Page 17 of Inception

The tour continued down the adjoining corridor.

“This is the main office,” he said pointing into the medium-sized room that had a messy desk, filing cabinets and scattered chairs. He introduced me to the red-haired, petite-in-stature Manager, April Demarco, who made a brief appearance before hurrying off to tend to some disaster in the lady’s washroom.

The last stop in the tour was the employee bathroom and the storeroom. I poked my head into the latter.

“It’s your standard stock room. It’s got all your napkins, salt, ketchup, and all that other good stuff. Just remember, whatever leaves this room has to be marked here,” he said and pointed to an inventory clipboard hanging on the wall. “They’ll explain all of this once your official training starts.”

I nodded and smiled even though I wasn’t entirely sure I was looking forward to all these mundane tasks. I’d been on kitchen duty back at the hospital and nearly expired from utter boredom.

Thirty minutes later, the tour was over and we were back in the main hall, which had now filled up with the lunch crowd. We sat down at one of the corner tables to fill out some forms.

“You can start right away,” he offered. “A few hours after school, and alternating week-ends.”

“That works for me.”

“It’s pretty quiet during the week days so you’re more than welcome to do your school work here in between service. You certainly wouldn’t be the only one.”

That was a definite plus. I smiled.

“Looks like we’re all set,” he said rising from the table and holding out his hand again. “It was wonderful meeting you, my dear. I’m glad to have you with us.”

“Thanks for the opportunity. I’ll try not to disappoint.”

“We’re all rooting for your success here,” he nodded. “Just leave the forms in the office when you’re done, and you can start training with the assistant manager right away.”

I nodded once and returned to my form before my head popped up with an afterthought. “Mr. Macarthur,” I called after him as he walked away. “Who would the assistant manager be?”

He flashed an even row of gleaming teeth. “That would be my son, Trace, of course.”

Of course. Who else would it be?

After dropping off the forms in the main office, I asked Sawyer, the twenty-something year old cook, where I could find the assistant manager and was kindly directed to the ladies washroom, where Trace was moonlighting as a plumber.

I walked in and found him spread out across the floor with his head under the sink and a wrench in his hand. It was a pretty good look for him, though I tried not to notice. He looked up at me and ticked his head up, as if to say, ‘what do you want?’ without actually saying the words.

“Look, if you don’t want me here, just say the word and I’m gone,” I said, crossing my arms. “I don’t want this stupid job anyway. I’m just trying to keep my uncle off my back.”

He sat up, wiping the thin veil of sweat from his forehead. I noticed his arms and neck had the same coating and was generously highlighting his muscles. Nice, defined muscles—

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, rising to his feet. He pulled up the edge of his shirt and wiped his face with it, revealing all sorts of hidden things like a ripped stomach and this v-shaped groove that started around his hips and moved all the way down, disappearing just below the hem of his jeans. “If it’s not this, they’ll just find something else.”

It was all I could do to keep from reaching forward and tracing the deep ridges with my finger. I barely managed to tear my eyes away in time when his shirt came back down.

Now, what the heck was he going on about?

I looked at him with a blank stare.

“You can stay,” he said finally, over-pronouncing each word as though I were hard of hearing.

It wasn’t my ears I was having a hard time controlling.

“Right,” I nodded rapidly, trying to erase the image of his bare abdomen from my mind like a real-life Etch A Sketch. “So, I guess I’ll need some training?”

“And a uniform,” he said, as he picked up his toolkit from the counter and walked out past me.

And maybe a bucket of ice.

I followed him back to the main office where he opened up a storage cabinet and then turned to me. His eyes surfed over my body. I crossed my arms over my chest, all modest, even though I had just assaulted him with my own eyes not two minutes ago.

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