Martha Fletcher has only ever had one job- Executive Assistant to Sam Courtenay.
She'll schedule his diary, pick up his dry cleaning, usher girls out of his apartment first thing in the morning... nothing was out of bounds until one night, that blur...
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When Martha and I first appeared to be more than 'just friends', I worried about what that would mean for us when we were at work. Unsure whether we'd be able to keep it strictly professional at work, I put some distance between us, allowing Evie to make use of Martha's assistance while I struggled to make sense of everything solo. Naturally, without Martha at my side to guide me through almost everything work related, I was useless. I couldn't schedule my diary for shit, I would never respond to any emails and I couldn't even figure out where all my meetings with up and coming artists were. Martha Fletcher, as a personal assistant, was indispensable. Which is why, at the first opportunity, I forbade her from working with Evie and told her that she would answer only to me.
Of course, now that we've been officially for quite some time, I was even more worried about what it meant for us to be in a relationship while juggling our professional lives, too. I knew for a fact that Martha worried about it- she's heard whispers from some of the junior staff that she's only in the position that she's in because she slept her way to the top but little do they know that is farther from the truth than Mercury is to Pluto. They can try and say that is the case, however, those of us in the know can attest to its ludicrousness.
No, Martha didn't become my personal assistant because she and I are involved; she became my assistant because one day, she turned up, gave me a long lecture about how I was in desperate need of an assistant, wouldn't take no for an answer, dictated her terms and salary and then came back the next morning to fulfil her promise to the best thing that ever happened to me, work-wise. I had to admire her gutsy nature. Since that day, she's continued to make me see that without her, I'd be in deep shit.
That didn't mean that the whispered gossip died down. In fact, whenever we get a new member of staff and they find out that not only is Martha my assistant but she and I are dating, talk of it starts up again, only this time, with more fervour. Last week, the Saturday receptionist started and was soon making quips that were quite frankly derogatory to Martha's position in the company.
While Martha Fletcher might not come from an art background, she has an eye for what people will like and can make connections with customers, as well as featured artists, that puts seasoned pros to shame. Our curator, Inell Whitlock, hated Martha at the beginning and they clashed every time they were in the same room but now, Inell will go to Martha to run things past her before going ahead with things. Inell respected Martha's eye for detail but she also knew that if Martha spoke, she spoke on my behalf. It was innate how she was able to pre-empt all my thoughts and decisions so staff would often make Martha their port of call if something needed signing off on at short notice.
It made my life easier but part of me was scared what would happen when Martha eventually does move on. She's been talking more and more about continuing with her education; having dropped out of school with only a few months left before she got her HSC, the equivalent to our A-Levels, from what I could tell, she was keen to complete and move on to gain a degree. She even knew what she'd want to read at university- Media and Communication at Goldsmiths. Soon enough, if all went as planned, she'd be enrolling for the course in September which would mean her having to scale back her work here.
