"Little Girl" - lrh

05

While sitting in my office at work, rummaging through the abundance of paperwork that has been stacked there since last month, I come across a post-it sticking to the first page of one in the middle:

TOP PRIORITY !!!!

I glance at the date then panic. It was set on my desk the first of the month and I threw it in the middle. Tossing almost everything else off my desk, my hands fly to the keyboard and I begin starting up the statement.

"Mr. Hemmings?" A knock on my door echoes through the room but I'm too busy typing to acknowledge it. "Mr. Hemmings, Mr. Leyon wants to speak with you."

"I'm busy," I don't spare the visitor a glance.

"He said it was top priority," my fingers freeze and my eyes side-glance the paper laying beside my monitor.

"Just tell him I'm finishing it up and I'll have it done by the time I'm out."

"Alright," I finally look up to see the office secretary nervously writing down on her notepad before turning away. I sigh and go back to typing frantically; Sending her back to him will buy me very little time but it's worth a shot.

"Hemmings!" I hear Mr. Leyon bellow from down the hall. Sweat breaks out on my forehead and I quickly move to print the paper. I can hear his footsteps tromping through the entire floor and I know he's getting closer.

"C'mon, c'mon!" I hit the printer as it starts up, looking between it and Leyon, the secretary scurrying behind him as if she thinks she can stop him.

"Hemmings!" He shouts again and I grab the paper off the printer and hand it to him.

"There you go, Mr. Leyon. Top priority is top priority," He blinks, looking at the paper then back at me before gently taking it. His eyes scan over the words and I feel my palms getting sweaty. I hope I did it right. I can't afford to lose this job.

"How did you manage to fit a month's worth of information into this statement and have it freshly printed?" Mr. Leyon holds up the paper and I attempt to look at the letters but can't even remember what I wrote.

"Uh, determination and fear?" I ask more than tell. "Plus, you always mention how you love the feel of freshly printed paper. I just held onto it for you." I try to force my award-winning smile, hoping he doesn't know I actually finished it in, like, two minutes.

Mr. Leyon looks over the paper again, a small smile spreading across his face.

"You did good, Hemmings."

"I did?" My face brightens and I feel like I'm 5 again.

"You're on your way to promotional status," Mr. Leyon shakes my hand before exiting my office. I stand there in surprise from his last statement. Promotional status? I have been working for months to get a promotion and all it took was a quick type up of an important statement to get me a guarantee. If fucking up gets me farther in life I think I need to do it more often.

"Congratulations, Mr. Hemmings," the secretary says from her spot in the door, a smile on her face.

"Thank you," I nod, a huge smile on mine.

"Uhm, I'm not sure if you knew this, but I'm Bethany. I'm newer," she offers her hand to me. I shake it and look her over. She doesn't look much different from the old secretary we had, which is probably why I didn't take notice that she was, in fact, new. The old secretary would've told me to march my sorry ass to Mr. Leyon's office immediately; Bethany did as I told her to and I didn't even take notice of that.

"Nice to meet you, Bethany."

"It's Luke, right?"

"Yeah."