Chapter 1

Brooke sat in the unemployment office as she had once a week for the past ten months. She had to show up weekly to report whether she had found work or not. She’d been working for a very nice accounting firm as their receptionist/secretary, but the owner decided to retire and the business closed its doors.

Now, with the job market so tight, finding another job was proving quite challenging. Especially at her age. Had she been fifteen years younger – or even ten years younger – she wouldn’t have had nearly as much difficulty. But at thirty-five years old, Brooke knew that her prospects for getting a good job were dwindling rapidly.

Brooke’s husband, Ken, was a hard worker and he did his best to support them, but the economy was taking its toll on his building contracting company too; folks just didn’t have a lot of money for remodeling or new construction these days.

He was competing for the few commercial jobs available with a lot of other companies, some of which were a lot bigger and could therefore afford to bid very low on their work.

In order to make the monthly bills, Brooke had taken a few temp jobs here and there, nothing that paid very well, but at least it kept her in the job market and kept showing the unemployment agency that she was at least trying to work.

It kept her unemployment checks coming in, but that spotty work wasn’t going to hold off the State for long ... she had already been told that her unemployment would run out in another two months

When times were better and both of them were working steady, they had been able to put a little bit in a savings account in case of emergency like if he would get hurt at work, if one of them got sick, or something else would happen.

But since she lost her job, they’d had to nibble away at that savings until it was getting close to being used up. Something had better happen for them soon or they would start falling behind in their bills and have no way to catch up!

One day when Ken was at work and Brooke was home, she was perusing the Help Wanted ads as she usually did when a new ad caught her eye: Barstow Associates, a financial consultant firm was looking for a girl to handle the front desk and phones as well as do the typical typing and filing duties of a secretary.

The ad said “experience preferred but will train the right applicant.” Well Brooke had all kinds of experience and would need only the briefest of training to get used to how they did things!

Excitedly she called the number and a young woman answered the phone, “Barstow Associates, how can I direct your call?”

“Hello, I am calling about the help wanted ad for the receptionist/secretary position?” Brooke said.

“Oh yes. Please hold and I will transfer you to someone who can talk to you about it,” she said. The phone went dead for a moment and then a male voice came on the line.

“This is Roger Barstow, can I help you?” he said. The man’s voice was deep and powerful and Brooke felt a strange authority to it.

“Y-yes, I’m calling about the job? The secretary/receptionist position?” she said, surprisingly meekly.

“Oh, yes. Well, do you have any experience?” he said.

“I worked for Thompson-Kincaid, PCA here in Salem for almost ten years as their secretary and receptionist. I can type around sixty-five words per minute if I really concentrate with around fifty-five to fifty-eight on average. I can use a computer well in word-processing, spreadsheet, slide presentation, and other programs,” she said.

“I see. Well you certainly sound like you have all the qualifications we need here. Do you have a current resume?” he asked.

“Yes Sir, I do,” Brooke said.

“Tell you what then ... come by our office tomorrow at say, 2:00 pm and we will talk more about this. Bring your resume and any other documentation you wish to show me – awards, letters of recommendation, and anything else you think would help you, and I will talk with you then,” he said.

“Yes, Sir. I look forward to our meeting,” she said.

“As do I,” he said, and hung up. It wasn’t until she hung up the phone that she realized she hadn’t even given him her name!

“Oh, you dumb blonde!” she said, smacking herself in the forehead.

After she hung up the phone, Brooke looked up the address for the company and then went to look over her resume. This job sounded like it would be a good one if she could land it, and she wanted to make sure her resume listed every possible advantage and positive point she could think of.

She made sure she had copies of all of her certificates, awards, letters of recommendation, and other training and work she had done. The more she could pad her resume, and still be truthful and legitimate, the better she would feel going into the interview!

That night at dinner, Brooke told her husband about the upcoming interview. “Honey, tomorrow I have an interview for a potential job. Now, I don’t want to tell you much about it – I don’t want to jinx myself. But it has to do with being a secretary and receptionist like I used to be with T-K,” she said.

“That’s great, sweetheart. I hope you get it, I know you have wanted to go back to work. I won’t say anymore about it, but good luck!” he said.

The next morning after Ken went off to work, Brooke got her housework done as quickly as possible. She wasn’t sure how long the interview would last, but she hoped to come home with good news.

She felt sorry for her husband, he’d had to scramble for every bit of work he could find and he’d had more than one sleepless night worrying over the bills. On top of that he’d had to work late into the nights on some jobs and on weekends on others.

Ken really did work too hard and Brooke hoped that this interview would lead to a job that would take some of the pressure off him finally.

With her housework done, she laid out the clothes she wanted to wear to the interview. Something appropriate for business, but also one that showed Mr. Barstow that she was easy on the eyes as well! After all, she wanted the customers to want to come in and if she looked good, then maybe that would attract more business to the firm.

She went in to take a shower, and she made sure she shaved her legs as well. She planned on wearing stockings to the interview, but she still wanted nice smooth legs nonetheless. Then she got dressed and lastly she did her makeup ... something attractive, yet not whorish. This was a job interview, not a porn shoot!

She looked at herself in the full-length mirror on the back of her bedroom door. She eyed herself critically, making sure everything was absolutely spot on. Once satisfied she’d done all she could to prepare for this interview, she picked up her resume packet and drove to the address she had wrote down last night.

She pulled up in front of a very tall, mirror-faced office building. Finding a lucky parking spot close to the entrance, she locked her car and went inside. She walked through the lobby to the elevators; an information board by the elevators told her that Barstow Associates was on the twelfth floor of a fifteen floor building. She pushed the button to call the elevator and when the door opened, she stepped inside.

The door opened on the twelfth floor to a spacious lobby and directly across was a huge granite looking reception desk with Barstow Associates in gold colored metal on the front of the dark granite desk. On the wall behind the desk was a series of black and white clocks with every time zone represented.

Brooke walked up to the desk where a cute blonde receptionist asked her how she could be of assistance. Brooke saw by the nameplate on her desk the receptionist’s name was Becky. “Hi, Becky, I’m here to talk with Mr. Barstow about the secretary/receptionist job he advertised in the paper,” Brooke said.

She smiled a smile that matched her bubbly personality and said “Just a minute.” She pushed her intercom and said “Mr. Barstow, Sir, there’s a woman here to interview for the secretary job.”

“Show her in won’t you, Becky,” the voice came back over the intercom. Becky led her back through the double glass doors and down the hall to Mr. Barstow’s office. Knocking softly on the big wooden door, they heard a man’s deep voice from the other side.

“Come in.”

“Mr. Barstow, this woman is here about the job opening,” Becky said softly.

“Yes, thank you, Becky. That will be all, please close the door behind you,” he said.

Once Becky had left Mr. Barstow turned his attentions to Brooke. “Now Miss ... I’m sorry I didn’t get your name?” he said.

“It’s Brooke. Brooke Robbins. And it’s Mrs.,” she said.

“I see. Well Mrs. Robbins, the job here lists as a secretary-receptionist position but in reality there is a little more to it than that. Of course there is all the ordinary typing, filing, shorthand, handling the phones, etc., that you would expect from a job like this.

“That is the easy part – I can get any college girl to do most of it. However, there is another side to this position and should you accept it, you will be required to perform those services as well,” he said.

“Services?” Brooke asked not sure where this was going but getting a little uneasy with the scenery.

“Mrs. Robbins – may I call you Brooke?” he asked. Brooke nodded in the affirmative and he continued, “Brooke, the ad for this position has been running in the paper for nearly a year now and I have interviewed literally hundreds of applicants. Many of them were highly qualified as secretaries or receptionists. But when they learned about the other part of their job they decided it wasn’t for them,” he said.