Page 4 of Handle with Care
“Don’t worry, you’re off to a fab start. And you’re already a great help,” Lily says.
I grin, warmth radiating from my face. The earlier splashdown is behind me, and there’s so much to look forward to. Like this amazing museum. And exploring the city and going on dates in a whole new scene. “That’s such a relief. I want to be useful.”
I’m in London. At my very first paid museum job. And nobody can take that from me.
Yet.
Chapter Three
Two weeks later
Mr. McLaren has issues. The red sports car is only the beginning. Everyone at the museum knows it. He doesn’t have the capacity to think about anyone other than himself. Or, at least, that’s the conclusion of the rumor mill, after several thorough analyses in the tearoom. Everyone’s seriously annoyed with the messes he leaves in his wake and his entitlement.
And that includes me, here for two amazing weeks so far into my dream internship. It turns out there’re two summer internships after all, but it’s been confirmed there’s only one actual job at the end. The last intern standing wins, if you want to get all gladiatorial about it.
The same internship that Mr. McLaren still happens to be on too.
I grab my notebook from my desk. The rest of the Curatorial team’s frantically sending out last-minute emails before the rest of the day disappears in a staff meeting. Our desks are all clustered together in a bank in the corner of the humming office.It looks like any old office: no cool things here, just vintage staplers and dog-eared folders and stress like a workplace anywhere else. Everything cool is in the galleries and collections storage.
“Five minutes.” I give Dee a quick smile along with the heads-up about the meeting.
She nods curtly as she taps away on her laptop. “Be right there.”
I head off toward the boardroom. It’s upstairs, where the executives live. It’s a much sleeker, upscale environment that makes me feel totally intimidated. The only time I go up there is for our weekly meetings. Get in, get out.
Mr. McLaren, the other intern who started at the same time as me, clearly is not broke or in desperate need of a job, if his fancy ride is anything to go by, because his intern’s stipend isn’t paying for it. I’m guessing that car is either trust fund money or some kind of family money or maybe from the proceeds of drugs or some other secret life of crime.
He doesn’t even have a museums degree.
I mean, honestly, how could you not have issues when you’re twenty-one and have had everything you could ever want handed to you? Cars, internships, whatever. Even now that the sleek red McLaren has mysteriously disappeared—he’s always going to be Mr. McLaren to me since that first day. And to the other junior staff, since the nickname I’ve given him has caught on like wildfire.
Okay, maybe I should dial it back a little about Mr. McLaren. I know next to nothing about him, except for what I’ve seen over the last two weeks. Maybe I’m being unkind.
Maybe.
To go back to the McLaren in question, it wasn’t stolen or totaled or anything dramatic like that. Not that I know about,anyway. I didn’t do anything to it, even if it’s stupidly tempting, because I have some self-restraint.
Last Friday afternoon, Mr. McLaren drove out in his shiny sports car as usual, and on Monday morning, he rolled past me driving what must be a fresh off-the-lot Land Rover to his prized assigned parking spot. And in central London, which is about as unlikely as finding yourself a pet unicorn wandering Hyde Park looking for a good home.
I go past the office tearoom on my way to the meeting. I don’t have enough time to make a cup of tea, but it’s long enough to hear someone say, “He must have traded in the McLaren. Probably for two or three Land Rovers, but who’s counting?”
Rumors keep our breaks lively.
Sylvie from Accounting says, “There’s plenty of room for a car collection on his family’s estate, somewhere outside of London, I’ve heard.”
Because of course his family has an estate. They need space to park their cars.
Nancy from Communications says something more logical. “Maybe it’s a loaner, if his car’s getting serviced.”
But it’s been three days of the Land Rover, which is a lot of service for a new car.
What we can all agree on so far about Mr. McLaren is that he’s the sort that leaves messes for others to clean up and that he’s generally too posh to function, as my English coworkers say. Which is totally classist of us, and I’m middle-class enough to feel guilty about being so judgy. It’s not something to be proud of. I mean, I don’t think I’m usually that judgy. Collectively, though, we’re definitely judgy.
According to Carine, who is prone to some amount of exaggeration, he’s so spoilt that he doesn’t even know how to use a kettle, because somebody else would boil water for him. Like, say, his personal staff. I can’t say that’s true, but I did see himleave his dirty mug in the tearoom sink beneath the sign that reads:Please wash your dishes—this means YOU! I’ve also used the copier after him, where he casually left a paper jam for me to fix.
I hurry upstairs, the first one into the sleek donor-friendly boardroom for our meeting. The windows overlook the Thames, broad and brown, and the drizzly day beyond. I take a seat toward the back, setting down my notebook and phone on the table.
As for Mr. McLaren, on that first day, he didn’t know me—then—from the next guy wading to work in a downpour, so at least it wasn’t personal.
