Lights Will Guide You Home

Claire

“One Fillet Steak…and for you, ma’am?” said the waiter as he took down Rae’s order and turned to me.

  “Um…” I’m a very indecisive person. Even for the smallest of things. “A Chicken Cordon Bleu, please,” I said after a lot of mental debate.

“One Chicken Cordon Bleu,” the waiter repeated. “Anything else?” he asked.

 “No, thank you,” I said politely, as we handed back our menus.

 We were out for dinner at Ludwig’s Garten celebrating our first successful attempt at making Beef Wellingtons. As retarded as that sounds, it was what we always did. Neither of us were great cooks – although Rae is far better than I am – and every time we pull off a dish perfectly, it’s quite a big deal.

 Speaking of cooking, that is in fact how I met Rae two years ago. Once I began living alone, canned food began to sicken me after a while. I could always ask dad to send over a cook but I really wanted to live independently like any other normal woman my age would. That’s when I decided to take up cooking classes. On my first day, I rushed in late. The only empty spot in the room was the one next to Rae. We bonded quickly and found that we got along really well in spite of being very different people.

 Raelynn Coles, now 25, is a brunette with pretty brown eyes. At first glance, she had struck me as quite reserve but she wasn’t. She was friendly and open but generally wary of men – which was because of her past, as I found out later. She was born in Galway, Ireland before her parents moved to America. An only child, she grew up in Barrington and had moved to Philadelphia three years ago to make a living. She had just start working at an upcoming architectural firm. Within a span of five months, she was promoted from junior designer to job captain.

 I was born in Chania, Greece – my mother’s hometown. But I was brought home to Philadelphia 2 months later. My mother died of a tumour when I was barely a year old, and the only memory I have of her is a vague image of her laughing as she shaded her eyes from the sun with her hand. Sometimes I look in the mirror and wonder how I never got any of my mother’s olive-skinned beauty. I am all American with my long blonde curls coupled with my father’s perpetually sparking blue eyes. Currently 25, I am the Marketing CEO of Watson Hotels. I’m still learning the ropes – being the sole heir, I have a long way to go, and a lot to learn about business management. I divide my time between working and my passion – children. Using up almost all of my trust fund, I built my dream – a welfare foundation for children called Braveheart, aimed at putting together various perspectives to creatively address the critical issues faced by the child welfare system. Nothing makes me happier than being able to help make their lives better.

 A month after we met, Rae had issues with her landlord. Frustrated and desperate, she asked me if she could bunk with me until she found another place. The temporary arrangement however, became a permanent one which brings us to where we are now – best friends, roommates and perfectly happy. Well, almost.

“Harry’s sick!” Raelynn complained, as we dug into the food that had just arrived.

“What happened?” I looked up at her, surprised. She’d told me about her boss before. Apparently she had picked up rumours that he got really touchy-feely with all his female employees. “Is all of that stuff you heard true?”

 “Yeah, and you know what?” She looked me straight in the eye, “he’s targeting me this time.” I made a horrified face as she continued, “so first it started with him asking me to come to his office a lot. I thought he liked my ideas and wanted me to help out with the latest project, I mean that’s what he made it seem like!He started asking me to stay back for work, and that’s why I’ve been getting home late since last week. It wasn’t so bad in the beginning, I mean it felt like we were just hanging out and working together. I did keep my eyes open because of what I had heard but the amount of interest he showed in my ideas, I thought he was genuinely interested. But he doesn’t even care about any of my ideas or the amount of hard work I had put into them! He was just interested in me. God, I should have known! That asshole!”

 “What did he do?” I asked her, concerned. What a perv!

 “First he started throwing all these compliments like he said, “such a young and beautiful woman like you in a big architectural firm is pretty impressive. A lot of people would find that attractive.” And that was fine. But later it got worse.” She deepened her voice and put on a ridiculous accent which would have been funny if the situation weren’t so disturbing andcontinued, “the best way to use that tool is like this,” and he’d come and put his arms around me, on the pretext of showing me.“Your silky brown hair is falling over your eyes,” he said once, pushing back in my hair in a weird way, “I want to see those beautiful brown eyes while you work.” “You must be really tired…” and he’d come stand behind me and try to massage my back.”

 I watched her literally butcher her beef fillet, anger flashing in her eyes. I could only imagine how she was feeling. My insides were queasy as I tried to wrap my mind around how sick her boss could get, how messed up his head was. Before I could bring myself to respond, she continued her rant.

 “And he’d purposely drop things and make me bend to pick them up. And his excuse for that? A fucking back surgery he has just gone through! And he always holds me by the waist! He’s even touched my arse once! He made it seem like an accident, but I’m sure he did it deliberately. That piece of crap! I feel so violated!!”

 She stabbed a chunk a meat furiously, digging her knife into it. “Rae, calm down…”I put my hand on her arm, trying to cool her off. She let go of her cutlery and it landed on her plate with a loud clatter. Several heads turned our way. Realizing she was attracting too much attention, she took a deep breath, composing herself.

 I squeezed her arm gently. “Get him sacked. If all you girls stand up against him and file a complaint or something they’ll have to kick him out, irrespective of whether he’s the head of the department or not.”

 She nodded. “Yeah…oh don’t worry, I’ll make sure he’s dealt with soon enough.” Her voice, though soft, rang with anger.

 We continued our meal as I talked to her about my day, Braveheart, and all kinds of random things. My strategy worked, and she was soon back to being her usual cheerful self again.