September 2015, New York City
The Corner of Terrified and Central Park West
'Just walk in,' Quinn thought to herself as she stood in front of the entrance to the building her internship resided in. Instead of following her own directions, her body stayed exactly where it was and her eyes just stared at the lettering on the door. She wasn't sure why she was so nervous. The last time she found herself here, she walked right in. She had purpose in her steps on that day, but today she felt like absolute chicken shit.
"Hi. I have an interview with Ilona Coppenger," Quinn said confidently to the woman at the desk in the lobby.
"Fifth floor. Check in with her assistant," the receptionist said, barely looking up from her computer screen and pointing behind her to the elevators.
"Thank you," Quinn responded, still smiling. After adjusting her messenger bag, she headed in the direction that was pointed out to her and pressed the up button when she got there. The doors slid open almost instantly and she stepped inside, pressing the button marked with a '5' as she settled into a spot along the wall. Here, in the presence of only herself, Quinn began to feel her nerves for the first time. Her confidence didn't falter however and she convinced herself that she could definitely woo her way into this internship.
"Hi," she said as she approached the desk located ten feet away from the elevator, "I'm looking for Ilona Coppenger's assistant."
"That would be me," an obviously gay man in his mid-twenties answered. "How can I help you?" he asked with a flip of his bleach striped bangs.
For a brief moment, Quinn had flashes of scenes from The Devil Wears Prada and imagined that Ilona Coppenger was a first class bitch like Meryl Streep in said movie. As the scenes flashed through her brain she slowly uttered her reason for standing in front of the assistant that was causing her lapse in confidence, "I have an interview... for the internship..."
"Oh!" the assistant barked out in an unimaginable octave, "Quinn Fabray?"
"That would be me," she answered with a nervous half smile.
"You're the first one to show up early," he said rolling his eyes, "Like, who shows up on time to an interview? Umm... dummies that don't want jobs. Like, hello? Anyways, she's running a little late, which is actually good for you. Her bad interviews run long and her good ones are like five minutes. So, just sit down over there and she'll call you over when she's ready."
"Thank you," she replied but was really thinking to herself, 'oh great, more time with my brain and the Devil Wears Prada montage reeling through it.' She smiled through her thoughts and headed over to the chairs diagonally across from the assistant's desk.
After sitting for a good ten minutes, a door opened and seconds later, a discouraged looking college student walked past Quinn, then the assistant and pressed the button on the elevator. She didn't look at either Quinn or the assistant on her way and as she waited for the elevator to arrive, she looked straight ahead at the wall in front of her. Quinn snapped her head away from her competition as soon as she heard the beep of the assistant's phone.
"Your 11:30 is here... I know, right... okay... with balsamic?... ooo splurging today... see you in a minute."
Just as the assistant hung up the phone, Quinn's phone let her know she had a text message (and that she needed to turn the volume off).
From S:
Bueno suerte, mi bella! Even though you don't need it ;) I love you! Can't wait to see you!
A simple text message was all she needed for her stomach to leave her throat. Santana had perfect timing. Probably because she was perfect.
"From someone special?" an unfamiliar voice asked from above Quinn.
"Uhhh... I'm sorry... I was just umm... putting it on silent," Quinn stuttered as she slid the silent switch down, pressed the sleep button and slid her phone into a pocket in her bag. She stood up quickly and smoothed out the front of her dress. After finding herself satisfied with the dress's appearance, she finally looked up and held out her hand, "Hi, I'm Quinn Fabray."
The woman standing in front of her took Quinn's hand and looked directly into her eyes through her red-rimmed glasses, "It's a pleasure, Quinn. Ilona Coppenger, Editor-in-Chief. You know, it's okay that you were reading a text message while you were waiting. It's not like you were reading it while I was interviewing you." She let go of Quinn's hand and indicated towards the door that not even five minutes before, a very disappointed girl had just walked out.
"I would never do that. That's obnoxious," Quinn responded with an inflection that indicated exactly how obnoxious she thought it was.
"You'd be surprised how many people your age don't think that way," Ilona said as she closed the door.
Quinn got about three steps in before she stopped dead in her tracks in awe of the office she was standing in. Her eyes didn't know what to look at. The office was so large and spacious that Quinn couldn't even look at everything all at once. In the middle was a gigantic curved, glass desk with one of the biggest iMacs she had ever seen. To the left were filled-to-capacity book shelves that went from the floor to the ceiling. On the right wall, frames took up nearly every open space. A couple of the frames held degrees, some held what seemed to be letters and others displayed what looked like New York Times Best Seller listings. Underneath all the frames were hip level filing cabinets that had even more frames on top of them. These held actual pictures. From where she was standing she could see that some of them had the controlled mess of curls of her potential boss in them, but others did not.
The most impressive and magnificent element to this office was the back wall. From left to right it was entirely made of window and looked directly into Central Park.
'Wow,' Quinn thought. Or maybe she said it out loud... she wasn't sure.
"You haven't been in the city very long have you?" Ilona asked Quinn as she passed her to get her desk.
"A year," Quinn answered, snapping out of her daze and closing her mouth. She took a few more steps forward.
"I can tell. Please, sit down," the Editor-in-Chief said indicating a chair in front of her desk.
As she walked towards the chair, Quinn removed her messenger bag and put it on the floor behind it. Before sitting down, she smoothed out the front of dress yet again.
"I like your dress. It's simple, but not too simple for an interview," Ms. Coppenger said with a little laugh and then turned to her computer screen.
"That's exactly what my girlfriend said this morning..." Quinn trailed off her response, a wave of thoughts hitting her. They varied from, 'I can't believe I just said that,' to, 'maybe she thinks I mean friend girlfriend and not girlfriend girlfriend,' to, 'I just killed this interview.' One after the other, they entered her brain and made her feel worse and worse about the off-the-cuff sentence that never should have left her mouth.
"Hmm..." Ms. Coppenger slid her glasses down her nose slightly and looked over them at Quinn, "Would this be the girlfriend that sent you that message?"
"Umm..." Quinn hummed out as new thoughts plagued her head, 'this is the weirdest interview, ever.'
"I'm sorry! That has nothing to do with why you're here," she said looking back at the computer screen, "Only a year, huh? You spent your first two years of school at Northwestern, I see and before that... Lima, Ohio? You're from the middle of nowhere?"
"Pretty much," Quinn answered.
"Now that I wouldn't have guessed," the Editor-in-Chief replied, putting her elbows on her desk and her chin in her palms, "I like you."
"I... ummm..."
"I'm a good judge of character," she said leaning back in her oversized desk chair, "The internship starts on the ninth. Congratulations."
"Wait... really?" Quinn asked, shocked.
"Yes, really," Ilona answered, "you're qualified and you're interesting. Truth be told, I decided you had the internship before you walked into my office. Your comment about your girlfriend sealed it though. Up until that point, you were pretty confident," she quirked her eyebrow and leaned forward, "We're in New York City, Quinn."
Quinn breathed out a laugh and shook her head a little, "Thank you."
"You are very welcome," Ms. Coppenger said standing up and extending her hand over her desk towards Quinn.
Quinn immediately followed suit and took Ilona's hand. She smiled as big as she could and said, "Thank you, so much."
"See you in a couple of weeks, Quinn."
"I can't wait," Quinn said through her still gigantic smile. She turned around, grabbed her messenger bag and started for the door. When she got to the door, she turned back and looked at her new boss, "Bye, Ms. Coppenger."
"None of that. Ilona."
When she finally worked up the courage to walk into the building, the woman that barely gave her the time of day the last time she was here told her to go right up to Ms. Coppenger's office. She didn't even have to wait this time around. The instant the elevator door opened, Ms. Coppenger's loud assistant said, "She's ready for you, just knock."
Quinn had no idea as to why she was ordered up to her boss's office on the first day of her internship. 'I haven't even started yet and something is already wrong!' she thought as she walked down the hall towards the office. Before she knew it, Quinn found herself knocking on her new boss's door, the sound of her own knuckles rapping on the thick cherry door snapping her out of her worrisome haze.
"Come in!" Quinn heard the airy voice of Ilona Coppenger, Editor-in-Chief ring through the thick door under her hand.
'Oh god,' Quinn thought as her hand slid down the door to the handle. Eyes closed, she pushed the handle down and then the door forward into the office. She would have kept them closed as she stepped into the office if she hadn't told herself how absolutely ridiculous she would have looked if she didn't open her eyes and look at her boss when she greeted her. Which then reminded her, "Good morning, Ms. Coppenger."
"I know I told you to call me Ilona and why do you look more terrified now than you did when you didn't have this internship yet?"
"Because I'm supposed to be on the editing floor...?" Quinn answered hesitantly and with an unsure, nervous grin.
"Oh god, no. I like you too much to put you through that everyday! Sit down, please, you're making me nervous!" Ilona said with a slight chuckle.
"I'm confused," Quinn said honestly as she walked towards an empty seat across from her boss.
"Stop doing that!"
"Stop doing what?"
"Being confused... and nervous! I just told you I like you. Now take your bag off and sit back in the seat like a normal person would while she's having a regular conversation," Ilona huffed, shaking her head. Quinn followed the orders, placing her trusty messenger on the empty seat next to her and her back into the chair's cushion. While sitting back helped Quinn become significantly less nervous, her confusion remained in both her head and on her face. "You're still wondering why you're here and not downstairs?" Ilona asked rolling her eyes slightly.
"Guilty," Quinn answered through an actual smile.
"I just want to talk," Ilona shrugged.
"Okay...? Umm... what do you want to talk about?" Quinn asked and then instantly wondered if there was ever a time in her life when she'd been more awkward than she was in this moment.
"You," the editor-in-chief answered plainly.
Taken aback, Quinn quickly answered, "I can assure you Ms. Copp- Ilona, that I am completely uninteresting."
"I beg to differ. No one who moves to this city from somewhere else is uninteresting."
At this moment in her life, Quinn wished that she had the quick wit that Santana had. She wished that she could just think of something that would make Ilona laugh and end the awkwardness that she was feeling. There wouldn't be a silence that was becoming worse and worse with every second that it hung in air.
"I hate Mondays," Ilona's voice broke through the quiet with a huge emphasis on the word 'hate.'
"Okay..."
"And I'm sick and tired of reading all the bull shit manuscripts that keep finding their way into those cabinets over there," she sighed throwing her thumb to her right towards the wall with all her diplomas and pictures.
"I'm sorry... I really don't think I'm following you..." Quinn said slowly, that nervous grin appearing on her face again.
"I want to hear the Quinn Fabray story, in full, no holds barred detail," Ilona said placing her elbows on her desk and her chin into her palms.
After a gulp, Quinn choked out, "There must be some bull shit in those cabinets that's much more interesting than me."
"You know," Quinn's boss said as she removed her red framed glasses and sat back in her chair, "I have pretty good instincts. They have been screaming that you have a great story to tell since I saw you fumbling with your phone outside of my office."
"I..."
"So, every Monday you're going to come straight up to my office and talk to me. Wednesdays you can work on the editing floor with your boring peers. I promise I'm not going to force you tell me something every Monday, that would be rude, but be aware that I am an unbiased ear. I am genuinely interested in your story. I might even talk about myself every once in a while. It's always nice to have someone that doesn't know you very well to listen to all of your shit," Ilona through a smile.
"Okay," Quinn answered without really thinking about it. She actually figured if she spent too much time thinking about it, she'd talk herself out of it and she'd lose the opportunity at creating an extremely profitable relationship with the editor-in-chief at a substantial book publishing company. For once, she thought quickly enough and her mouth followed her brain's queues with enough speed.
"Excellent! I want to hear everything! Don't hold back! From the beginning!" Ms. Coppenger said in a strange and clearly phony British dialect.
"Which one?" Quinn asked. She was being completely serious and only slightly trying to make herself seem more interesting than she believed she was.
"You see? Asking that question is telling me that my instincts are right! Whichever beginning you have determined to have brought you to where you are in your life right now," Ilona said with her eyes honing in Quinn.
Quinn took a moment and thought about her life today: it was everything she ever wanted, even if she didn't always know she'd wanted it. Then she delved backwards, rocketing out of New York, past Europe, through Northwestern, and back into Lima where Lucy died and Quinn was born. That was it. She even knew the exact moment. Her life changed all at once and she didn't even know it, until right now. All in one instant, she changed her name and introduced herself to the love of her life.
"My real first name is Lucy, but no one has seriously called me that since February 16th, 2009. I wouldn't have thought so a little over a year ago, but that was the day my life as I know it began..."
"This is already better than I'd expected."
A/N: As always I love to hear from you guys!
