Page 14 of The Vegas Rerun
“Every mother worries about that. I worried about it with you. And look at you now—you’re strong, independent, capable. You don’t have to have all the answers right now. You just have to love this baby, and the rest will fall into place,” she tells me. She smiles as she goes on. “And I’ll let you in on a little secret. Everyone screws up sometimes.”
I blink back the tears threatening to spill over.
“I just don’t want to disappoint you,” I say.
“Oh, sweetheart” my mom says, her voice thick with emotion. She pulls me into a hug, holding me tight, like she’s anchoring me to the ground when everything feels like it’s spinning. “You could never disappoint me. I am so proud of you. And I’m going to be here with you, every step of the way. You are not alone in this.”
I close my eyes, sinking into the warmth and comfort of her embrace. For the first time in weeks, the constant buzz of anxiety inside of me quietens down a little bit. I may not have all the answers, but I have this moment, and I have my mom’s comforting embrace. And for now, that’s enough.
THREE YEARS LATER
CHAPTER 12
MOLLY
The air iscrisp as I step out of my car, adjusting the strap of my purse over my shoulder. I glance up at the sleek office building in front of me, nerves and excitement swirling in my stomach. It’s been two and a half years of late-night feedings, first words, and tiny toddler hands clutching mine. I wouldn’t change those years for anything, but I feel like Autumn is old enough now to go to daycare, and my mom has promised to pick her up in the afternoons and have her for a few hours until I finish work and collect her. It’s time for me to step back into the working world.
I take a moment to look down at myself and make sure my outfit is ok. I’m wearing a black knee length shift dress with a pink suit jacket and pink heels. My hair is in a messy bun and my makeup is minimal. I think I look professional and from the people from the company I saw when I went for my interview, I think I fit with the style of other employees.
I can’t put off entering the building any longer. It’s time to ditch my nerves and go and do this. I’ve given birth and nothing can be harder than that, or so I tell myself as I approach the front door. I open it and step into an air-conditioned lobby. There’s norush of workers entering the building because I was told to come in at eleven for the first day, and everyone else will already be tucked away at their desks by now.
The whole space is white – white walls and ceiling, white floor tiles, and a large white reception desk along the back wall. The company name – Redfern’s Consultancy – is in large chrome letters on the wall behind the desk. The waiting area contains white leather seats with a chrome and glass coffee table between them. I’m almost afraid to walk across the lobby in case I somehow get it dirty, but I tell myself not to be ridiculous and I head over to the desk.
The woman behind the desk isn’t the same person that was here when I came for my interview. That woman was blonde, and this one is a brunette. She looks up at me with a professional smile.
“Can I help you?” she says.
“Hi. My name is Molly Matthews. I start work here today,” I say.
“Oh, hi Molly,” the woman says, her professional smile morphing into a more natural one. “I’m Larissa.”
“Great to meet you,” I say, returning her smile.
“Do you want to take a seat over there and I’ll find out where you’re meant to be,” she says.
I go over to the seating area and sit down in a seat that means I can see the reception desk on one side of me, and on the other I can see out into the street through the glass wall that makes up the front of the lobby. After a few minutes, Larissa comes over to me.
“I’ve spoken to HR. Someone will be along in a moment,” she says.
I thank her and sit and wait. I’m dying to check my cell phone to make sure that Autumn’s daycare hasn’t tried to call but I resist the urge. It won’t look good if the HR rep comes out andsees me playing on my cell phone, and Autumn has been going to the daycare for two weeks now and she seems really settled there. There’s no reason they will have called me.
I look up when I hear heels clacking on tiles and I see a woman in a navy-blue blazer with matching pants and a lighter blue and white striped top beneath the blazer coming across the lobby towards me. She smiles warmly as she approaches.
“Molly?” she says, and I smile and nod and then I stand up and the woman offers me her hand. I shake it and the woman goes on. “I’m Linda from HR. Welcome aboard.”
“Thank you,” I say.
My palms are slightly clammy, and I hope Linda didn’t notice when I shook her hand. I force myself to breathe through the nerves.
“Let’s start with a tour and then we’ll get the boring paperwork out of the way,” Linda says.
As Linda leads me on a tour of the building, I find myself starting to relax. She chats as we walk, putting me at ease with her. As we go, she explains she is only going to give me a brief overview of where each department is on each floor, and then she will show me around the floor I will be working on properly.
That sounds much less overwhelming than me seeing every single room, and she leads me to the elevator, where she points to the numbers for each floor as she says them.
“On the first floor is HR and accounts,” she says. “The second, third and fourth floors are sales, and the fifth floor is billing and retentions. The sixth floor is customer services and IT, and you’ll be working on the seventh floor, which is where the top executives work as they are the ones who you will be working beneath, and also where the conference rooms are.”
She presses the button for the first floor and the elevator starts up. Linda takes me to her desk, and we fill in paperwork for my payroll and personnel file. Once this is done, she handsme a list of systems with a username and password next to each one.
