Page 75 of Through You
Grandfather, I guess I’m not much of a Hidalgo, after all.
Twenty-one
That girl has you whipped.
ARTEMIS
Three months later
Alex bursts in, looking smug as he dumps a small pile of folders on my desk. I wonder what he’s up to, so I open the first folder and stare at the résumé of a girl still in university.
“What is this? Do you expect me to be part of the hiring process? Seriously?”
Alex points his index finger at me. “Oh, trust me, my friend.
You’re going to want in on this.”
I scan the girl’s résumé, and I learn that she’s enrolled in her last year of school. I furrow my eyebrows.
“Are these the interns? You want me to help select the university interns?”
Alex plops himself on the chair across from my desk. “Yes.”
I close the folder and push the pile toward him.
“Alex, I don’t have time for this. Human resources can handle it.”
Alex snorts. “You are not getting the hint.” He sounds frustrated. “Open the next folder.”
Begrudgingly, I do as he asks, hoping that eventually this little exercise will lead somewhere. My fingers freeze when they reach the folder I least expect to find in this pile. It’s Claudia’s.
I gape like an idiot at the name at the top of her résumé. I stare at her qualifications and the rest of the information listed. She applied to do an internship with the company? I feel flattered, and extremely confused. Why didn’t she mention it?
“I’m waiting for a thank-you. If it wasn’t for me, you would have never known. It’s very likely she would have completed her internship here unbeknownst to you since you never venture down to that department.”
“Was her application accepted?”
Alex smiles. “But of course. Just take a look at her grades and the evaluation of her writing samples. She was the first to be accepted.”
And then it dawns on me. She never said a word because she wanted to get in based on her own merits. It’s also very likely she wanted to keep me from knowing that she was working here. Which is exactly what would have happened if Alex hadn’t told me.
“I am truly amazed at your ability to stick your nose into the affairs of every department in the company.”
He winks at me. “It’s a skill, I know.”
“Which department was she assigned to?”
“So you can spy on her like a fool?” Alex raises an eyebrow.
I give him a cold stare.
“First of all, I have yet to hear a ‘Thank you, Alex. You’re my best friend in the whole world. I don’t know what I’d do without you. Oh wait, I know. I’ll stay frozen like a damn ice cube, too hard to be melted by the summer sun.’”
Ice cube . . . iceberg . . .
A silly grin tugs at my lips, and Alex gasps in an overly dramatic way. “Oh, ladies and gentlemen, he smiles!”
“Alex.”
