Orientation (Book one in the Thelma Berns: My Internship in Hell series)

Friday Morning

After a night of tossing and turning, and dreams featuring vagrants being run over by large, rusty cars, I managed to oversleep. Running late, I'd taken a quick no-hair-wash shower and hoped that putting it up in a bun would hide how dirty it was. Then I dressed, slapped on my minimal makeup with an even less expert hand than usual, and flew out of the house to head to work without even saying goodbye to my mom, who I could hear singing in the downstairs shower when I left.

Since I was late there weren't any parking places in the employee lot. I trolled around the lot, going down every aisle. Nothing. I moved around to the visitor lot and selected a spot as far from the front door as possible and ran inside. Kirk was at his podium.

"Thelma," he said. "I'm so glad you're here. We need to talk."

"Okay, I'll see you at lunch," I said, rushing past him. "I'm late for a one on one with Tonya."

He ran to catch up with me and grabbed me by the arm. "This is important," he said. He dropped my arm when another employee walked by and looked at us. "It can't wait until lunch time."

"Can it wait until I've talked to Tonya? I don't want to be late." I hopped from foot to foot, ready to keep making my way up the stairs. If I didn't get up there now I was going to be late. And what if it was another surprise meeting with Dana? All I needed was for her to be right about me being unreliable.

"Come right down to see me, as soon as it's done." His eyes darted around. "It's important."

"Okay, I'll be here," I was already resuming my sprint up the steps. "I'll see you then."

I had a tiny twinge of guilt that I hadn't mentioned the money. But I could tell him about that when I was done with Tonya, right?

I ran to my cubicle and dumped my things, grabbed my laptop and ran to Tonya's door. I stopped and smoothed my hair and took a deep breath, then went in.

"Good morning, Thelma," Tonya said. "How are you doing with that inventory list?"

"Good morning." I sat in one of the empty seats and snapped open the laptop. "We're getting there. I've found and cataloged about two thirds of the list. All I have left to do is to catalog the basement."

She wrinkled her nose. "You won't find much down there. Most things down there are broken or unusable."

I cleared my throat. "I heard a rumor that a past employee was selling items out of the basement," I said.

"Yes, like I said, it's considered to be mostly junk. I knew about that but it seemed almost like a cost savings." She leaned back in her chair and twiddled a pen between two fingers. "Otherwise we have to pay to haul that stuff away."

"Oh," I said. "So he wasn't stealing?"

"Not really."

"Is there any chance he was moving things to the basement to sell that weren't supposed to be there?"

"Yes, unfortunately, there is." Her lips pursed into a flat line. "I'd appreciate it if you could finish up your inventory by checking down there."

"Sure," I said. "Is there anything else?"

"You're doing a great job. I'm glad to see that you're making friends with team members and that you're taking initiative to get things done. That's the kind of thing we look for when we're interviewing for a co-op."

A little bird in my chest fell off it's perch and maybe died a little bit. A co-op? I wanted a job. A real one. With insurance and stuff.

"Thank you," I said, even though my tongue felt like I might've glued it to the roof of my mouth.