a place called ‘Graycastle Manor’.
My arrival told me that this was no normal job and that this was no normal place. At the gate I was instructed to step out of my car and stand against a wall. Both car and I were searched - for weapons they said - before I was allowed to enter the building.
This property was insane! Absolutely huge, the most opulent building I’d ever stepped into. According to the posters that were displayed in the foyer, Graycastle Manor was to be the setting for a ‘Managing Wealth’ conference, attended by the wealthiest people in the land. A millionaire would have been laughed out of this place. Looking at the schedule I could see that the lectures were basically divided into three subjects, making more money, keeping more money, and spending more money. The mega rich swanned past me, gliding across the marble floor. Clearly I was in a different world - a world where helicopters landing on the roof was the norm. A world where it was quite acceptable to spend tens of thousands of dollars to attend a conference, a world where anything could be bought.
Quickly I was approached by a man who introduced himself as ‘Wesley’, and who was dressed in a very smartly cut suit. He was an older gentleman, thin and a little frail, but he had kind eyes and he introduced himself by shaking my hand softly.
“ You must be Hazel”, he said mysteriously. How did he know my name? “ I’ve been expecting you. Please, follow me”.
Wesley lead me down one of the hallways towards the kitchens. Along the way he spoke to me about my duties and expectations. I was to mingle among the billionaires, take their drink orders, and fetch whatever they wanted.
“ It’s always amazed me”, he said with a whisper, “how much these men drink. To think that decisions that can affect millions are made when they’re drunk on whiskey”.
Looking to my left I spotted the chairman of the bank that had employed me, Alan Starkey, schmoozing with a group of older executives. I recognized him immediately, his face had been plastered on a poster that had faced my desk for 2 years. Not that that was a bad thing; I had always found him attractive, if just a little pretentious for my tastes. Once when stuck in the office late and alone at night, I’d allowed his fixed eyes to watch as I’d toyed with myself. I had kept a thin vibrator in my purse for those moments when the mood struck and I had some privacy, and I had fallen into a fantasy while staring at his face. Ever since I had felt that we’d shared something, even when he had come to our branch on a site visit a week before my redundancy to give a pep talk to the nervous staff, I had allowed my mind to drift back to that night of one-sided lust. ‘We are all tightening our belts’ he had said with a sympathetic look, causing me to look at his belt for signs of tightening. Looking up to him I’d only then realized the seriousness of his words. ‘Cutbacks may hurt us all’, he’d said.
Apparently. When I walked past him I overheard him boasting about the new yacht that he’d commissioned. I silently hoped that he could only afford the 40 ft one, not the 50 ft. Cutbacks hurt everyone. As cute as he was, I couldn’t help but feel that his mismanagement of the bank had caused my current predicament.
I hoped to catch his eye as I walked past. He did look at me and seemed to smile, but then quickly went back to his conversation. He probably wouldn’t remember me - he was a very rich and powerful man and I doubted that he’d recall the shy, plump girl that worked as a teller in one of his banks. Still, I had hoped that he would break off his chat to come and see me, to maybe ask why I wasn’t at the bank. Hiring and firing are well below his level, for a fleeting second I’d dreamed that he’d find out about my termination, get on the phone, insist that I be rehired and double my salary.
Dreams are meant to be broken. I
Lisa Mantchev, A.L. Purol