Chapter 2. Day 1, I'm a Bottom Feeder

Logan Pearsall Smith was once quoted as saying, "The test of a vocation is
the love of the drudgery it involves." I'm thinking he was never an intern

Edward Cullen...oops! Masen...reporting for duty.

The first day of any job is a bitch, in my opinion.
You don't know anyone; you don't know what you're doing, where to find shit,
who to ask about finding shit, why you should be finding shit or where the
bathrooms are when you have to TAKE a shit.
The first day of my job at WESME?
Sucked that bitch's tit and spit poison out.
When I had finally and quite ridiculously accepted the position of bottom
feeder intern for my Uncle Carlisle's TV station, I truly had no idea what the
hell I was in for.
Seriously. Five AM is just a little early to start your day, don't you think?
Especially when you're still on West Coast time.
I shouldn't complain, I was up anyway, and because of that fact, I had decided
to take advantage of my time, make like the invisible college grad and find
some things out about where I'd be spending, at the very least, my summer
working.
Listening and learning things is a quiet art, one I had become very good at
over the years and I'd learned an awful lot in the wee hours of the morning of
which I began my next journey in life.
I'd had a very late and very short meeting with Carlisle the night before,
managed to stay inside the building past working hours and slept on the
couch in the front of Carlisle's office, in other words.
That's right, genius writer guy didn't bother to find a place to stay, and until I
figured out a way to make some money, that wasn't gonna happen anyway,
unless someone was miraculously giving away apartment space…and from
what I understood about New York City, that just doesn't happen, so…the
thousand dollar leather sofa in the waiting room of my uncle's reception area
was it.
I think it was the best four hours of sleep I'd had in…well, forever.
Anyway, I can't say that I know a lot, yet, but what I do know is that in addition
to the fact that Carlisle runs a bunch of local stuff in NYC, his big top prime
time shows, what he's really known for in the wonderful world of acting,
apparently, is his ability to find the next big thing…or rather, person.
Now I'm not naming any names or anything, but let's just say that, people he
discovers end on end up in Entertainment Weekly, Vogue, in movies with
James Cameron, Tim Burton, Martin goddamn Scorsese for crying out loud…
In a nutshell, he's only running the largest money making TV station in the
United States of America.
I couldn't let the fact that I was now working there freak me out, so I tucked
that information away for another day.
Besides, I'm really only using the word "working" loosely here, seeing as I
wasn't actually making any money.
The first big mistake I'd made in my assumption about how the day would go?
Was that I literally thought it was gonna be all glitz and glamour and writing
and I'd sit around a big oval table with the other hoyty toyty writers who are
dressed in fucked up clothes because we're brilliant, not fashionable, and talk
about how we were gonna change the world…then get my big break during
season two maybe, write and produce my own movies some day even...
Right?
Wrong.
In an oh so big and embarrassing kinda way.
I wore the sticky name tag that read, "INTERN, E. MASEN" on it proudly, on
my recently pressed button down shirt, along with my only slightly ripped
jeans and my two year old Chucks…it's an endearment thing having to do with
my upward motion into the big name college I'd graduated from, cut me a
break.
Uh...moving right along, despite my fabulous wardrobe, I had pretty much
come to the conclusion that my first day was most likely gonna be my last and
that it was probably a good thing I hadn't found a place to live yet because I'd
be high tailing it right back to Washington State soon enough.
To say it was a "rough start" would be putting it lightly, since the lady that was
in charge of the interns, Tanya, I think her name was, had to ask me fivetimes
to make sure I'd gotten the new script to a Miss Swan's dressing room, and I
had returned, four times to ask her again how to get there. The fifth time, I
paid the costume designer with the last twenty bucks I had on me to just take
me there.
The camera number two guy thought that shit was really funny.
Then I fucked up a bagel order that the producer had put me in charge of,
handed out regular Sprite instead of DIET Sprite to the actors, got something
called "marks" wrong on the set...those are the taped areas of the set where
the actors are supposed to stand for their scenes, by the way...tripped over
some camera wires, causing the lights to tip and fall, fucking up a scene,
IMMENSELY as they put it…dramatically.
And oh yeah, had stepped on…STEPPED ON the leading dudes Daytimer,
getting my dirty foot prints all over his PRECIOUS leather binder.
It wasn't my fault he left that shit laying in the middle of the floor.
Was it?
Who carries a Daytimer anyway? Isn't this the information age? Blackberries,
iPhones, iTouch, you touch and every other touch pad bullshit that's out there,
and this guy's still using a paper notebook?
Idiot.
So, to say the least, I was completely blown away when Tanya had given me
my script sheets to work on for the next day and told me to be there at five AM
sharp.
So blown away in fact, that when I went to leave the studio, I ran smack into
the infamous, yet very non-existent, Isabella Swan.
At least, I'd assumed it was her.
I hadn't had the chance to meet her all day because every time I was
supposed to go fetch her for a scene, she'd been "busy" with her hot shot
Producer who just so happened to be the Producer of the show I was working
on, boyfriend, Josh, Jake, James…something or other…
A name I should probably learn,I suppose, being that he was my boss and all.
By the time someone more…"capable" had managed to find her, as Tanya
liked to put it, and she'd showed up for her scenes finally, I was always off
running some dumb ass lame as fuck errand for another person above and
beyond my lowly position.
Which was pretty much everyone else that worked there.
It was a long goddamn day, let's just say.
A day in which I'd heard people gossiping about the leading lady and how
she'd only landed the leading role because of her relationship with this
Producer guy.
They were only a little bit bitter.
They'd also described in detail what she looked like. The guys all sporting
hards ons as they did…talk about uncomfortable moments…the girls all
sporting their own green eyed monsters, so to speak.
I don't generally listen to gossip. If it doesn't affect me, why should I give a
shit?
However, I also couldn't stop staring as I took her in.
Everything I'd heard throughout the day ran through my head as I gawked.
Long dark shiny brown, nearly black hair with very subtle auburn high
lights...check.
Matching deep, dark brown, soul gazing eyes...check.
Sexy as fuck neckline...check.
Perfect, perky, paradisiacal nipples...check.
Oh wait, no one had mentioned that one.
Anyway, my point being, I'd expected beauty, since she WAS the leading
woman on the show, I mean they're not gonna hire a fugly girl, right? And I'd
expected brashness, or at the very least, bitchiness, since she could probably
have gotten away with just about anything, being the Producer's girlfriend and
all…but what I didn't' expect was the complete, unadulterated, simple, sweet
innocence in her face.
She was…blushing? And I had to restrain myself from telling her how
absolutely and utterly exquisite she was when she did that.
I was just standing there, staring at her like the idiot I was when suddenly I
heard myself mutter incoherently.
"Hurt me."
"Excuse me?" she asked, creating an ever so slight crease between her
perfectly manicured eyebrows, laughing through her cute little scrunched up
nose and I wanted to staple my big mouth shut for letting it say that shit.
Her eyes literally sparkled when she spoke.
I could see why my uncle had signed her on.
I might have actually gotten something else to come out of my mute mouth
had the Producer, asshole James or, whatever his name was, guy not walked
up to meet her then, slinking his arm around her's, asking me if I NEEDED
anything as he kissed her cheek, eyeballing me the whole time.
Jerk.
"Um…nothing, sorry," I said, pushing past the two of them rudely, hurrying out
into the still quite fucking cold April air.
Then I slapped my self in the forehead.
Nice job, idiot, very smooth.
I swear to Aphrodite, if I lasted another day at this job, I was gonna have to
find a way to avoid that woman, because the way my stomach had just done
flip flops at the simple words of "Excuse me?" that she'd just spoken…I hated
thinking about what she'd do to me throughout an entire conversation.
And if I was gonna impress the station big wigs, I needed to focus.
I looked back through the door as it closed on me, locking eyes with the latest,
unmistakable "it" girl.
Yeah, she had trouble written all over her perfectly pale, heart shaped face. I
could just feel it.
In all the wrong places. Or right ones, depending on your point of view if you
get what I'm saying.
I scowled a little, thinking.
I'm a smart guy, I just need to mind my own business, get some props, write
some lines, and avoid highly complicated situations involving hot actresses
like the plague.
And anyway, it wasn't exactly smart to have a thing for the girlfriend of the
Producer who could make or break your career.
Right?
Shake it off.
I was in the middle of trying to figure out WHY I needed to shake anything off
when I heard someone yell from down the street.
"Hey, new guy!"
I looked to see a group of the people I'd made an ass out of myself in front of
all day long standing around with their hands either stuffed into their pockets,
or around someone of the female persuasion that was standing next to them.
I looked behind me for a minute to see who they were talking to when I
realized, it was me they were now laughing at as turned back to them.
The biggest of the dudes standing there nodded his head, unwilling to remove
his hands from the warmth of his pockets, gesturing for me to join them.
I recognized him as the camera two guy who'd thought my misfortune of
getting lost within the maze of hallways at the station was hilarious earlier in
the day.
I figured hey, I didn't have anything else to do, or live...so I headed over to
them. Walking down the street, part of me couldn't help but wonder if this was
all part of some, let's screw with the new guy ploy, and whether I was about to
get tar and feathered or something like that as some sort of, first day of
interning slash hell week initiation kind of bullshit.
"What's up," I said nodding back to him, not wanting to show my fear. It was
all about keeping your cool, right?
"Tanya was rough on ya today, was she?" the big guy asked.
I didn't get the chance to process his concern when the tiny clothing designer
barked sarcastically at that. "Rough?" she laughed. "She didn't let up on him
for a second…not even after Mike got in his face over that
whole, Daytimer incident."
Mike. Hmmm...I thought to myself, because he'd struck me as more of a
"Blane" or..."Sephan". I'd also pretty much pegged him as one of "those" guys
that I previously mentioned and described.
"She must like you," the tall blonde standing next to big guy teased. She
raised an eyebrow and looked me up and down once before snuggling back
up to him.
Hey, I know what eye fucking is, it's not like I'd never been eye fucked
before…this was a small, flirtatious step passed eye fucking…more like, eye,
eye, eye, I think I need some protective gear now thank you very much.
My "no fear" façade was dwindling, I'll admit it. I didn't want this guy to lay into
me over eye…am gonna fuck your brains out look I was getting from his girl.
"Um," however, was all I could muster.
"I'm Emmett," he boomed, finally taking his hand out of his pocket to shake
mine.
I took it, and pretty much immediately proceeded to cringe from the pain of the
firm as fuck squeeze he laid on me.
Emmett laughed as he stuck his hands back into his jean pockets and then
introduced me to the rest of the circle by nodding at each one of them. When
he ended, I smiled politely and said, "Edward."
It still felt weird calling myself "Masen" so I left the last name out of it, they
hadn't given me any, so I figured they didn't really care anyway.
"We're going over to Bar Celona, why don't you come with."
Why indeed?
I hesitated somewhere half way between telling them all to just go on without
me and getting a little punchy over being included in their late night
excursion…then finally agreed, following them as the little clothing designer,
Alice I think Emmett said her name was, shouted, "First round's on me!"
She giggled, eying me over her shoulder as she waved the twenty I'd paid her
with earlier that day and added, "Or rather, on Edward."
I zipped my jacket up and snuck one last peek behind us as we made off, only
to catch the last remnants of one Miss Isabella Swan getting into a cab with
asshole Producer guy and wondered what in the hell she saw in that guy
anyway.
I mean, he just didn't seem her type…she looked like she belonged with
someone more along the lines of…
Me.
I laughed at that…because...yeah, right.
"Edward! You coming?" Alice called out. They'd gotten about a block ahead of
me as I sat there day dreaming…or…night dreaming…something like that.
Then I turned back to the crowd of people I was with and decided drinking her
out of my mind was probably the best bet anyway.
For now.
"Yeah," I answered, half jogging after the crowd.