A New Girl

I couldn't see a singly overweight person, or anybody with any blemishes on their skin at all. After my first few days working in the packing department, labelling some pharmaceutical drugs, I felt really out of place; I wasn't bad looking, but I wasn't spectacular either. I said this to Jamie, my friend in the packing department, but he only tapped his nose and grinned at me. He was as good looking as everybody else there, tall and slightly muscular, with blonde hair to his shoulders. He was allowed his long hair, he said, because the company was a family firm; his father was one of the owners, and his uncle was a manager somewhere, but I had never seen him.

About halfway through the summer, I'd been working in the research facility for almost two months, my family went on holiday for three weeks. I decided not to go with them; instead I felt I should carry on working for the company and earn some more money.

Two days later, I checked the shift roster and found me and Jamie were working late three nights in a row. I'd never heard about this happening before, but when I checked with the manager I found out that he'd been told the two of us were to work late by someone on the board. I didn't want to kick up a fuss so when the first night arrived I showed up on time. I found Jamie lounging around in the staff room.

"Ready for tonight?" he asked, grinning.

"Why," I asked, "what's special about tonight?" He only laughed and winked. I wasn't really in the mood, so I shrugged and began walking towards the packing room when he whistled behind me.

"We're working upstairs tonight," he told me. That surprised me.

"No, we're not allowed upstairs. I thought they had something secret up there."

Jamie laughed. "It's not a secret. All you had to do was ask about it." I felt pretty stupid. "Remember when you asked me why everyone around here is pretty attractive? It's all to do with what's upstairs."