flashback.
It had been a year since Arturo had last been employed. It hadn't been a particularly exciting job, nor fruitful. It had consisted of him showing up every day in his least stained white shirt, tie loosely knotted around his throat and answering calls, trying to sell a product he cared little about. He hadn't fit in well in an office environment, couldn't bring himself to care about Jessica's baby shower or the latest shipment of number two pencils. His attention had waned, as it always had, and he'd started turning in reports with doodles in each corner, rude little caricatures of the people he imagined on the other end of the phone. The final straw had come when he'd been caught kissing Jeff, the boss' assistant with dark brown eyes and long hair. He wondered if it had less to do with him kissing on the job and more to do with the fact he and Jeff were both men. C'est la fucking vie. That place wasn't meant for him anyway.
He'd have been happy to spend the rest of his life on his couch, drinking himself into a stupor, if it weren't for a few small problems. One, drinking yourself to death was expensive. He'd long since stopped accepting money from his Father, and he couldn't remember the last time someone had bought his artwork. Come to think of it, he couldn't remember the last time he'd updated his website.
The second problem was Elena Flores.
Not that he'd ever thought of Elena as a problem. Ever since she'd come into his life, she'd been his sole reason to carry on. But he couldn't stand her big, sad eyes whenever she stopped by, Snoopy backpack slung over one shoulder and her lips forced upward into a smile. Even when he couldn't face answering the door, she found a way to let herself in. Sometimes he woke to find her picking up empty beer bottles and looking at him forlornly, his laptop open to a job application he'd yet to begin filling out.
So when the job at Spectre came up, he decided he would try. For her. His resume wasn't up to scratch, less than a year at some jobs, an incomplete law school degree. But the man at the other end of the emails - Ravi - hadn't asked for any of that stuff. He'd only wanted some examples of Arturo's work, hadn't even questioned the few arrests on his record, the ones that were mandatory to disclose. From the little he'd seen of the office, Spectre seemed like one of those hippy, dippy places. More like a college newspaper than a serious political publication, everyone drinking iced coffees and hopped up on dreams and a vision for the future. It was all very idealistic. Arturo couldn't imagine any of these people becoming his friends.
He'd tried his best to force a smile for Elena, tell her just how well the job interview had gone. He hadn't caught sight of the man he'd been emailing with, but he doubted he'd have impressed him any more than the woman who greeted him on the day. Like he'd said, everyone was just so fucking hopeful. It wasn't for him. Elena would be disappointed, even if she didn't say it, but he'd look elsewhere. He'd keep looking.
Imagine his fucking surprise when they'd offered him the job.
He didn't drink the night before his first day, even though he'd desperately wanted to. It left a slick sheen of sweat on his forehead and a slight tremor in his hands, but he was hoping he could pass those off as first day nerves. He'd scraped his too-long tresses back into a bun and smiled down at Elena as she straightened his tie, and got on the subway for his first day at Spectre.
Wiping his hands on his trousers, he'd climbed the small, narrow staircase to the building. Despite having been there once before, he managed to get lost. The office was poky, squirrelled away, more like a drug den than a legitimate business place - at least, to Arturo's overactive imagination. When he reached the top of the stairs, he was faintly aware of the sweat patches under his armpits, and took a moment to steady his breathing before he pushed the door open.
Nobody paid immediate attention to him. Everyone had their heads bowed over their laptops, someone was painting an intricate protest sign in one corner, and it appeared two people were arguing in another corner. No one looked twice at Arturo. Clearing his throat, he took a heavy-footed step into the room, towards the desk of a young brunette. She seemed to be proof reading something, her eyebrows furrowed in concentration. Instead of speaking up, he rapped his knuckles on her desk.
"Hiya, doll." he greeted, going for the light and breezy, slightly sleazy but hopefully ultimately charming thing. He tried on a bright smile for size, hoping he came off as largely unthreatening. "My name is Arturo Flores, and I'm your new political cartoonist."
