Tulane Review Fall 2018

the hallway to grab himself a cup of coffee from the break room. Engagement Advertising took care to provide the graphic design team with free coffee and donuts every morning, one of the perks of being indispensable in a digital world. At times, he looked around the building, with its beanbag chairs, pinball machines, and relaxation seminars and felt the constructed façade of a purpose push at him from every wall. Every item in the room wanted to convince him he was living the dream, but he wouldn’t have been surprised if he suddenly picked the beanbag chair up and discovered it was a two-dimensional cardboard prop.

Still, he didn’t complain about the free coffee.

Peter stepped into the break room and immediately had to tighten the grip on his coffee mug to keep it from falling. Danielle’s back was turned to him. She was gliding back and forth between the coffee pot and the cupboards, pulling cups from their hiding places, filling them with steaming java. She added a dash of cream to one cup, a packet of sugar to two, and the rest she left black. He noticed the way her wrist flexed as she reached for the pot, her fingers curling around the handle. Her hair trailed down her back to her small waist, and he watched the wisps of sandy blonde hair that fluttered when she moved and the ones that remained stuck to her chocolate brown suit jacket. He found it hard not to be in awe of the fluidity of her hips, the grace of her neck, the way that she affected space without even realizing it.

She glanced over her shoulder and smiled so widely, he had to steady his coffee cup with two hands. “Hey there, Peter! How’re you this morning?”

“I’m doing—well, I’m not too bad. And you?”

“Super busy,” she said as she shook another bag of sweet and low into a full cup. “I’ve got to get all of the copy done for the Campbell account by three and make sure everyone at the next meeting has coffee.”

“Being an intern must be rough,” he offered with sympathy.

She shrugged. “I get to write copy and be with fun people all day. That’s not too terrible.” She pushed back her hair, and he caught sight of the small emerald stud in her left cartilage. Erica didn’t believe in piercings or tattoos, even before she’d become a role model for first graders—too trashy and not worth the risk of infection, she’d said.

Danielle picked up the coffee tray. “I’d better get moving. Good luck with the posters today,” she said, offering another smile as she strode from the room.

For a few moments, Peter stood motionless, watching her ghost glide back and forth from cabinet to cabinet, then hearing her voice as it wished him well on a project he hadn’t even mentioned. The tight feeling in his chest surfaced.

Danielle Berman, intern, age 23, was, after all, its mother and cause.

She’d started only two months ago. Fresh out of college, she’d moved from Wisconsin, “the land of flat vowels” as she’d jokingly dubbed it during the initial staff welcome meeting. That was the exact moment he noticed her. The other two interns spoke in near whispers, acting as though the people around them were slave masters and not merely more experienced adults. Danielle, though... She 65