Willa & the Extraordinary Internship

CH. 1

Almost everyone says their first job won't be permanent. I said it, too. Turns out, unlike those other people, I was the only one still here after a year. For most, that first job is the one they get excited about, mostly because all their other friends were getting jobs and interviews and engaged, and it's all about keeping up with the pack. But everyone knows that the first job is the first pancake. You know, when the burners are just getting hot and you're a little too eager and drizzle the pancake mix onto it. It makes the right fizzy, burning noise but it never becomes perfectly round and golden. That's only reserved for the second pancake.

There. 

As a slightly-chipped nail decisively hit the period key, the first paragraph of Willa Grainger's novel was complete. Satisfaction bloomed from the tip of her nail to the toes of her feet to the top of her fire hydrant-red hair. It was so small a thing, so simple, and yet she felt inordinately accomplished.

"Willa!" came the exasperated huff of Paige Grimsby, instantaneously breaking Willa's stream of thought. "You know I don't care if you work on your own writing when you're here, but I really need you to get on Twitter and create some buzz about Simeon Lee and the Horned Homunculus."

Even though her boss was still safely tucked away in her office, Willa quickly minimized the open Microsoft Word document guiltily. "Sorry!" she called back. "I'll do that now."

Clicking the web browser tab, she waited patiently while the archaic PC grumbled to life, the Twitter homepage opening at a painfully slow, dial-up speed. She'd been doing this for a year, managing Paige's exponentially growing social networking sites. Each time the newest craze erupted, Paige would tell Willa to create an account @PaigeGrimsby for her fans to communicate with her on. Someone, somewhere had told Paige that social networking was the mythical in thing to do, and in typical Paige fashion, the forty-two year old author had plunged in headfirst into a virtual world meant for people twenty years her junior. Eventually that realization sank in and she'd decided to hire someone to do it for her. Enter Willa.

She stared at the screen, unsure of what to write, especially considering she knew next to nothing about the book except for the title. Paige had a tendency to be pretty squirrely about her writing process, especially when it came to sharing information with fans, mostly because it meant divulging that same information to Willa first, who even after a year wasn't in the sacred circle of trust.

Finally, "Hashtag Summer 2016," Willa said out loud as she typed. #Summer2016 The finale of Grimsby's Simeon Lee series will leave you horny for more.

"That's really terrible," she said to no one in particular. She hit submit anyway.

~*~*~*~

"Are you going to stare at that thing all day?" Willa couldn't help the accusation in her tone. Even when she wasn't reading or responding to a text, Cyn had the bad habit of dangling it between her perfectly-manicured fingers, like she was showing off that at any second, a really important message could be sent to her. But that was Cyn, a showboat.

In typical Cyn fashion, she wasn't even fazed. "Look," she jutted her phone out, arm extended over her iced green tea.

The best place to get iced green tea was The Little Sunflower, a hole-in-the-wall industrial building that had long since been repainted a charming yellow and boasted impressive wall murals of fields of sunflowers within. The Little Sunflower was a pseudo-Parisian patisserie, serving exquisite pastries and lunchtime delicacies like soups, sandwiches, and hunks of freshly baked baguettes.

"What am I looking at?" Willa asked, slightly distracted by the menu. She couldn't decide if she wanted the chicken puff, a flaky pastry filled inside with ground chicken, onion, and cumin, or the more traditional potato and leek soup with a piece of crusty bread.

With a long-suffering sigh, Cyn gestured at the screen. "Eye candy."

Willa glanced. Wow. The boy was seriously hot, and not just normal-hot, but could-have-walked-right-off-the-page-of-an-Abercrombie-&-Fitch-glossy-magazine-page hot. In block lettering beneath the photo was the name GRAYSON. Funny, Cyn tended to date guys with names like Xavier or Axel. In fact, Willa was pretty sure all of the men in Cyn's life had had an X somewhere in their name.

"He's okay." Willa didn't know why she felt the need to downplay Grayson's hotness. Maybe she was jealous. Maybe she just didn't want to play into Cyn's obvious need to be envied.

"O-kay?" Cyn repeated, slightly offended, drawing the word out into two long syllables. "Just okay?"

Willa shifted uncomfortably. She'd been friends with Cyn since college, but they'd never hung out this much before, one on one. Maryam was normally there to complete their quaint threesome, and without her, Willa was acutely aware of how overwhelming Cyn could be. Then again, with her sparkling peridot eyes, pointy elf chin, and the infamous slash of orange lipstick, she usually tended to look a little too overwhelming for most people. "He's good looking," she said finally. Grudgingly.

Somewhat mollified, Cyn made a little hmphing noise and turned her attention back to her phone. "You have a date tonight, right?"

"Yes." Not that she wanted to go. Dating was a hurdle to begin with, and considering that the Internet was the date rapist's sandbox, Willa was less than enthusiastic about the latest gambit Cyn was putting her through.

Apparently there was a plethora of social etiquette regarding Tinder dating, according to Cyn. "That guy," Cyn had pointed out when Willa had found a Damian who was easy on the eyes, "has his arm around a girl in his profile pic. Unless that's his mother, which it definitely isn't, there's no reason for a guy to use that for his picture, ya dig? And if it is his mother, that's a whole new level of weird. Who uses a mommy-and-me shot when they're trying to get laid?" Willa had then been subjected to Professor Cynthia Smoak's lecture about how guys who include other chicks in their photos are master manipulators who are trying to covertly send the impression that because anonymous bimbo #1 likes him enough to cozy up to him for that photo, he's clearly an in-demand catch and therefore desirable to the rest of the anonymous bimbo population on Tinder. It made sense, which was sort of terrifying in and of itself.

Then there were guys like Marcus, Stefan, and David, those stereotypical two-syllable jock types whose accounts displayed painstakingly posed upper body shots, with elaborate ink rippling over tanned, firm flesh. "Pass," Cyn snorted. "These are the guys for whom high school never really ends. Ten out of ten they just wanna hook up and I'm pretty sure David's tattoo doesn't mean what he thinks it means."

Geoff, on the other hand, looked completely down to earth, from his sensible Polo to his slightly sheepish smile. To Willa it seemed to say "I want to be in a relationship but at the same time I'm really awkward and uncomfortable putting myself out there like this." She couldn't help but feel a rush of camaraderie with him.

"Jeff with a G? Oh my god, how pretentious," Cyn cackled.

"He can't help what his parents named him," Willa defended, feeling protective of sweet, sheepish Geoff.

"Uh," Cyn said pointedly, "his 'About Me' section says he identifies as a bibliophile. I guarantee he only put that to weed out anyone who doesn't have a baccalaureate."

While they were on the subject of names, Willa couldn't help but think Cyn should have been short for "Cynical".

Author's Note: Hi, everyone! Whether you stumbled upon this story by happy accident or because you're a fan of Cinder and the Stone Man, I hope that you enjoy Willa's story! I'm writing this story through the month of November as part of NaNoWriMo and I hope you'll all help to cheer me on as I attempt to make the 50,000 word hurdle! Thanks for reading and as always, votes and comments are appreciated :)