had something to do with my relationship to Damien. I hadn’t specifically told him that Damien and I had a history, but I didn’t go out of my way to avoid the topic either.
When Kent approached me at the party, it was awkward. I had greasy hands, and I was in the middle of a conversation with Petra. How was I to know that he was actually attracted to me and that he would take it the wrong way when I acted overly familiar with his business partner?
It was wonderful seeing Damien again. I thought things would be tense between us considering how we left it. There was no formal goodbye and no discussion of what worked or what didn’t work. I just hadn’t seen or heard from him in more than a month. The few times we went out, we seemed to hit it off. I didn’t know why things hadn’t gone any further.
Maybe it was my reluctance to spend the night with him. I just wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment, and I thought he understood. Then again, maybe life just got in the way, and it wasn’t the right time for him. I was surprised at how easily we fell back into our playful banter.
He showed me around the payroll software on Thursday and directed me to the staff portal. He got me logged into the project management software so I could see all the daily tasks. He assigned a few things to me like reading the employee manual and familiarizing myself with the filing system.
The internship was supposed to teach me the basics of trading and how to handle other people’s money. I didn’t have a background in finance, so all of the information was new to me. Friday, I spent the morning reading all the various policies and procedures. I followed that up with a web course on money management.
It was pretty easy stuff. Of course, I knew they wouldn’t start me out by handing me a million dollar portfolio, but I was a little surprised that they wanted to pay me to educate myself. Around three, Damien stuck his head into the cubical farm and asked me to come to his office.
“How’s it going?” he asked as he closed the door behind us.
“Great!” I enthused. “I’m learning so much.”
“I have a question to ask you that’s not exactly professional.”
I liked the sound of that. It didn’t seem like he was my boss so much as an old flame that might burn again. I didn’t see the problem. We had a relationship outside the office, and we were back in each other’s lives. Nothing could be simpler.
“What did you have in mind?” I asked.
“Dinner,” he said.
“Sure,” I agreed. “Where and when?”
“Chez Frac’s at seven?”
“Sounds good.”
He gave me a satisfied smile. “I guess we should do some work.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re feeling pretty agreeable,” he observed.
I took a seat beside his desk, eagerly awaiting the next lesson. “If I can be honest, I’m just thrilled not to be working at the store anymore. This job seems super easy.”
“We love our interns,” he said, sitting down next to me.
“In more ways than one,” I teased.
“You’re the exception to the rule,” he advised. “But seriously. You think it’s easy now, wait until you’ve got two weeks under your belt. That’s when the gloves come off and you’ll be doing all the grunt work.”
“What exactly is the grunt work?”
“There are a lot of quarterly reports to read and summarize. We’ll want you to comb all the business blogs so we can stay on top of the trends. That sort of thing.”
“I’m ready,” I said.
“We’ll take it a little slower than that,” he replied with a smile. “You’ve got to know the basics first.”
He showed me several of the websites that I would be keeping an eye on. For the moment, he just wanted me to familiarize myself with the kind of information available. Later on, I would be in charge of flagging different content for the partners to read. I was going to be a gatekeeper or a librarian, someone who combed through the corners of the Internet for gossip pertaining to company offerings.
“It’s tedious,” Damien warned me.