Imogen pushed her back from her face, an exasperated breath leaving her lips as she hiked her bag over her shoulder and rummaged through her disheveled closet for the match to the shoe already in her free hand. She’d planned to be up and out of the house over an hour ago, long arrived at the studio by now with no worries to press down on her. And it would have been that way, if she hadn’t slept through the first three alarms that both her phone and analog clock tried to throw her way. At the final warning buzz she’d jumped out of bed and found herself with a mere twenty minutes to not only get herself ready, but get out the door and to her destination. Typical Imogen behavior, but not easily tolerated on the first day of the internship she’d worked her entire high school and early college career to obtain. She imagined how easily it could be revoked when she was to stroll through the doors at the last possible second.
It was a mad dash for the subway once she’d gathered herself and hustled down the hall and the stairs and the street, sprinting onto the train as though it were practice for the future Olympic Games and she wanted to get a gold medal. She wedged herself between a sleeping man and a woman nose deep in a thick book, taking the moment to rest her head back against the dark window, pushing out a breath she’d been holding since she’d woken up that morning. The looks that might be on the faces of her new boss – sheer disappointment, disgust, disrespected scowls – made her stomach twist and she had to close her eyes just to keep them from watering. She was taken back to three months prior, announcing to her parents and her brothers that she’d be moving to New York in the fall to live out a dream she’d formulated from such a young age, do what it was that she’d always wanted to do. She had high hopes for herself and knew she’d make it anywhere in the world if she pushed hard enough. She had no idea that the beginning of the rest of her life would take off like this: out of breath and on the edge of tears on the metro less than five minutes before the start of her first day.
The subway came to a stop and Imogen barreled out, determination on her mind as she pushed through the editorial office doors, the large fluorescent Vogue sign easily seen strewn above the reception desk. She flashed her ID card, a mediocre snapshot of her profile taken in these same offices just weeks earlier, a thankful smile spreading across glossy lips when she was granted permission with a nod of the woman’s head. The twenty year old took the elevator up, checking her watch every twenty or so seconds, the constant ticking making her stomach flip again, and again, and again. It seemed to take years for the lift to reach her intended floor, Imogen stepping off the moment the doors opened and navigating her way down the hallway, past desks occupied by heavily made up workers that appeared to dress, live, breathe high fashion. It did bring a grin to her face – this was where she’d always wanted to be. Around people who thought and lived just as she did. The distraction almost made her miss her turn, at a door with a hot pink paper tacked to it that read ‘Intern Meeting Here, 9:30 AM’.
Imogen slipped in the door and swallowed the thickening lump in her throat when the sight of six other girls displayed before her. There was another woman at the head of the room, pausing from scribbling on the clipboard in her hand to look up at Imogen, sharp green eyes giving her a once over. Imogen wasn’t sure whether to apologize, or to explain herself, but in the flurry of mixed thoughts in her head, she took a seat in the only empty chair, between two girls that oozed ridicule. The blonde set her bag on her lap and darted her eyes to the clock on the far side of the room: 9:32. The only want she had now was to curl into herself and disappear from the curious gazes that kept landing upon her, left and right. The room fell silent as the woman before them continued to write, before speaking up in a voice louder than Imogen had expected her to possess. “What’s your name?” she asked, the gum in her mouth smacking between words.
“I-Imogen. Imogen Park,” she replied, voice mousy and anxious and always hating to have the attention placed on her shoulders. Another round of silence and finally, to her luck, the woman began to speak, opening to address the point of the meeting and, inevitably, the point of the internship that they’d be starting today. Imogen relaxed a bit in her seat, lacing her fingers together and resting them atop her bag, eyes casting down to the carpet beneath her feet. It would be a long day, week, year after this impression.
