When We Were Young

XXVI: woman like me

It's Tuesday and the clock just hit one.

I approach Dr. Riemann--Eleanor's door. On it there's a sticky note written in her messy scrawl with the sentence "Out for lunch".

Patiently, I stand outside her door, tapping my foot nervously.

It's my first day at work today. Before leaving for class this morning, I was unbearably anxious, I almost just went back to bed and ignored the whole day. At least I had Gray there to ease some of that nervous energy.

"If you tap that spoon any harder, we're going to get a noise complaint."

Gray appeared from his bedroom that morning, wearing only sweatpants as he normally did so early on in the day. He's carrying his laptop, probably planning to work in the kitchen.

"Sorry." I dropped the spoon back in my bowl of cereal.

He looked concerned, probably at my lack of a witty retort. "What's wrong, Rick?"

I debated just telling him that nothing was wrong, but I knew that he wouldn't believe me. He probably already had a good idea of the problem anyways.

"Nerves."

My stomach began hurting as I thought about the day ahead of me.

"You might do horribly."

I looked up from my bowl, scowling at him. "Wow, thanks."

"But that's normal. On my first day at my job, I literally called my supervisor the wrong name on two separate occasions. And then, I spilled my coffee on one of the models we were signing with."

My eyebrows rose. "Did you actually?"

He ran his hands through his hair. "Yup, I turned around and walked right into her. Thought I was going to be fired on the spot. Turns out that she wanted the job more than we needed her."

I couldn't help but smile at the idea of a younger Gray flushing red after that incident and profusely apologizing. "You're a clutz."

"Gee, thanks." He rolled his eyes, but I could tell that he was relieved to see me more lighthearted.

"Okay, so no coffee. And I know her name, so I'm good on those fronts."

Placing his laptop down on the table across from me, he leaned back in his chair. "Exactly, you're already two steps ahead of where I was."

I proceeded to eat my cereal, feeling lighter. However, that feeling didn't last very long.

I dropped my spoon again.

"What if I don't understand the documents? She's going to think I'm stupid!"

Gray stopped typing, eyes softening as he saw my flustered face. "She's not going to think you're stupid because you're not. It's your first day, I don't think she expects you to be a master at reading all her historical stuff."

I rubbed my hand over my eyebrow, pondering all the possible ways that I could mess up today.

He continued, "Rick, you live for this stuff. I've seen you pouring through your history textbook and begging me to watch those boring world war documentaries with you. Your professor chose you for a reason, I'm sure she'll want you even if you make a minor error on your first day."

The new presence of his hand on my forearm calmed me slightly. I was being a bit irrational. Deeply exhaling, I put my other hand on top of his and looked into his warm brown eyes. "Thank you. Can we invite the gang over tonight and do a good old fashioned movie night? We haven't done one since reading week ended and I promise no boring world war 2 documentaries."