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Chapter 5

(Renata Pellegrini)

Oh! I forgot the cleaning cart in Signor Filippo's room. I speed up my steps and head to the dressing rooms, when I arrived I noticed that the receptionists also have uniforms, but I will look for Amanda dressed in the clothes I arrived with and I will give back this uniform and the key of the original closet.

Now, with my clothes changed, I fix my hair and take one last look at myself in the small mirror in my bag. I put everything from the bag inside and leave the dressing room, walking with slow steps that turn me towards the reception balcony.

I feel people looking me up and down, I swallow dryly, why in this world am I so hard to be nice?

I take another deep breath and approach one of the receptionists, he is blond and by his face he seems more approachable than the girls.

"Good morning!", I greet him politely, at least he doesn't look at me with disgust. "Can you tell me how I can find Amanda, please?"

"Tiffany, did you see Amanda today?", he asks the girl sitting to his right. She looks me up and down, more one for my list of people I don't like here.

"I saw her running into the locker room, late as usual", Tiffany replies, rolling her eyes and chewing gum.

"I just came out of the locker room and there was no one else there", I say.

"The locker room in the reception area is on that side, kitten", replies the blond with a smile as he points in the opposite direction from where he's leaving. "Last door in the hallway on the left."

"Oh, yes thank you!", I thank him with a smile and he smiles back.

I take long strides down the hallway and head for the last door, unlike the locker room in the cleaning sector, the door to this locker room is glass, I turn the knob and the room is very well lit and much more spacious, a thousand times more chic.

How I feel like cursing Mr. Filippo, since he is so controlling with who hires him or not, and he is the richest man in the world, he should at least treat the employees equally. It's not because they are faxineiros that they deserve little. I'm sure that small locker room doesn't fit ten employees.

I walk into the locker room and see a girl with curly red hair laughing at something on her cell phone.

"Amanda?", I call out to her.

The girl startles and almost drops her cell phone on the floor, I notice that her smartphone is from the Ruby 5 pro line, launched late last year by Computing Diamond.

"Mrs. Veronica, I was just talking to my father, he is sick and...", she turns to me and sighs in relief when she realizes that I am not Veronica's snake. "phew! I thought it was someone else."

"I see", she smiled, I figure a lot of people must not like Veronica's, and I'm in the middle of this cake. "Do you know where I can find Amanda?"

"You're already talking to her, how can I help?"

"Oh, well, my name is Renata, I was hired a few minutes ago to be a receptionist, Mr. Filippo sent for her", I explain.

"Mr. Filippo?", she frowns. "You mean Mr. Valentine, the owner here, did you talk to him directly?", she asks approaching me with wide eyes.

"Ah y-yes" I say a little embarrassed, sometimes I forget that here rich people who are not intimate should be called by their last name.

"Wow, is that really a third leg, as they say?", she asks smiling.

"What are you talking about?", I frown, what a crazy woman.

"Oh, now you're going to play the saint? You know very well what I'm talking about!"

"N-no, I really don't know", I speak taking a step away from her.

"Mr. Filippo is the sexiest man in the world! With those kind of gray eyes and his big chest completely defined, you can see his muscles even when he's in a suit!"

"That's true, even in a photo he looks, in person he is much better", I think and hold back a smile, she continues talking:

"Apart from her voice, in a low tone loaded with Italian accent, he always walks elegant and rarely shows her face", she bites her lip. "I bet his little head looks like a big pink mushroom."

I just met the woman and she's already telling me her imaginings about the boss's private parts! Have mercy on God!

"Apparently you're one of the shy ones", she says smiling in my direction. "Well, the bureaucratic part of your hiring we'll have to sort out in another department, for now let's fix your uniform."

She goes to a large closet and takes out of it a red blouse and a black pencil skirt, a handkerchief that she holds under the collar of the blouse, it is white. The uniforms are nice.

"What is your shoe size?"

"Thirty-eight", I answer.

"Here", she hands me a black heel, "Try it on", she points to a door. "There are the changing rooms and toilets, they go there."

I enter where Amanda instructed me and everything is wonderful, I notice that there are four glass showers, the glass is transparent and you can see that the chuveiros are golden. The smell of eucalyptus intoxicates me, like to feel the smell of cleanliness. The mirror of the washbasin covers practically the entire wall.

I take off my clothes and put on my uniform. The cleaning uniform smelled like old clothes that had been in storage for a long time, but this uniform smells nice. A silly smile escapes my lips. I look in the mirror still with dark circles under my eyes and dry hair, I feel beautiful.

The receptionist uniform is much more elegant than my formal wear. It's even embarrassing.

Mental note: To buy fancy clothes with the first salary.

I come out of the bathroom and Amanda breaks into a smile at the sight of me.

"It's perfect for you!", she comes to meet me and wraps her arm around mine. "Come, I'll show you where you're going to work."

We leave the prep room and walk again to the reception, she walks in front of me.

"Always looks presentable, hair well combed and loose, well, the loose hair rule was created by Veronica, she says we can't get sexy, listen Mr. Valentini likes women with long hair tied in a ponytail on horseback, only Mrs. Veronica can come with the prisoners", she sighs. "Bitch!", mutters the curse. "Ah, tomorrow also come to make up, ok?"

"Yes!"

"We have two hours for lunch, and always change your clothes before going home, company rules. As if anyone should want to steal these ugly clothes", she speaks with disdain.

I imagine she has a lot of nice, good quality clothes, I'm not a thief and it never crossed my mind, but the fabrics of these uniforms are the best I've ever worn.

Amanda and I made it as far as the balcony of the reception, the girl and the young blond man get up.

"Finally she showed up", the blond smiles for Amanda.

"Yesterday I ended up drinking more than I wanted to, Caio", she answers smiling, "This one is called Renata, she was hired by Mr. Valentini himself."

"Wow, do you know him?"

"I just had a misunderstanding, then he decided to be benevolent with me", I try to explain as little as possible, I don't want this conversation to collapse.

"Tai is kind of hard to see, Mr. Valentini is not known for being benevolent."

"I guess not really," I reply in my thoughts. Mr. Filippo is thick, arrogant and an asshole. But he was good to me and deserves some credit.

"What am I supposed to do?", I change the course of the conversation.

"Simple, just greet people, bring coffee, water or whatever they ask for, show the customers around. You'll be almost like a tour guide."

"I get it, it seems to be easy", she concludes, I don't think I'm going to have trouble doing these things.

"The hard part is putting up with Mrs. Veronica", Caio speaks softly.

"Yes", Amanda and I answered together.

"Well, I'm going to finish showing her the company, come Renata. We will be back and then you can go Caio", says Amanda and Caio nods his head.

Getting to know the rooms of the company was a lot of fun, Amanda is a very extroverted person. The work started after lunch, today I was up and going back and forth all afternoon taking people and announcing them. I even felt like a secretary.

I look at the clock on the wall and it says twenty-two o'clock in the evening. It's very late!

I leave the company and find myself aimless, the security guard has already closed the door and walked away. Amanda left an hour before me because she had an emergency, and I'm left to organize the counter.

Where is there a bus stop here? My God, how am I going to get home?

It's late and I'm alone, there's not even a living soul passing by for me to ask for information.

A pitch black car approaches me, startles me and I jump back a little. My heart is hammering hard inside my chest, it may not look like it, but I'm really scared, it could be a kidnapper or some psycho, but the car is too fancy to belong to just anyone. The driver lowers the window and I see it's Mr. Filippo.

"Do you want a ride home?", he asks.

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