Page 13 of It's Only Make Believe

I do as he says, swallowing hard. I’ve gone too far, and I don’t really blame him for being angry with me.

“What on earth has gotten into you Louisa?” Luke demands when I’ve sat back down in front of him once more. “Your attitude today is terrible.”

I try to think of something believable, and in the end, I settle for a crumb of truth.

“I thought I would be who you think I am,” I say.

“Huh?” Luke says. “What does that even mean?”

“Well let’s just say someone might have let it slip about my father telling you I am lazy and spoiled and to be harder on me. It makes no difference how well I perform on any task you give me you’re never going to trust me with anything useful,” I say.

“Ah. You heard about that,” Luke says, and he has the decency to look a bit embarrassed. “Full disclosure. You’re right about what your dad said to me. Truthfully though I’m not finding anything to back up what he said. Prove yourself to me over these next few days and I will do the same to you. I will treat you like any other staff member, and we will see where we go from here once Rachel is back.”

“Deal,” I say. I grin at him. “I might even still make you a coffee when I have one.”

“Oh yes, that will never stop being a thing,” Luke says, returning my grin, and for the first time, I get a flash of what I think might be the real Luke instead of the one Louisa’s father asked him to be. “That’s all for now. If you need any help with the telephone system or anything, Mel is just across from you, and she will help you.”

“I think I’ll be ok, but thank you,” I say and this time when I get up, Luke doesn’t yell for me to sit back down.

I go back to my office and see that my desk phone has been pushed over so that another phone can take its place. This one is more of a switch board, but although it looks kind of intimidating, I’m sure I’ll be fine on it. On one of my jobs, I operated a switch board much more complicated than this one.That’s how I was able to confidently tell Luke I thought I would be ok.

As I sit waiting for my first call, email, or piece of filing to come in, I start thinking about how much better I felt when I told Luke I knew why he was treating me poorly and how nice it was just to have that secret out in the open and have him lose the attitude he’s so far had towards me. It makes me want to tell him the full truth, but I am far from ready for that. I really think he will flip his lid if he finds out Louisa and I tricked him like that and I can almost guarantee I will be fired. It will be bye bye reference and possibly bye bye bestie when Louisa finds out I blabbed.

I’m just going to leave well enough alone there. I know that means I can never date Luke because the whole relationship would be based on a lie, but if I told him the truth, I could still never date him because he would hate me. At least this way I get to see him and be around him. The most annoying thing is, despite how gorgeous he is and how he looks like he could have any woman he wants, I get the impression he likes me too. Even though he’s been a bit of a dick to me, I have caught him watching me when he didn’t know I was looking and there’s just something in his body language that tells me he fancies me as much as I fancy him. But none of that matters though. I need to stop thinking about Luke and start thinking about my job.

As though on cue, the telephone rings and I pick it up.

“Thank you for calling Sold. How can I help you?” I say.

The caller has a question about one of Sold’s policies and rather than bothering Mel with it, I look up the information and answer the caller’s question. I’m quite proud of myself when I end the call. For the next half an hour, the telephone rings constantly and I find my in tray filling up too. Even though all this still isn’t what I really want to be doing, I am enjoying being kept busy and I think I’m coping quite well with everything overall. Of the seven calls I have taken so far, I had to transfer one to Mel because they wanted to speak to Luke about a supply issue which seemed important, I have told two callers Luke isn’t available and left it at that, and the others, I have helped myself. Another call comes in now and I clear my throat and answer it.

“Thank you for calling Sold. How can I help you?” I say.

“Put me through to Luke Jackson please,” the caller says.

“May I ask what it is regarding?” I ask.

“Board business. Now hurry up. The rates for calling from Europe are damned expensive you know,” he says.

I cringe when I realize my caller is Enrique. Thank goodness he didn’t seem to recognize my voice any more than I recognized his. The joys of a bad line.

“Right away sir,” I say, and I put Enrique on hold while I dial through to Luke’s office. He answers and I tell him I have Enrique on the line for him and put him through.

I haven’t even replaced the receiver when Mel is standing in the doorway of my office.

“What the hell Louisa?” she demands. “You never put calls through to Luke without going through me.”

“It … It was my father. He was moaning about the cost of the call, and I didn’t want him to take it out on you if I transferred him to you instead of Luke,” I stutter.

“Ok,” Mel says, calmer now. “That’s ok. Luke will always take a board member’s call if he’s available. It didn’t even occur to me that it might be Enrique. Considering he’s your dad, you didn’t exactly speak warmly to him.”

“I used the same professional tone I would with any board member. At work, that’s all he is. It would be unprofessional to treat him like my dad while I’m at work,” I say.

Mel considers this for a moment and makes a “mm” sound that could mean anything.

“Well, keep up the good work,” she says, which is very different from the lecture this encounter started off with me getting.

I smile and nod that I will and then I take the top sheet from my in tray and read through it to work out where I should file it. The current year’s files are in the photocopying room and I’m confident I can do some filing in between calls and that if I leave the door to the photocopying room open while I’m in there filing, I will hear the phone ringing and it’s only a few doors down so I can easily come back.

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