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The honking woke her up. No surprise, she thought, because the honking had also kept her awake for her first few nights in the apartment. It wasn’t just the honking. There were always people shouting on the street. Always some sort of music or noise blaring from an unknown location. There was even a sort of buzzing, like electricity was constantly flowing through the walls of her apartment.

When the sun started to peep through her window, she got up. She had plenty of time to get ready for her first day at work. She showered, brushed her teeth, and stood in front of her closet. When she had started job interviewing, she had shopped for an entire new wardrobe of professional clothing. She had everything from formal office attire to business casual. Once she picked out a light pink blouse and a gray pencil skirt, she sat at the vanity that she’d had since she was thirteen and moved with her every year in college and put on her makeup. Then, she clipped her curls back and put on a small pair of earrings.

She looked professional, she thought to herself. Like someone who was already on her way to being a professional editor at one of the top media companies in the world. She looked at the clock on her nightstand. It was 7:15. She’d figured it would take her an hour to take the subway downtown, so she still had plenty of time. She sat back on her bed to scroll through her phone as she waited. At 7:45, she decided it was time to go.

She walked to the Subway where people were standing in a crowd in front of the turnstiles. She tried to look forward to see what was happening, but all she could see was the slow movement of people trying to push forward to get to the platform. When it was her turn, she swiped her card as fast as possible and pushed onto the cramped platform. There were so many people waiting! She couldn’t believe there were that many people living in her neighborhood at her Subway stop! Were all these people going to fit on the train? A train came and when the doors opened, people pushed in. Leah tried to move forward but felt herself being pushed back by the crowd. The doors closed and the crowded train shot down the track. She looked around the platform. It was as crowded as before the train arrived and more people were pouring in.

She tried to stand close to the tracks, but not too close that she could accidentally get pushed in. When the next train arrived, she was more aggressive. She pushed herself on the train and found an inch of a pole to wrap her fingers around. She would have lost her balance when the train sped off if the people around her didn’t hold her up straight. She checked her phone. It was already 8:15. Plenty of time to get downtown. And then the train stopped.

A voice came over the speaker announcing delays and Leah started to panic. She looked around at everyone who seemed preoccupied with their own things. Some scrolled through their phones, others read newspapers. Some books. But no one seemed concerned or surprised at the announcement. After five full minutes—who knew how long five minutes could be!—the train lurched forward and again Leah felt herself propped up by her fellow train riders. The ride downtown continued with more stops and lurches forward until she finally reached her station on Wall Street at 9:15.

Late on her first day. She wanted to cry. A good first impression had been so important to her! It would make or break her career and here she was already showing them that she was unreliable. She pushed off the subway and ran to the building. Inside, she tried to catch her breath as the security guard asked to see her badge. She didn’t have one yet! It was her first day and she was late! She tried to explain between pants. Maybe she should take up running like Gabe, she thought. Maybe all New Yorkers needed to be runners. A drop of sweat fell on her hand. She was now late and sweaty. Perfect .

The security guard called up to Diamond Media’s HR department, who said they’d send someone down to meet her. Leah felt relieved that they hadn’t already dismissed her on the spot. She couldn’t wait to get started. She imagined sitting in her manager’s office listening to all the tricks of the trade. She’d be her manager’s best employee! Hopefully her protégé! And get promoted in no time.

It took almost ten minutes before the HR woman came out of the elevators. “Leah Rosenberg? Nice to meet you! I’m Kelsey.” Kelsey held her hand out. Leah smiled and shook her hand while trying to calculate what time she would actually get to meet her manager. 9:30? 9:40? She was so late! Kelsey signed Leah into the building and led her to the elevators.

“Did you get here all right?” Kelsey asked with a big smile as they rode the elevator to the sixteenth floor.

“Yeah, I mean, I took the Subway. I’m sorry I’m late!” She blurted out before she could remind herself not to apologize. Her dad always said never to apologize if something wasn’t her fault. It made someone seem weak. And being late was not her fault! It was the Subway’s fault!

“Oh, don’t worry about it! The Subway during rush hour can be a nightmare!” Kelsey’s smile appeared to be growing. “You’ll get used to it and be able to time yourself better.” There it was. The HR reprimanding for being late.

The elevator doors opened to a bright lobby with modern lighting and flower vases around the room. Kelsey led Leah past the reception. “Good morning, Carmen!” Kelsey and the receptionist exchanged smiles, but Kelsey kept walking. Leah eyed the clean cubicles and glass-walled offices around the perimeter. Everyone looked so busy! And so professional! “This is the business floor,” Kelsey explained as she walked. “The sales teams, HR, operations department.” Kelsey weaved through the cubicles smiling and waving at everyone she walked by. “All right, here we are.” She stopped at the door of a large office with a woman inside sitting in front of a computer. Leah recognized the woman as Helen Thomas, who had held her HR interview during the hiring process. “Good morning, Helen, I have Leah Rosenberg here for her first day.”

Leah smiled and waved to the woman, as if to say, hey! I made it! Remember me from the interview? But it seemed that Helen did not remember her. She looked up and gave a curt smile, her lips pressed together. “Welcome. Kelsey, can you onboard her? I’m in the middle of something.”

Kelsey agreed and took Leah to the cubicle in front of Helen’s office. She pulled up an extra chair and sat down at the desk. Leah positioned the extra chair and sat. “We’re so excited to have you. We just need you to sign some paperwork and we’ll get you a badge and everything will be all set up.” Kelsey threw a stack of papers in front of her. “It’s all standard for an employment contract. You should look over it, just to be aware, but I’ll give you the main points.” Kelsey started listing off information, how sick days worked, when she’d get paid, how she’d accrue vacation time. The hours she was expected to work (9:00-6:00 PM, which Kelsey seemed to emphasize) and she was allotted thirty minutes for lunch. How she should give notice should she decide to quit and the process if the company wanted to terminate her employment (they could do without notice for the first three months, which shocked Leah). Her head was starting to spin and she caught her eyes wandering around. There was no privacy for this conversation. Whoever was in the next cubicle over could hear everything. That didn’t seem very HR-like, Leah thought. Wasn’t HR supposed to protect employees?

“Everything clear?” Kelsey asked and Leah nodded. “I’m going to get your file, you can read over the contract while I’m gone.” Kelsey stood up and left Leah in the cubicle with the papers. She had never seen a contract before and had no idea what to look for. She flipped the pages until she saw her salary. $35,000 a year. It was exactly what was agreed upon, and by her budgeting, exactly enough for the year in New York. But she’d get a raise soon. As soon as she started proving herself at Teen Club.

Kelsey came back. “So I need to ask you something. You can definitely say no, we’ll just have to figure things out.” Leah immediately knew she couldn’t say no.

“Our researcher at Club Business just quit yesterday, out of the blue.” Kelsey rolled her eyes as though confiding in Leah. She leaned forward. “It was such a mess. Anyway, they are desperate for a researcher since they only had one and he had a lot of responsibilities. Teen Club has five researchers already and the Chief agreed to lend one out. We thought, since you know, it’s your first day, and you’re starting from scratch anyway, you could just start at Club Business. You’ll be doing the same thing.” Kelsey nodded as she finished talking. “It’ll be great for you at Club Business. It’s such a great opportunity. You’ll learn so much.”

Business? Leah thought. She knew absolutely nothing about business or investments or finances or anything that had to do with the money industry. She had been dreaming about Teen Club! She’d dreamed about writing advice columns for self-conscious girls and spotting trends and beach reads. What did a researcher for Club Business research?

Of course, Leah nodded in agreement, not wanting to start any problems on her first day. They’d hire a new researcher soon and then she’d move back to Teen Club. And by then, she’d be an excellent researcher!

“A great team player! Exactly what we look for at Diamond Media.” Kelsey assured Leah as she led her to get her picture taken for her new badge. “You swipe this to get in the building,” Kelsey explained while clipping the badge onto a lanyard. “If you lose it, it costs $10 to replace.”