Read Online The Washingtonienne by Jessica Cutler - Free Book Online

Dan,” April cooed. “What are you doing here? Waiting for me?”
    Dan looked at me nervously and made excuses to get back to his desk.
    “Oh. My. God. You will not believe what just happened,” I told the girls after he left the room. “April, that guy you like is a total perv.”
    I thought that they would appreciate my dirty story about Dan, but they were disgusted.
    “You like him, don’t you?” April accused me. “Why else would you tell him that you’re
waxed
?”
    “And what were you doing looking at that crap on
my
computer?” Laura wanted to know. “You could get me fired for that!”
    “Is it really that serious?” I asked. “Who’s going to know? I’ll take full responsibility if anyone says anything about it: I’m an intern, so I can’t get fired.”
    I was surprised that April and Laura would come down on me so hard. Maybe it was the alcohol that was making them so emotional, or perhaps I was just wearing out my welcome here.
    “I think you should go back to your cubicle,” April said. “We’ll discuss this later.”
    “Tonight at the apartment?” I asked.
    “Probably not,” she replied. “Tom is coming over.”
    I rolled my eyes and went back to my desk. Just then Kate called me into her office:
    “Sweetie,
could I see you for a minute?”
    I had come to loathe the sound of Kate’s voice. She always had some crap job for me to do, like count the number of knives and forks in the party supply closet or buy new batteries for the senator’s remote. And I hated the way she called me “
sweetie.
” (Trust me, she had a tone.)
    Today, I had to Autopen a hundred copies of his new book. The Autopen was a machine with a robotic arm that could forge the senator’s signature perfectly. I sent Valentine cards to all of my friends signed by “The Senator,” and I even left little notes around the apartment for April:

    Dude!
    We’re out of tampons.
    Pick some up at CVS? I’ll give you $ later.
    Thanx,
    “The Senator”

    Sometimes you had to make your own fun at work.
    After signing the books, I went back to my desk and checked my voice mail. A week after sending out my resumes, I hadn’t received a single callback. I finally broke down and called Phillip, the guy who promised to help me get a job.
    “So happy to hear from you,” he said. “Just e-mail me your resume, and I’ll forward it to my friends on the Hill. We’ll have to go out to dinner and celebrate once you get hired.”
    I knew how these things worked: If Phillip got me a job, I would have to go out to dinner with him and, at the very least, give him a blow job or something afterward.
    About an hour after sending my resume to Phillip, I got a callback for a staff assistant position in a Republican senator’s office. I had never heard of the guy, but then again, I didn’t know most congressmen from shit, except for the really glam ones like Senator Clinton. If the important people on the Hill were better looking, it might be easier—and more exciting—to spot them.
    “
Sweetie!
” Kate called from her office again.
    She asked me to run an errand, all the way on the House side.
    “I’m wearing heels,” I told her. “I’ll ask one of the interns in the mailroom to do it.”
    “
Sweetie,
” Kate said, “maybe you shouldn’t wear shoes like that to the office anymore.”
    “But I’m short. I have to wear heels.”
    “
Sweetie,
when I ask you to do something, you do it.”
    “Fine,” I said, kicking my Gucci shoes off so they went flying into the wall. “I’m going!”
    I walked out of her office barefoot. When I got back to my desk, my shoes were on top of my desk with a Post-it stuck to them.
    SEE ME,
it said in Kate’s handwriting.
    Yeah, right. I wasn’t going back into her office, just so she could berate me. I put my shoes on and walked out of the office. Fuck Kate, and fuck this internship. I had an interview for a real job tomorrow anyway. And I still had Fred.
    I WENT TO THE NEARBY Hotel