The New Hire Down the Hall Knew My Name Before HR Did novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Elevator
On his first morning the new underwriting hire says Renee's name and department before HR has given him a badge. That evening in the north stairwell she grabs his lanyard and kisses him.
The elevator lurched between the first floor and the second, and a stranger's coffee came across the car at me.
I was the last one on at 7:40.
I had the back wall and a box of my mother's kolaches held up over my head.
The lurch threw the whole crowd forward and then back.
A hand landed on the small of my back and held me up.
It was a big hand, flat and warm through my blazer, and it did not move once the car steadied.
The coffee had missed me by an inch and gone down the front of a man in a gray suit, who swore at the ceiling.
Nobody looked at me.
Everybody was looking at the numbers over the door.
"You okay?" a voice said, low, just behind my ear.
"Fine," I said, and I did not turn around. "You can let go."
"I will."
The hand stayed where it was for the second floor, and the third, and the fourth.
I told myself it was the crowd.
At the second floor the crowd thinned out and the man in the gray suit got off, dripping.
Behind me, the voice said, "Renee Vavra, third floor, claims."
I turned around so fast that the kolaches slid.
He was tall, six-two at least, and I had to look up to find his face.
He had a buzzed head of dark hair and a nose that had been broken and set a little crooked.
His blue eyes had been waiting for me to turn around.
He wore a cheap new suit that was tight across the shoulders, and a paper visitor sticker that said NEW HIRE in marker.
My badge was in my bag, and my bag was under my arm.
"Who told you that?" I said.
"Nobody."
"The directory?"
"I don't have the directory yet." He said it politely. "I don't have a badge. I start at nine."
The doors opened on three.
I got out because it was my floor, and he got out because it was apparently his.
The two of us stood in the third-floor lobby.
A bright orange sign that said WELCOME TO CLAIMS pointed us in opposite directions.
A flush was climbing his neck, up out of his collar and into his jaw.
He couldn't have been more than twenty-five, and he was blushing like a schoolboy.
"It's hot in the elevator," I said.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Don't call me ma'am," I said.
"Yes, Ms. Vavra."
"And don't say my name in this building," I said, "until you've been here a week and know who it's safe to say it around."
That was the second thing out of my mouth that I did not mean.
I turned and walked into the west wing before I could add a third.
The trainee in underwriting turned out to be Kyle Janssen.
HR walked him through the floor at ten, a woman with a clipboard and a lanyard of keys.
I watched them come past my desk from behind my monitor.
He shook everyone's hand.
When he got to mine he said, "Ms. Vavra," and nothing else.
His hand was dry and enormous and held mine one beat too long for a handshake.
I went back to a roof claim from Council Bluffs.
It took me all day.
By 6:52 the floor had emptied out.
The cleaning crew was on four, and the vice presidents had gone at five.
I was alone in the west wing with a cold coffee and the lights humming over the cubicles.
I had heard his voice across the middle of the floor, deep and level, asking a question about a binder.
I had put my pen down and listened to the whole thing.
I was thirty-two.
I had a mortgage, a good record, and a rule about men I worked with that I had made the hard way.
"Excuse me," the voice said, from the end of my aisle. "I'm sorry. I'm the last one. Which door is the stairs?"
He stood there with his jacket over his arm and his sleeves rolled to the elbow.
"The elevators are on after-hours hold," I said. "Your badge isn't active for them yet."
"That's what security said. They said use the north stairs, and nobody told me which door."
I should have pointed.
It was twenty feet away, past the copiers, and the sign said STAIRS.
I stood up and said, "I'll show you," and I could hear exactly how that sounded.
I walked ahead of him to the north door with my badge in my fist.
I swiped it, and the lock clicked, and he held it for me with one hand.
The stairwell was cinderblock and fluorescent light, and the landing between three and two was a concrete box with a metal rail.
It smelled of cold paint.
There were no cameras.
I looked, because I always look.
The door shut behind us with a heavy sound, and the two of us stood on the landing.
"How do you know my name?" I said.
"I'll tell you when you've stopped being mad about it."
"I'm not mad," I said.
"Your hands are shaking."
I looked down, and they were.
He was standing one step below me, so that our eyes were level, and the flush was back in his neck.
He was looking at my mouth.
I reached out and took his lanyard in my fist, with the paper sticker still on his chest.
I pulled him in until I could feel his breath.
"Don't you ever say my name where HR can hear," I said.
"Yes, Ms. Vavra."
Then I kissed him.
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