Chapter Three: The Yellow Room

I can't believe he did this to me. He really did that. Is all I think about when I'm in the shower, getting ready for the "internship" as Trenton called it. I'm not interning for nothing. I shut the warm water off and step out into the freezing cold. "Just like a Russian popsicle," I mutter. Because if there's one thing I learned by being raised as a midwestern, Gen-Z American, I can make fun of Russian people all I want with no lines crossed. Untouchable. After putting on my clothes for the day I open my bathroom door to find my mom in full hover-mode standing inches away from the threshold. "Jesus! Why are you standing right there?! I could have stepped back and cracked my head on the floor!"

"You're late."

"For what?" She passes by me and goes to grab the hairbrush and use it on herself. "I honestly didn't think you would be up this early," She holds her wrist up to her eye-level and shows it off to me, "nearly the end of my lunch break." She stands there with her hands running through her dirty blonde hair. She runs her hands up the lapels of her blazer and straightens her jacket out. My mother, since I was born and some time before then, has been a realtor for a midwestern realty firm named: "West and Gregson''. The two old men who it's named after are long dead, and now my mom is a top salesperson and manager. I'm sure the two shogunists are rolling in their graves because of it. But that's okay. I'll always help them settle. Me and my shovel will.

"You coming?" My mother glides past me and makes her way to the steps leading to the living room. "Yeah," I huff, "gimme a second." I run to my room down the hall and pick up my book bag from my desk and grab my charger that's still in the wall. I throw on a cute top ( If cute top refers to your brother's old Star Wars t-shirt) and try to catch up with my mother who walks a million miles per hour. As I make my way down, she leads the charge out of the door. I can feel my ancestors looking down on me, but also looking down on me. My messy hair I threw in a ponytail, my shirt choice, which is a size too big, and my lack of charisma all make up, in this moment at least, why I am a complete and polar opposite of my mother. The Pope blood has never given me anything except my eyes. Other than that, my personality couldn't be more different. Everyone on that side of the family are "go-getters" while I am more of a "sit-sitter", if you will. Yet, here we are. The two generations of Pope women are off to work and bring home the bacon.

"Thought about what you are gonna write about?" Asks my mother as we get in the car. "Uhhhh…" I trail off with the usual amount of uncertainty. "Well, Trenton told me that you were gonna be his main assistant." Great. That's what I wanna spend my time doing for the four hours. Assisting my pain-in-the-ass cousin. "I think it could be really good for you. Writing and being able to communicate effectively are very important skills that carry on in a person's life. You know, Meredith at work always sends these terrible emails tha-." Her voice trails off in my head.

Arriving at the school, my mother drops me off at the front doors where I buzz in. The receptionist on the left lets me in, and one, who I don't recognize, gives me a sticker pass with reasoning of why I'm there outside of school hours. "INTERNSHIP" it reads. That's fine Trenton, just don't get any ideas about my future. He's always had this thing for us being a power-journalist couple. I never really saw it. As kids, he would always play with the county newspaper, "The Fry Tribune", and critique their articles by littering its pages with a myriad of highlighting, circling, and annotating how he would have rewritten it ten times better.

"You know where you're goin?" The man who hands me my sticker asks. "Yeah, I've been down in the cesspool a couple times." He raises his eyebrows in response while the receptionist who buzzed me in remains unphased. I knew he was new. I glide out of the hall door on his side and make my way down the half-lit halls. It's very quiet and almost serene, if my sense of smell wasn't invaded by an aggressive amount of perfume coming from the sophomore lockers. I literally start to tear up. I rush out of the somewhat short hallway and make a right past an art mural that was hung up my freshman year "20**" It has big, blue lettering with a thick, black bold around each. Underneath, it lists a bunch of names from that year's graduating class. Rosie Anderson. An icon, legend. Besides being her sister, and bestfriend, she's also been enlisted in the military since Senior year. "20**" I mutter in passing, not believing how fast the time went by. I haven't seen her since she got a boyfriend who is by far the funniest man alive. They met while she was on-base in Japan. She was a gorgeous, brunette from the states with an accent and abs and Ren, her boyfriend and culinary expert, ate that up quite quickly, as she describes it.

I make another turn to go down a flight of somehow more poorly-lit stairs and here it is. The air is moist and the air is dead. Almost like the fire of a living soul hasn't graced this dead-end hall in decades. I reach down to the door handle and give it a push down, using my right shoulder to "tackle" my way through the door, a wave of light hits my face and what I see is the last thing I would ever expect. It's a large, open room full of faces I mostly don't recognize. There are, what looks to be, about two rows of cubicles in the middle of the room you walk down. The floor and walls are a gross, old mustard, giving the room its name. There's constant chatter and the noise level is high. Students in business apparel fill the room with age-inappropriate decorum. My presence goes completely unnoticed.

I walk down some steps to get onto the main floor and see two office doors on the far side of the room. On the left it has in a bolded, gold font, almost like the names on the cubicles desks, it says "COMMISSIONER" and on the right it says "CHIEF EDITOR". "Where's that asshole…" I mumble, hoping the universe will answer. A nasally, grating voice on my right catches me off guard. "Name and reason for visit, please?" I look and it's the beautiful girl from locker 239. She was a lot prettier before I heard her. "I'm sorry?" She pulls her eyes away from the monitor screen, "We log our guests for…insurance purposes," she smiles too widely, "I just need your name and your reason for visiting." "Emma Anderson," I say flatly, "my cousin said that I would start working here today."

"Oh, you need an interview with our Commissioner before you actually start," her perkiness agitating, "but if you have a referral, that can improve your chances of being hire-" "Trenton Walsh," I let out with unapologetic interruption. Her blue eyes go big and her hands stop typing for the first time in years. It's then I notice the rest of the room has fallen silent as well, and I hear a door open. It's the son-of-bitch himself, love you aunt Renae, Trent walks out of the Commissioner door, "Hey cousin! C'mon in and we'll get you filed in our system. Thanks, Anita."

The girl's eyes are as wide as ever, along with everybody else's, as I smile and walk with complete and fabricated confidence.