The reader and the talker.
Disclaimers: I do not own any of the rights to the characters from Carmilla.
Personal note: woke up this morning by almost all my chapters deleted so I had ro repost them. Hope I don't confuse to many of you, i wish i knew what happened to them but i don't, might be a prank by my idiotic brother or something :/
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Chapter 5:
Laura looked at the number in front of her once again. One call, that was all she needed and then her misery and anxiety would be over. Or a text message, but that felt highly impersonal. However, why would she want to get personal with this girl she wondered. It was just a coffee. She had had coffee several times with her friends so why would this be such a big deal? On the other hand, she didn't know Carmilla well enough to call her her friend just yet. Maybe the word acquaintance was more appropriate, but that also felt wrong. She wasn't a stranger, she wasn't an acquaintance either and she wasn't a friend. What was Carmilla to her? She was annoying, bitchy, arrogant, sexy, charming… wait what? Ok, fine. Carmilla did have her moments when the blond felt like they were being pulled towards each other for some unknown reason but 95% of the time the raven haired girl was just a pain in her butt.
Laura grunted and threw herself on the bed face first. Why was this so hard?! She rolled over onto her back and held the phone above her face, okay she thought maybe a text would do just fine. No, she wouldn't give in. Her father pushed her to be the very best, always, and a text message wasn't her best. Before she even understood her own actions she had pushed the call button. Laura shrieked in realisation but it was too late to hang up, the call had already been transferred. She took a deep breath and heard a faith "Hello, you've reached Carmilla Karnstein?" on the other line and she quickly realised that she was still holding the phone in front of her and not by her ear. She clumsily put the phone in position.
"Hello?" She answered back uncertainly. There was silence on the line for a couple of seconds before Carmilla answered.
"Yes, hi this is Carmilla Karnstein. May I ask who is calling?" Laura was shocked by her professional tone but she quickly remembered that this was also her work phone. Who in this century didn't have a work phone and a private phone she wondered.
"Hi Carmilla! It's Laura!" She answered quickly, maybe a bit too quickly.
"Oh, hey cupcake. Already wanting that coffee? You miss already?" Carmilla answered teasingly which made Laura flush.
" I-I what? No, I mean yes I was wondering about the coffee. Not that I miss you or anything!" She blurted out the last part.
She heard a chuckle on the other line. "Well, I'm usually free around lunch time or on weekends. What about twelve o'clock tomorrow?" Carmilla suggested.
Laura thought for a second, thinking about her schedule for the next day. "Hmm, well I have to go and hand out my resume around eleven but-." Laura was cut off.
"One second" Carmilla said. She covered the phone with what Laura assumed was her hand and she could her muffled sounds of people taking in the background. Suddenly the thought hit her that she had no idea what Carmilla profession was but she figured she could ask her tomorrow.
"Sorry, work stuff. I'm kinda crowded with work but could you keep it short?" Carmilla said hurriedly.
"Yea, sure. I'm sorry. Yes, twelve will be great. Where?" She asked as she drew her fingers through her hair.
"Hmm" It sounded like Carmilla was shuffling through some papers as she talked. "Morton's, it's just by the town hall." She half mumbled, clearly distracted by work. Laura realised she had probably called Carmilla at a bad time.
"Yea, sounds great! See you tomorrow!" Laura gleefully replied.
"Great, see you there." And the line went dead.
Laura put down her phone on her bed and sat still for a couple of seconds before doing a fist pump, proud of herself that the phone call went that well.
"Not bad Hollis, not bad." She told herself. Now all she had to do was work a bit on her resume so she could go job hunting tomorrow.
She loved working at the bookstore but she was a journalist mayor ay heart. It was time for her to actually do what she was longing for. To write at a newspaper.
The main idea was to start working the bookstore while she went job-hunting, however she had settled in comfort as people tend to do. But after the wine and cheese evening with the girls she had realised, with a bit of persuasion from Perry, Danny and LaFontaine that she had to move on.
She shifted so that she was sitting crossed legged on her bed and picked up her laptop and cracked her fingers before she started typing.
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Laura's heart was beating so fast she thought it was literally going to rip her ribcage open. She stood in front of The Oracle office with her resume in hand. She had stood in front of the huge glass doors for a couple of minutes now, shaking from either excitement, nerves or maybe both, she hadn't quite decided yet.
A man coming out of the building smiled at her politely and held up the door. Laura nodded politely and walked inside. Her mind was going crazy. Really, The Oracle? Why didn't she go for a smaller company and not the biggest in the city? Well, as her father always told her "Dream big. It's the first step to success." Laura let out a long sigh before determinedly walking towards the reception.
On the other side of the counter, a woman was sitting with her hair tightly held up in a bun. However, she wasn't paying any attention to Laura's arrival and was frantically typing on her computer, her eyes quickly moving across the computer screen.
"Hello?" Laura quickly cleared her throat, realising she was sounding quite timid. "Hello!" She tried again, finally catching the woman's attention. The woman looked up from her screen and kindly smiled at her.
"Well, hello dear. I'm Natalie, how can I help you?" The woman asked her with kindness in her eyes and completely focused on Laura instead of her computer.
"Hi, my name is Laura Hollis and I'm here to leave my resume." She said as she handed the papers to the woman. The woman took the resume in her hand and quickly scanned through. She let out some "Hmm's" and "Oh's" here and there as she looked through it.
"Well, I think it's better that I would schedule a meeting with the director. How does that sound? Natalie's blue eyes still glued to the paper.
Laura widened her eyes in excitement. "That would be great!" She exclaimed with a huge smile on her face.
"Well, how does friday sound around three o'clock?" She continued and finally looked up at Laura.
"No problem! I'll be there!" She answered gleefully.
"Great, see you then. Laura was it?" Laura nodded. "Great, see you on friday!" She flashed Laura one last smile before turning back to her computer.
Laura left the office walking on clouds. A meeting with the director? That was beyond what she had hoped for! She couldn't stop smiling and she felt like she was on top of the world. She looked down at her watch and realised it was time to head to the cafe to meet Carmilla. Yup, she thought, this day was going to be great and nothing could bring her down.
