Page 17 of No Place Like You

Our steps come to halt as a man with dark curly hair and wire-framed glasses, looking highly stressed and frazzled, approaches us. He holds a metal clipboard in front of him, and his eyes urge us to answer his question.

“Uh…Lucy Marquez,” I answer, a little thrown off with his abrasiveness.

“Elaine Cho,” Elaine answers, following me. We exchange a quick look of disquiet and unease.

The man runs his finger down the paper tucked into the clipboard and hums quietly as he scans over the list. “Ah! Interns. Okay,” he says, swiveling on his feet and looking at us over his shoulder. “We aren’t shooting anything today,” he calls, speed walking into the thick of the room. Elaine and I follow, trying to match his quick pace. “We’re actually spending the next week or two prepping, meeting with models, and reviewing set and prop designs.”

We finally stop at multiple racks of clothes lined up against an aesthetically pleasing brick wall sandwiched between two large pane windows. “We’re randomly assigning tasks to most of the interns. You two are going to go through these racks. Sort by pants, skirts, shirts, jackets, etcetera. And then line them up by color.”

Elaine and I shuffle closer to the racks.

“I’m assuming all of your paperwork was completed with HR via email?”

We both nod.

“You’ll fill out a time card at the end of the day.” He turns to leave before turning back to face us again. “And I’m Ryan, by the way. I’m the lead set manager. You’ll meet Ivy later. She’s the lead project manager for the whole ad campaign. You’ll mainly report to me or Ivy. If you need anything, justlook for me for now. I’ll be around…there.” He points to the far end, where a desk sits with a scattering of papers and a lone laptop. “Or there,” he adds, gesturing vaguely in another direction. A small eye roll slips through his tense yet professional demeanor. “Hopefully you won’t need me.”

Elaine and I smile. “I think we’ve gotten enough work to fill the next few hours,” I say, attempting to assure him.

He nods quickly and scurries off.

Elaine and I eye each other, carefully setting our tote bags and camera bags on an armchair closest to the clothing racks.

“I guess this beats getting coffee,” I comment, squashing the assumption that that’s what I would spend the next three months doing. Doing grunt work like picking up dry cleaning for a high administrative person or making coffee runs throughout the day.

Elaine lets out a small laugh. “You think we’ll meet Kyle today?”

“Who?”

Elaine pops her head up from behind the rack she’s sifting through. “Kyle Viotto? He’s the artistic director handling the entire campaign. He’s the reason I signed up for this whole internship. Left my shitty retail job at H&M to do this.”

I smirk and jab my index finger to my chest. “Mr. Bean’s Coffee and Tea.”

Elaine laughs. “I guess we really had nothing to lose, huh?”

If only that were true.“So is this Kyle guy good?”

Her brows shoot up. “In the art world? He’s like Beyoncé. He knows his shit and makes no room for modesty. He pushes boundaries left and right. It’s probably why the ad agency contracted with Elevate just for this campaign.”

“Has he been with the agency long?” I ask, my voice hushed.

She shakes her head. “No way they could afford to keep him on their payroll. He only takes on freelance work through Elevate. Usually forbigcampaigns like this one.”

“Sounds pretty intimidating,” I respond, my gaze lingering on the racks in front of me with worry.

Elaine nods in silent agreement. “He has a lot of connections, and I’ve talked to a few people who have worked with him on other designer campaigns. He has a lot to show for his work. We’re going to get a lot out of this internship.”

That impending failure feeling returns, and I feel like the walls are closing in on me. The pressure starts to build, and the importance of this internship thickens right in front of me. I have to do well. I just have to. I can’t go back to job searches that skim the outer edges of my marketing experience and push more toward sales or dog walking or even another barista job.

“If we do well,” I counter.

“Yep,” Elaine shoots back. “Otherwise, it’s back to coffee and tea for you and ringing up hipsters looking for ripped jeans and neon-colored blazers for me.”

I brush off the reality of her statement with a loose chuckle. All while the fear of failure continues to brew and linger in my gut.

10

Dexter

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