CHAPTER 6 The whispers
1157 Words
The waiting area was already half full by the time Lena found it.
She followed the signs down the corridor and pushed open the glass door and the first thing she noticed was the murmuring. It was low but very obvious. The kind that stops just short of being obvious. Heads turned as she walked in and then turned back just as quickly, voices dropping into whispers behind hands and over shoulders.
Lena slowed slightly. It was the same thing that had happened at the elevator. She looked down at herself once out of habit. Jacket straight. Blouse tucked. Nothing out of place. She looked back up at the room and decided she had no idea what the issue was and moved to find a seat.
She had barely sat down when the woman beside her shifted closer. Lena glanced over.
She was neatly put together, a fringe wig sitting perfectly above her forehead, oversized glasses perched on her nose with wide curious eyes blinking behind them. She had the energy of someone who had already decided they were going to enjoy their day regardless of what it brought.
“Hi,” she said brightly.
Lena paused. “Hi.”
The woman must have caught the hesitation because she smiled wider. “I don’t bite.”
Something about the way she said it made Lena’s shoulders drop slightly.
“I’m Bianca,” she said, extending her hand. “Bianca Holmes. Here for the interview.”
“Lena Carter.” She shook it. “Same.”
Bianca nodded approvingly like Lena had passed some kind of test and leaned back in her chair with the ease of someone perfectly comfortable wherever she happened to be sitting. She glanced toward the other women in the room, several of whom were still murmuring quietly amongst themselves.
“I said hello to three people when I came in,” Bianca said matter of factly. “Not one of them answered. So I figured I’d try my luck with you instead.” She tilted her head toward Lena. “Hope I’m not bothering you.”
“Not at all,” Lena said. And she meant it.
A brief silence settled between them, comfortable enough that Lena didn’t feel the need to fill it. Then she glanced toward the other women again.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Go ahead.”
“Why did everyone start whispering the moment I walked in?” She kept her voice low. “It happened downstairs too and I still don’t know what I did.”
Bianca pressed her lips together like she was trying not to laugh. Then she gave up on that entirely.
“You took the CEO’s private elevator,” she said.
Lena’s hand flew to her mouth. “Are you serious?”
“Very.”
“I didn’t know.” Lena looked at her with widened eyes. “How was I supposed to know? It wasn’t in any of the instructions they sent.”
“It’s not written anywhere,” Bianca agreed. “It’s just one of those things everybody here seems to know.” She waved her hand lightly. “Don’t worry about it. It’s just an elevator. Nothing is going to happen.”
Lena nodded slowly.
Nothing is going to happen.
She repeated it to herself and almost believed it. Then the next thought arrived quietly and settled in her stomach like a stone.
If it was the CEO’s private elevator then the man inside it with her—
She pinched the inside of her wrist.
The tall one. Dark jacket. The one who told her where the waiting area was without being asked and walked away before she could thank him properly.
That was the CEO.
She had stumbled into his elevator. Lurched into his body when it jerked. And then followed his directions like he was just a stranger doing her a favor.
She pinched herself again.
The glass door at the front of the room opened and a woman in a company lanyard stepped out holding a tablet. She called out a name and one of the women near the window stood immediately and followed her inside. The door clicked shut.
A few minutes passed. Then the woman with the tablet reappeared, mentioning another name.
Another candidate stood and went in.
It continued like that. Name after name, the room thinning gradually, until the woman appeared again and looked down at her tablet.
“Lena Carter?”
Bianca turned immediately. “That’s you.” She touched Lena’s arm briefly. “Good luck.”
“Thank you.” Lena stood and smoothed her jacket. “You too.”
She started toward the door and then the woman with the tablet looked up.
“Bianca Holmes?”
Bianca blinked. “Yes?”
“This way please.”
Lena paused. She watched as Bianca was directed toward the same corridor the other candidates had been going into. A different door from the one the woman with the tablet was now gesturing her toward.
She and Bianca were being sent in opposite directions.
“Miss Carter.”
She looked up. The woman with the tablet was watching her with polite patience, already gesturing down the corridor.
“Sorry.” Lena fell into step behind her.
The corridor they moved through was quieter than the rest of the floor. The ceiling was higher. The carpet changed. Even the light felt different here. Lena noticed all of it without meaning to. She had always been like that. Details found her whether she was looking for them or not.
They stopped in front of a door that was clearly not a standard interview room. Heavier. Darker wood. No nameplate but the kind of door that didn’t need one.
The woman gestured toward it.
“You can go in,” she said simply.
Then she turned and walked back the way they had come.
Lena stood in front of the door alone for a moment. Then she pushed it open and stepped inside.
The office was large and quiet. Wall sized windows along the far wall. A desk that sat in the center of the room like it had always been there. The man behind it had his head slightly lowered, a pen moving across whatever he was looking at, his posture relaxed and entirely unhurried.
Something about it tugged at her immediately. Then her eyes found the nameplate on the desk.
Roman Holt. CEO.
She stopped walking and paused at a spot. Why was she in the CEO’s office? The man behind the desk looked up. Lena’s hand went to her mouth.
It was him. The man whose private elevator she had ridden without knowing. The one whose chest she had accidentally landed against not an hour ago. The one who had pointed her in the right direction and walked away like it was nothing.
He was the CEO.
“Hello, Lena.”
- Writer
