What You Work For

“Olivia,” a chipper female voice said.

I was snatched out of my own head. “Yes?”

“I’m Patricia McDonald. I’m your agent,” she extended her hand.

I took it. “It’s wonderful to meet you. I’m assuming you’re Natalie Welding? My publicist?”

The younger woman nodded. “Pleasure to meet you. Congratulations, by the way. You must be thrilled.”

I nodded. “Absolutely. But I’m really curious to hear what you all have planned for the next few days.”

“Right, well,” Patricia stood up. “You’ll have a meeting with the Penguins management to sign a contract as soon as you get back to Pittsburgh. I’ll be present for that, as will Natalie. You’ll have a photo shoot in your pads and such then too. Today, you’ll have a small shoot where you’ll just be wearing your jersey from yesterday and it seems you have on Penguins attire now, so they’ll probably get a few shots of that.” She was obviously a talker. “But right now, we’re going to run through a few things. Nat, you want to go first?”

Natalie nodded and slid a box across the table at me. “This is now your lifeline. All your contacts and pictures have been transferred.” It was a white iPhone.

“Wow,” I said. I could finally get rid of my piece of shit BlackBerry. I’d had it since my freshman year of college, nearly five years ago. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” Natalie waved it off. “I’ve set you up a twitter to keep in touch with fans. Your handle is Olivie00DuPont. The Penguins approved your request for that number, by the way. You’re a smart girl, you can figure out how to work your account.” She then launched into a speech for my family about how what they did reflected me. I just blocked it out and started clicking around on my new phone. I was such a nerd.

Getting onto my twitter, I decided to tweet my first tweet.

‘@Olivia00DuPont- So, Twitter, here I am. What are you gonna do with me?’

I looked at my followers. Somehow, I already had nearly 5,000 people following me. They had to have made an announcement before this. There was just no way.

“Olivia,” Patricia said. “Are you ready for the photoshoot?”

I looked up. “Oh! Yeah, lead the way.”

I said goodbye to my family and was lead out of the room and downstairs. I saw Gabe and Ryan with their own entourages and we all exchanged smiles.

“Following you on Twitter!” they both yelled out to me.

I took out my phone. “I’ll get you guys too!”

‘@Olivia00DuPont- Holla at my boys @RNH_93 and @GabeLandeskog92! Had a great time getting to know them at the draft. Wish we’d be playing together!’

‘@RNH_93- I’ll just kick both your asses when we play! #howboutthat’

‘@GabeLandeskog92- Big ego much? @Olivia00DuPont and I could take you.’

I laughed and tucked my phone into my bag as I was seated in a chair to be prepped. I could get used to this.