Kenzo

REBECCA

Pushing the door open and entering the management office, Rebecca ventures inside the lounge area and stops next to the white gloss desk, watching as the receptionist types away on her white keyboard.

The receptionist glances up at Rebecca with a cordial grin, and Rebecca relaxes her shoulders.

“Hi. How may I help you?”

“I have an application form for a job tonight. Mark told me to come and hand it in here,” Rebecca tells the receptionist quietly.

The receptionist squints her eyes, moving closer to her so that she can understand what Rebecca is saying.

Rebecca holds the application out over the high desk, and the receptionist takes it in her grasp, standing up.

“You may take a seat in our waiting area.” Rebecca nods her head and walks over to the sitting area.

Sitting down, she watches as the receptionist steps out of the room with her application in hand.

The news grabs Rebecca’s attention as the words appear at the bottom of the screen.

The TV doesn’t have any noise coming from it, and Rebecca knows they have turned it down to try to keep the office a professional working environment for all staff members and their clients.

“I heard a gunshot. The restaurant that we were eating at emptied out quickly, and before we knew it, Kenzo Robernero walked out of the news printers across the street.”

“That man does not care!” a woman with black hair shouts out in a panic. She speaks a different language, but Rebecca can understand it because there are subtitles at the bottom of the screen.

Kenzo Robernero, Rebecca states inside her mind as the receptionist returns to her desk.

Taking a seat, she calls Rebecca over to her as Rebecca’s face scrunches up because her chair squeaks out in the quiet room.

“All done for you,” the receptionist tells Rebecca who thanks her, nodding her head.

“Mark will send you a taxi to get you to the airport. You will meet him at the house in Prentonville at five o’clock today. There you will be serving a family.

“They have paid a large amount for our services, and Mark expects you to be on your best behavior.”

“I will,” Rebecca answers, smiling.

I’m just taking care of my responsibilities, she tells herself, taking her birth certificate and adding it to the heap of papers that she has stacked in her arms just in case she needs identification.

She brought more papers with her because she didn’t know if any of the paperwork would be out of date. Grinning, Rebecca turns around and leaves the building quickly.

***

At long last, Rebecca thinks to herself, entering her house.

“Rebecca. Dinnertime,” her mom shouts to her, and she enters the small kitchen area with a gigantic smile on her face, feeling satisfied with herself for getting yet another job for the night.

It means more income for her, and she will definitely be able to pay her rent for the month. Her parents are sitting at the table eating pizza.

Rebecca plonks herself down on the seat opposite them and listens to them babble on about money and buying food for the week.

Stuffing her face, she eats one of her slices in two mouthfuls.

Excusing herself, Rebecca makes her way upstairs to pack. Her parents weren’t very keen on having a discussion anyway.

Her dad is work-oriented, which means she and her mom never get to see him. She never did have the bond with her dad, even when she was growing up as a child.

She just put it down to her being a girl. Her mom loves to catch up with her dad when he arrives home after a long, tiring day at work, so Rebecca avoids getting in their way.

Looking outside her bedroom window, Rebecca grabs her packed white suitcase and drags it out of her bedroom. She doesn’t tell her parents where she’s going.

In her mind, she knows they don’t care about what she’s doing or where she’s going, so she walks out the front door, slams the door behind her, and approaches the taxi.

“Rebecca?” the taxi driver asks her, sliding out of the driver’s seat. Rebecca grins and nods her head.

Walking around to the back of his car, he opens the trunk and helps Rebecca place her suitcase in before closing the trunk nicely.

Rebecca climbs into the back seat of his car, excited to be flying somewhere new. She’s never flown anywhere before, and she’s glad she decided to get a passport a couple of months ago.

She doesn’t want to imagine how she would feel if she had to turn the job down because she didn’t have a passport.

The driver slides into his seat and decides to stay quiet, separated away from Rebecca behind a material divider at the front of the vehicle.

Rebecca sits, peacefully looking out the window at all the trees and structures as the taxi driver accelerates away from her house.

After a half-hour drive, the taxi pulls up outside the airport, and Rebecca climbs out at the same time as the driver.

“There’s a note in the system. Mark paid in advance,” the taxi driver tells Rebecca, opening the trunk of his car and dragging her suitcase out.

Rolling it to her, Rebecca takes her white case from him.

“Thank you.”

“You’re more than welcome. Have a nice flight.” The taxi driver gets back inside his car, and Rebecca proceeds to make her way to the registration desk.

Running up the escalators, Rebecca finds the registration check-in desk. Walking over to the desk, she signs herself in, and a member of staff guides her through the airport to terminal three.

The man doesn’t say anything and walks ahead of Rebecca, who looks around at all the different restaurants. What I would do for food right now, she thinks to herself, her stomach growling.