The Sponsor

Wairimu

A supplier had just hit on her.

"Your house is very clean, can I park my car there tonight?"

It was leery and dirty, it made her want to take a shower.

A social media influencer in her extravagant hairstyle, converse shoes, denim skirt and a top that cut shy off her belly button was seated at the waiting room tapping her converse wearing feet on the floor.

She was just from raising hell. Her cheque was overdue, "I haven't paid my rent, my electricity bill, my water bill, urgh!" She was livid. Wairimu had calmed her down with a smile and assurances that the finance team would sort her out as soon as they arrived.

She was smiling falsely so often now she was afraid her face would crack. She had always wondered why receptionists were ever rude. Now she understood why.

It was barely eight in the morning when the newspapers arrived. She started arranging them. Leaning so that her flowy flowery skirt exposed the back of her thighs. She had asked her supervisor, the new assistant COO if she could wear jeans trousers, "You have to look the part," she had barked without looking at her.

After she was done arranging her newspapers she called the tea lady to stand in for her and she picked up the newspapers and hobbled to the first floor in her flowy skirt, wedge heels and cream blouse.

She was beginning to understand the people she was distributing newspapers to. The HR was ever in a mood because she was always grappling with turnover problems. She was always on the phone arranging interviews and on her MacBook scrolling through CV's. Some days she felt her job was harder than hers. She knocked, opened the door, placed the newspapers on her white table and smiled.

"Thank you Wairimu," she murmured to her laptop screen.

"You're welcome ma'am."

She went to the fifth floor. The creative and the social media department. The office was always a ghost town, until noon or thereof. She sometimes wondered how things got done on this side. She left the papers for the account directors and social media managers and closed their office doors behind her.

She hobbled over to the creative directors. One of them was in, Wilfred. Dark, lean, dread-locked, his office had a white desk, red leather couches and all types of toy cars on the shelf. He was sketching something on a white canvas.

"What's that about?"

"Well, this is a story board; a new idea we are trying to pitch to client."

She let that word "Idea" settle in her tongue. She found it fascinating that she was in a business that sold ideas. It might as well be selling air."

"How do you arrive at these so called ideas?"

"It's all boring really. We get a client brief, then have a creative session, a lot of whisky is involved and then we go with the idea that doesn't make us roll our eyes – You should attend one."

"Me?"

"Well I don't see anyone else in this office."

"I will, when I get someone to hold the reception desk long enough that I'm not fired."

He smiled and got back to his story board and Wairimu faded to the IT floor on the seventh floor. She gave all the honchos their papers including the Tech Lead who had told her he would be coming for his at her table.

"You're glowing," he said when she entered his office holding his papers.

They hugged and then stayed locked together for a minute too long.

"I told you, I would be getting my newspapers from your desk?"

"I want too," Wairimu said blushing, "And well it's kind of my job."

She looked around his desk and realized that he was busy, "Are we still on for lunch?"

"Of course, you don't even have to ask."

"This time it's my treat," she said closing the door behind her.

At the ninth floor, the influencer was still tapping her feet. Wairimu eyeballed her desktop computer, she had a new email. She opened it. It was from the COO. He wanted another meeting with her. Her heart immediately sunk. 'What is it this time, are they going to tell me to stand in for the janitor, or the tea lady?' She decided that she had to draw the line somewhere. If it was another unscrupulous position she would walk.