Ramona Bosworth typically was a punctual young woman of twenty-two. But on the morning of December twenty-ninth, she was running severely late, and she had a job interview that day.
She ran, very unprofessional like and almost ruining her new dress shoes (expressly bought for the job interview to make herself look better), running as fast as she could into the lawyer's office. The plaque outside the door said 'A. FLINT, DISTRICT ATTORNEY', and she knew she was in the right place.
Mr. Flint was an important attorney—one of the most reliable in the state of New York. Ramona had never met him before, and had only spoken to him once over the telephone. But he was looking for a new secretary, and Ramona had since lost her secretarial position to an office manager, and she needed the money at that moment more than ever. It would not make a good impression on Mr. Flint if she was late before she even started working for him…if she started.
She fixed the hem of her dress quickly before opening the heavy door. She found herself in a typical office building, with a desk and a chair behind that desk. At a table in the corner of the room stood a man in a charcoal gray suit, looking over a set of papers that seemed important. Ramona assumed this was Mr. Flint.
He looked up when the door opened and smiled. He was an extremely attractive man—Ramona was taken off guard a bit. His hair and eyes were both so deep brown that they appeared black, and his skin was a bit darker than per usual or Ramona's own snow white skin, his much like the color of toffee. "Ramona Bosworth?" he asked.
She crossed the room, her arm extended courteously. He shook her hand as she asked, "Mr. Flint?" He nodded. "I'm so sorry I'm late, Mr. Flint. I had a bit of a hard time catching a taxi this morning." That was a lie. She hadn't caught a cab because taking a cab would have required money. Instead, she had to walk home underneath the cover of threateningly ominous gray clouds.
"Oh, don't you worry about it. Have a seat, Mrs. Bosworth." She smoothed out the back of her skirt and sat in the chair that he had just indicated to. "So, let's just start the preliminaries, shall we? You were just employed as a secretary elsewhere, am I correct?"
She nodded. "I worked for a Mr. Hugh Willoughby."
"May I ask why you no longer work for Mr. Willoughby?"
"Unfortunately, my boss had to go out of business for several reasons, mainly personal."
"May I know a bit about your time there?"
The question was where to begin. "Mr. Willoughby needed a secretary because he was just entering business. He placed a 'help wanted' ad in the newspaper and he was looking for a secretary that was a bit…older, if you will. I found the ad when I was just seventeen. However, he said I was the 'most trustworthy' that applied for the position, so he hired me, and he was a wonderful boss. Mr. Willoughby even helped pay for my wedding," Ramona added as an afterthought…a sad afterthought, at that.
"What sort of things did you do for your boss?"
"I ran errands for him, answered the telephone, took notes…standard things, I should presume."
Mr. Flint nodded, scribbling something down on a pad of paper. This made Ramona nervous, but she said nothing.
"Now, Mrs. Bosworth—"
"Ms. Bosworth," Ramona corrected.
"I thought you said you were married?"
"Was." She chewed on her lip in a very childlike manner, thinking about it. It was a sensitive issue for her, the circumstances of her marriage.
"Hmmm? Why 'was'?"
She fought a sigh. She couldn't help Mr. Flint from being curious—it was just how humans were, naturally—but it was difficult for her to talk about. "I was married, up until recently, to a much older man named Caleb Johansen. Perhaps our marriage was doomed from the start—I was nineteen and he was thirty-two—but we wanted to make it work anyway. And I suppose it did, for a while, anyway. We started fighting pretty much every other day towards the end, but we stopped when he caught influenza. Around the same time Mr. Willoughby went out of business, so we struggled to make ends meet since Caleb was too sick to go into work. He passed away last month, and I'm running out of money." Ramona had trained herself not to cry, and quite successfully; she couldn't risk not getting the job from the tears springing up in her eyes.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," Mr. Flint said, looking concerned. "Really, I shouldn't have asked…"
"No, it's alright." She thought that if she was going to work with him—and it was a big 'if'—then he had every right to know about that part of her life.
"So, how old are you now, if you don't mind my asking?"
"Twenty-two." His question reminded her of the old adage, 'never ask a woman her age'. But she honestly didn't care—she looked young, felt young, was young. Maybe that was why Caleb had married her. Why else would a thirty-something man spend his time with a teenager?
"I see." He looked down at his notepad and said, "Are you applying for other positions?"
"One other position," she said. It was so difficult to find work that the only two jobs that were hiring that Ramona was qualified for were with Mr. Flint and another man as a maid, but something about Mr. Flint was much more likeable than the other man. She would have preferred working with the lawyer any day.
"Why do you want to work for me?"
A tough question. "Well, I obviously need the job, as you know. I'd love to work as a secretary again, mainly because I've had jobs before I was secretary to Mr. Willoughby. Maybe being a secretary—or a personal assistant, if you will—isn't the most glamorous job in the world, but it's one that I enjoy doing, in any case. And you seem like a cordial person yourself."
Quickly Flint looked down, and though he tried to hide it, Ramona could see the traces of a grin on his face. She hadn't meant to flatter him—it just came out. "What would Mr. Willoughby say your strongest point is?"
"I'm very loyal."
"I see." He looked through his notes. "Ms. Bosworth, I am very pleased with you. However, I would like to let you know a few things. Firstly, I have a policy—I usually hire my secretaries for a four month 'trial period', if you will. If I like them enough, they're hired, just as a general rule. So—for the time being—I would like to hire you." Ramona couldn't help but feel faint butterflies in her stomach.
"Really? So soon?"
He nodded. "You're obviously the most qualified for the position, and easily the one that is the easiest to get on with."
"Oh, thank you, Mr. Flint," she said, allowing a faint sigh of relief out.
"Now, can you start in the new year? The first, I'm hoping?"
"Absolutely." She stood, as Mr. Flint held out a hand to her. She took it, shaking it politely. "Thank you again, Mr. Flint."
He smiled a warm smile at her. "It's my pleasure. Would you like for me to call you a cab?"
She shook her head. "No, thank you. I have some errands to run anyway."
He nodded, crossing to his desk and picking up some papers. "Have a good day, Ms. Bosworth, and season's greetings."
Not minding the fact that the holidays were over, Ramona said back, "Season's greetings," and left the office quickly. Mr. Flint already had her contact information—they had shared it over the phone.
The truth was that she didn't want Flint to call for a taxi because she had no money. She had spent the last of it that morning on cab fare, and she had five dollars left—which she knew she was going to spend on food for the next few days and one other thing that she had to get before starting with Mr. Flint.
She was so over joyed. She was going to have to turn down the other position she had applied to, since she extremely enjoyed the fact that she was going to be Mr. Flint's secretary. Besides, there had already been several other young women that applied for the first job as well, many of them much more qualified than she.
Stopping at Macy's, she spent two dollars on a green dress (a bit expensive for her tastes, since she could typically use seventy-five cents to get one before), since her other things were not nearly nice enough to wear to work, especially as a secretary to a district attorney. From there, she went home, battling the freezing cold of December in New York.
At her uncomfortably empty home, she hung the dress up and slipped out of her shoes. Soon, she was going to be working for Alexander Flint, District Attorney, which she was sure was going to be the best job in the world.
I know facts are probably off. Ignore it okay. I started writing this when my school performed The Night of January Sixteenth back in...January. ;p I played Flint's secretary. I had no lines, but I made some of the best friends in the world (the actors who played Mr. Flint - now one of my best friends - and Mr. Whitfield, and the actress who was the stenographer - another best friend - specifically). Every character described is the based on the way that the actors who played the characters looked. That was why I described Flint as having 'caramel brown' skin, because the actor who played him was Mexican. Another thing I wanted to point out is that in this, there will be Mrs. John Joseph Hutchins (the character was a woman in our play) and Ms. Stevens (another woman). Staying true to the play, there will be two endings as well. Also, the character Ramona Bosworth was, if you know the play, obviously not named, but I 'developed character' and came up with a back story for her; this is sort of the story. Yes, I do look like Ms. Bosworth (since I played her), but we are not one and the same; this is just the story I came up with for her. Please review.
- Hatter of Madness