I'll Be Seeing You

Retrospect

God, she was nervous. Lydia tried to keep her breakfast down as she walked into 1260 Avenue of the Americas. She opened and closed her sweaty palms, willing her heart rate to slow down. The otherwise silent lobby reverberated with the sound of her heels clacking on the marble. If she listened closely, she could also hear the soft squish of her feet against the inside leather of her stilettos.

"The hardest part is the first day," she reminded herself under her breathe as she approached the elevators. She heaved a sigh of relief that there was no one around to hear her talking to herself.

She had to get a grip. It wasn't like she didn't know this was coming. Work was part of everyone's life. She just wasn't ready yet. It had only been six weeks since she hugged her friends goodbye at graduation. Six weeks – that was a total of forty-two days. No one could possibly have a life plan in forty-two days but Lydia's parents hadn't given her the chance to find out.

On day thirty-four, they had sat her down and told her in no uncertain terms, she was finding a job and moving out. Lydia sighed replaying the memory in her head. She, seated in her pajamas on the couch scrolling aimlessly through the channels. Not much was on TV in the middle of the day. Her mom and dad rounding a corner, hovering in the doorway of the living room. In retrospect, it seemed like they were talking each other into it. She imagined they were negotiating which parents would play good cop this round. Turns out, there was no good cop. They were a united front this time. They informed her she had a deadline which happened to be only a week away. In that time, she had to get it together because they couldn't keep watching the trainwreck in their own house.

To be fair, they hadn't used the word trainwreck. They had been gentler. They said they understood how she was feeling but it was time to face the day. Here she was, facing the day with a heart rate that made her feel lightheaded.

Stepping into the elevator, she tried to focus. "It's just a job" she whispered to herself. She swallowed the familiar lump of anxiety in her throat and squeezed her legs together in an attempt to quell the nauseous slowly building. "It's okay. You're not stuck here. You won't get stuck here." Suddenly the elevator was feeling more like a cage and less like a path to adventure.

10, 11, 12 ... she, along with her heart rate, rose higher and higher until she was deposited on the twenty-second floor in front of C.K. Advertising.

She practically leapt out of the elevator. Why did everything feel so tight all of a sudden? She paused in front of the door, pulling her turtleneck away from her throat. She needed air. She tried one of the meditation techniques she had read about in school, focus on something else. She stared at the large brass plaque to the right of the door. C.K. Advertising was written in big, bold, letters engraved with gold. She briefly wondered who had designed the plaque. Had they been proud of the design or had it been a stock font? Her mind drifted to her time in the music studio at school. She would watch the art students design album covers for projects. They'd sit near the musicians and singers for "inspiration." She figured they just liked the backdrop of a soundtrack as they designed cover art for it. She could practically smell the scent of acrylic paint drying on canvas mixing with fresh charcoal being stirred up into the air by one student or another. She felt her heart rate lowering. She remembered what she was capable of. Smoothing down her skirt and wiping her sweaty palms on it in the process, Lydia took a deep breath and opened the front door. She could do this.

"Good morning, and welcome to C.K." Lydia looked around for the mysterious voice. The voice laughed.

"Over here."

Lydia made a full circle before spotting a pretty brunette a few years older than her sitting at a high top in the far corner giving her a polite wave. She pasted a shaky smile on her face and began to cross the expansive tile floor. She hoped she was exuding confidence.