Under the Lights

“Three little birds, sat on my window, and they told me I don’t need to worry…”

I lightly hummed along to the cheerful music streaming from the stereo, softly singing along as my fingers tapped on the keys on my keyboard. As I waited for my computer to log me in, I leaned over to glance at the phone to see if it had recorded any missed calls since yesterday. Noting that I had a few missed calls and fewer voicemails, I reached over and lifted the phone from the receiver and proceeded to take care of them. Most of the voicemails were reminders for some of Rage’s events. One of the best parts of my job was to attend the events and photograph them. Most of the time, they were just to fill my never-ending portfolio.

When I completed checking them and my computer was accessible, I immediately double-clicked the Google Chrome icon. Within a minute, the browser was open and I could get to my emails. Unsurprisingly enough, I had several emails which consisted of various reminders about upcoming weekly meetings and assignments. Only about five of them concerned my job, so I pulled out my planner and took a glimpse at the calendar hanging up on the wall and got to work to my morning routine. Usually when I finished replying to my emails, I would go to the Staff Lounge and grab myself a steaming cup of coffee and whatever the breakfast item to grace the table was to keep myself on task for the rest of the day.

In the middle of my fourth email, the door swung open to reveal a petite girl with bright red hair and intense hazel doe eyes. Raising an eyebrow, I looked at her as if to ask for an explanation, wondering why on earth the slender girl needed me.

“Rachelle,” I stated, reverting my eyes to the computer screen in front of me. The subtle clicking of Rachelle’s scarlet pumps and the crackling of her watermelon-scented gum interrupted me abruptly as she plopped herself in one of the chairs in front of my desk.

“Your intern is here!” trilled Rachelle excitedly, to which I groaned and rolled my eyes.

“Already? Ugh, I don’t even know why I have to do this. She’s not even a photographer!” I complained as I slid out of my chair and pressed the button to shut off the monitor.

“Because it’s your turn to show around a new intern, and it’s also to promote unity. We’re supposed to be a team, remember?” said Rachelle, cracking me a toothy smile. I rolled my eyes in response.

“All right. It’s not that I don’t want to show around an intern, but the fact that she’s not a photographer too just took me by surprise. Makes no sense to me,” I explained, leading her out of the room and shutting the door behind me.

“It’ll work out brilliantly, I promise. I saw her from the window, so she’s probably just gotten into the lobby with Daisy.”

I nodded my head as I pressed the button for the elevator, taking mental note that her intern was with the receptionist.

“You know, if we took the stairs instead, we would already be downstairs,” said Rachelle impatiently as the door for the elevator opened.

“Bite me,” I told her, resulting in a flick at my shoulder.

We parted ways downstairs as I reached the front of the building, where I saw a slim blonde uncomfortably walking through the door. I approached her and gave her a large smile before embracing her with a small hug as I tried to recollect all the information I was given about her.

“Hello there!” I greeted as I pulled away, “my name is Gabriela Baudin, and you must be Tess Moore, am I right?”

“Yeah.”

She’s a quiet one, isn’t she? I thought to myself. “Great! You’re an American as well, I see. We’ll get along swell then. Would you like me to give you a quick tour of the building?”

“Yeah, sure. That would be great, thank you,” she said politely.

“Splendid! So, this entire floor is just the reception area. Guests usually check in with Daisy, she’s the woman at the desk. Since you work here now, we’ve got to get you a lanyard. When we’re finished with the tour, I can take your picture in the back room behind her desk and get that cleared for you so you can come in without any issues. There’s also a bunch of storage rooms here for old equipment and things of that nature, but I don’t imagine you’ll be making very many trips down here for it.”

I looked over at Tess to see if she’d understood, and judging by her expression, she was soaking up the information like a sponge. I smiled as I proceeded to lead her towards Daisy’s desk.

“Daisy, this is the new intern for the writing department, Tess Moore. Tess, meet Daisy Roswell,” I stated, gesturing from the thirty year old brunette with the smile lines to the blonde girl beside me. “We’ll be coming back after I give her the grand tour to get her photo taken for her very own lanyard.”

Tess smiled shyly as Daisy grinned at her. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Tess. You’ll have loads of fun working here, I promise.”

“She’s right, we don’t bite—unless you want us to. But that’s beside the point. Bye Daisy!” I said as I led Tess towards the elevator and pressed the button.

“Daisy seems nice,” she commented quietly, and I chuckled.

“She’s very motherly, a good-tempered sweetheart. But watch out for her on April Fool’s Day, she’s a sneaky one. Acts annoyed the week before and then cackles at you like a witch whenever you get pranked. Sometimes she plays tricks on people, sometimes she doesn’t. Depends on who got on her bad side or not. By the way, the people here are very fond of playing tricks on each other regularly, and we publish at least one fake article to trick the readers on April Fools. It’s a good time here, we all get along quite well.

“There are more Americans than us here, I promise. Only a few more, but I’m not complaining. My good friend, Rachelle—redhead with a pixie cut, barely over five foot—is also an American. You’ll love her. The head of the writer’s department, Kristin, is actually Australian, but overall, there aren’t many other people who aren’t from the UK working here. They look for the best of the best, and the fact that you’re working for the heads of the writing department and not one of the other writers is impressive. Whatever essay you must’ve written or whatever, it must’ve been pretty damn good.”

The elevator dinged, and I took that as an opportunity to take a breath as we exited. “This right here is the second floor. As you can see, these are all pretty much offices. The ones over to the right of the space are larger, as you can see, and those are where the writers, editors, or anyone involved with the writing process work. The photographers, interviewers, social networking advisors, et cetera have smaller offices because the majority of us do the work upstairs or don’t need a lot of office space to do our jobs.

“Upstairs is usually where all the photo shoots and interviews happen, along with some of the other things. You’ll get soundbites of the interviews for your articles, which you’ll dissect and write out at your desk once you’re higher up. Right now, since you’re an intern, you’ll probably be running errands for the other employees.

“As you may or may not know, we’re also known for funding and sponsoring a lot of people. If you do any work, you’ll probably be dealing with some of the smaller sponsors as well as helping out with the research and whatnot. Occasionally, you might be included in the editing process if we’re swamped with interviews and whatnot, but that doesn’t happen often. You usually have to work your way up to doing actual work.

“Now,” I paused as I approached a door, “I’ll introduce you to the best part of Rage headquarters. Are you ready for it?”

Tess nodded with a smile, and a grin spread on my face as I pushed the door open to reveal the lounge. “Ta-da! This is the lounge. If we have a quiet day or we have all our work done, most of us hang around here and mess off a bit. This is the best place to chill out and have a good time. As you can see, we’ve got a few computers, chairs, and desks. As you venture further back, that’s really where the party is. There’s a television over there, a few bean bag chairs and couches, and the food table. We all take turns bringing food for breakfast and lunch, but you’ll learn about that later.

“Usually I come over here after my morning routine when I first come in. Come to think of it, let’s go to the back. No one else is here, most of them don’t start filing in until at least an hour after work’s started,” I explained as I maneuvered us towards the back of the room. “Help yourself to the strawberry crêpes and coffee and whatnot, but not right now. I won’t show you the third floor since you probably won’t be doing much work in there, if any at all. And that’s basically the gist of the building, if you need any help, you can always come find me at my office. I’ll show that to you after you get your lanyard and then I’ll take you over to the writer’s department and you can get yourself settled over there. How does that sound?”

“I think I’ve got it all down,” said Tess with much ease in her voice. I led us out of the lounge and shut the door behind us, walking back towards the elevator.

“Good to hear! It shouldn’t be too hard, and even though the building sounds huge now, it’ll start feeling a lot smaller when everyone comes in. It’s a pretty laidback environment, unless you’re one of the people dealing with the corporate stuff. Fortunately, they work from their own fancy offices on some other planet so we don’t really have to worry much about them. Now, are you ready to get your super-official Rage lanyard?” I asked, pressing the button to call the elevator up.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” assured Tess.

“Now that’s what I like to hear!” I exclaimed.

The elevator doors pulled open and we entered as I pressed the round ‘G’ button. She’s not too bad. Super quiet, but that’s all right. I like her.