You, Me and Everything in Between

01 | launch

0 1

l a u n c h

THINGS COULDN'T GET any worse, I decided. Adelaide's lucky jacket carried no luck whatsoever. My train was delayed an entire fifteen minutes, I had to run to the building, a run through which I discovered the fact that, contrary to popular belief, running in high heeled shoes was not possible no matter how hard movies tried to convince you otherwise. The force of the fall I faced on my way ripped my blouse and dirtied Adelaide's conveniently white jacket.

            When I finally arrived at the lift lobby of the building, I got notified by a security guard that this exact lift, the only one that I didn't have to wait an approximate amount of ten minutes for, was slightly dysfunctional and had the tendency to stop midway. However, because of the fact that I was seven minutes late for my interview, I ignored him and pressed the button of the twelfth floor without hesitation. When the elevator dinged, way too quickly to be possible with our current physics abilities, the doors wouldn't open.

             Despite my efforts to open the doors through pressing the opening button, they only opened enough for a smurf to barely squeeze through. Eventually, I got help from some of the employees on that floor and successfully escaped the stupid lift only to find out that I was on the fifth floor. It explained the quick arrival, I thought, but in no way was a good thing.

              I decided not to wait for any more possibly dysfunctional lifts to arrive and ran two floors up the stairs before taking off my shoes and running the remaining five floors up as quickly as I could. The run was excruciatingly painful for my legs despite all my years of dance and track.

             By the time I arrived at the interview room, I was not only a sweaty, dirty mess in a ripped blouse.

             I was a sweaty, dirty, barefooted mess in a ripped blouse who was twenty-three minutes late to a possibly life-changing interview.

            My interviewer was a very tall lady with glasses and a grumpy expression, she looked like one of the people who inspired Dr Seuss to create the Grinch. So when I entered the room, she just eyed me up and down with the most judgmental glare I have ever had to face in my entire life and said, "You, Madame, are very late. And although I cannot do anything now, I think I can negotiate a rescheduling for your interview. You look like you need the job."

            After she said that, I realised that I have never felt more offended in my life, it was more painful than the throbbing in my thighs. With that said, she simply exited the room leaving me inside there slightly frozen from the entire exchange.

            My phone rang in my pocket. Adam from the bar. Into the phone, a little too harshly I said, "What?"

            "Brody called in sick, I need you here."

            "My shift's not until seven," I grumbled into the speaker, using my free hand to remove the hair-tie from my hair. "It's not like anyone shows up there anyway. You'll be fine on your own."

            "Carlos doesn't like it when there's only one person behind the bar, you know that. It makes it look like we're running low on crew."

            "That's because we are."

            "Yeah," he sighed. "But he doesn't want anyone to know that. Now just come on here, I don't want to get fired."