Amy's Wish (Wish Series Book 1) Read online

  Amy’s Wish

  By Kay Harris

  COPYRIGHT © 2018 by Kay Harris

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Marianne Nowicki

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  For more information about Kay Harris’ books go to http://www.kayharrisauthor.com

  Dedicated to Amy Walters Jambeck

  Prologue

  Amy pursed her lips together and blew out the candle perched atop the chocolate cupcake. Her eyes squeezed shut as she conjured an image in her head of herself at a large mahogany desk, a floor to ceiling window in the background framing her perfectly combed hair and the starched collar of her gray suit.

  She pulled back, opened her eyes and clapped her hands along with the three other women sitting around the table at Rudolpho’s Bar and Grill.

  There was a gleam in Julia’s deep brown eyes. “Okay, now we have to tell each other what we wished for.”

  “Wait, if we tell each other it won’t come true.” Alice’s argument was not surprising. She had a serious propensity for superstition.

  Maya argued the point. “No. Don’t you see? It doesn’t count because we are birthday buddies. We can tell each other.”

  It was Amy who’d discovered last year that all four women shared the same birth date, albeit at different ages. As the HR Assistant at E.E.R. Tranquility Candle Co. she had been responsible for posting all employee birthdays on the big bulletin board in the cafeteria. When she’d discovered the coincidence she’d emailed the other three women and they’d all gotten together to celebrate.

  This year they were repeating the ritual. Once again, they found themselves drinking wine and eating chocolate at their favorite watering hole. Only this year, Julia and Maya had come up with this wish scheme.

  “Aren’t we too old for this?” Amy shifted in her seat. It was a little late for her objection now. She’d already blown out her candle and made her wish. But she did not want to have to out her dreams here and now in front of them all.

  “Don’t be like that.” Julia hit her lightly on the arm. “This is a challenge. A grown up woman challenge. We are all committed to making our wish come true before our next birthday. And we will help hold each other accountable. So we need to know what the wishes are.”

  “Okay.” Alice sat up straighter in her chair. Amy wasn’t sure if it was the idea or the wine she’d drunk that made her so much more willing all of a sudden. “You go first, Julia.”

  At thirty-eight, the VP of Marketing was the oldest and the most successful of them all. “I want a baby.” A deep silence fell over the table with Julia’s declaration. She took a long drink, draining her wine glass. Reaching for the bottle in the center of the table, she poured herself more. “Okay, Maya. Your turn.”

  “Wait. We need details.” Maya leaned toward Julia, invading Amy’s space. “I mean. How do you plan to do this? Sperm bank, adoption, do you have a man in mind?”

  “Details to be determined. Now you go,” Julia demanded.

  “Um, okay.” Maya recovered, leaning forward as if to impart a great secret to her companions. “My dream is to make it as an artist. To do that full time.”

  Unlike Julia’s announcement, Maya’s did not come as a surprise. Amy knew the twenty-nine year old was tired of working on the factory floor in order to support her true passion.

  “My turn.” Alice bounced in her seat gleefully. A twenty-three year old outgoing sales rep, Alice was young and bubbly, and overly obsessed with men. So it was also no surprise when she announced she wanted to get married.

  Then all three women turned to Amy. She blushed, suddenly feeling shy. It wasn’t that there was anything particularly embarrassing about her wish. But, especially with Julia sitting beside her, it seemed a little…odd.

  Amy pushed her long blonde hair behind her shoulder and rubbed her chin. Today was a big day, she turned thirty. And she felt so very far behind. Her cousin, Gina, was two years younger than her and had a high-powered job as a consultant. Gina’s older brother, Tim, finished his residency and was now a real heart surgeon. And YaYa, the youngest of the cousins, was playing with the San Francisco Orchestra. By comparison Amy was the family failure.

  “I want to figure out what I want to be when I grow up and begin a real career,” she admitted.

  SEPTEMBER

  Chapter 1

  With two minutes left on the clock until it hit eight, Amy sunk down into her chair. The walls of her cubicle seemed smaller today, tighter and more closed in. She looked around at the family pictures and birthday cards that hung from the drab beige walls and rubbed her forehead. Outside she could hear the click of typing as Harlan hit his keyboard with the same angry strokes he always seemed to possess.

  As the HR Specialist he was technically above her, even though they were equals in cubie space. Hell, everyone here was above her. She served the entire department, four people plus her boss. As the assistant, she basically did their bidding. After a year and a half she hadn’t managed to move up an inch, even though two of the four spots had opened up and been refilled during her tenure.

  It was because of Kimberly. Even as the thought entered her mind, the woman herself came around the corner of the cubie wall and stuck her large head of unnaturally bright red hair into Amy’s personal space.

  “I tried to find you a few minutes ago.” Her face was pinched in a way that always made Amy think of an angry bird.

  “I got here before eight.” She couldn’t seem to stop the defensiveness in her tone. Kimberly had hated Amy from day one.

  Having woken up with a hangover didn’t help her attitude when dealing with her boss. This year the thirteenth had fallen on a Tuesday, and it was a killer. She’d lost track of how many glasses of wine she’d guzzled down during the joint birthday party. Then she’d had to drag herself out of bed this morning to go to work.

  Amy rubbed her eyes and looked back up at Kimberly. The woman was not yet forty, but she had these deep frown lines that made her look older. Her face was always caked in make-up, though, according to Harlan, that was a new development since her divorce. Also new was the pair of overly large fake breasts she sported on her chest.

  Amy didn’t begrudge people with breast enhancements, or whatever else they were into. Although she had no body alterations herself, she could understand the appeal and had secretly always wanted a tattoo. But in Kimberly’s case, she had chosen to go way overboard. The new boobs didn’t even come close to being proportionate and Amy thought they reflected her boss’s ego more than her desire for beauty.

  “If you’re okay with doing the bare minimum, Amy, you shouldn’t expect to get promoted. Ambition, sweetheart, that’s what you need to get places.” Kimberly held out a tan folder. Amy waited a beat, out of sheer spite, before taking it from her. “I want these processed by the end of the day.” She turned on her three-inch heels and walked back to her office, the only one in HR with a door.

  Amy couldn’t resist the middle finger she held up behind her boss’s back under the table. The little gesture was becoming a habitual thing, a moment of silent resistance against her oppressor.

  Three hours later, Amy sent the finished file to Kimberly and delivered the folder back to her. Kimberly dismissed her without so
much as a ‘thanks.’ When she went back to her cubie, she found her phone had blown up with text messages, just as it did nearly every day. She picked it up and walked to the company cafeteria to get lunch.

  After grabbing a diet soda and a small salad she walked out the side door to the small courtyard, as was her habit. She moved to her usual table at the edge of the space, a little rectangle just big enough for two shoved up against the rough wall that separated the outdoor dining space from the seething industrial city beyond.

  She set the phone on the table beside her tray. It was a warm day, and her spot sat directly in the sun. With it shining, she’d have to turn up the screen on her phone before answering all the texts. She pulled off her dark blue cardigan, revealing her square neck, off-white blouse.

  As she tied the sweater around the waist of her sensible gray skirt, she looked around the courtyard. The nice weather had brought out a few new people. A group of three women and one man, all of whom could be identified as factory workers because of their beige shirts with names sewn on the chest, were at a table near the door. Harlan and his fling of the week, also a worker from the factory floor, were at a table opposite her. And Carlos Diaz sat in his usual spot, two tables away, his head buried in a tablet.

  In a way she’d come to think of Carlos as her lunch companion. They’d never spoken a single word to one another. But he was always there when she arrived, in that exact same spot every single day. And he always left exactly ten minutes before she did.

  Carlos had never so much as glanced up at her, which was good because she had been known to stare. He was a bit of a fascination for Amy. Tall, dark, and handsome had never mattered to her before. She could easily overlook the sharp features, strong jaw, and thick head of hair on any other man. She wouldn’t have even noticed the broad shoulders, muscular chest, thin waist and hips, and long legs on anyone else.

  But there was something about Carlos.

  It was weird, and it caused her to lose herself sometimes. Before she could start staring at Carlos today, Amy sat down and turned her attention to her phone. As she lingered over her salad, she flipped through the text messages and responded to each one.

  Her mother was first, of course. She wanted Amy to know that she’d cleaned up her room after having her friend Tara and her family stay for a few days and the room was now ready for Amy’s next visit. She typed back a quick response that she was thankful and she’d be making plans in the next few weeks for a trip home.

  Going back to San Diego wasn’t exactly painful. It was just a pain in the ass. But Amy knew she could only go so long between visits. Since it had been over a month since her last trip home, the messages were only going to get more desperate and frequent until she gave in and went.

  The next message was from her cousin, YaYa, saying she had the perfect birthday gift for Amy but it was in San Diego at her mother’s house. She wondered when Amy would be going home again. Amy copied the response she’d given her mother and sent that along.

  Uncle Clint and Aunt Beth each sent a text. Both were rambling messages about their day that included an inquiry at the end about how she was doing. If there was a way to magically get her family to stop worrying, without her having to move back home, she would do it. But she knew it was impossible. So with a sigh she tapped back responses to them both, providing the reassurance they needed.

  The last message was from Julia. Hey, hope you aren’t as hung over as I am. The statement was followed by a smiley face emoji. After lunch come to my office. I already cleared it with DL.

  Amy let out a little chuckle. She looked up to see Carlos staring straight at her. She ducked her head again, cheeks warm.

  DL stood for Dragon Lady, which is what she and Julia secretly called Kimberly. Kimberly was not only the VP of human resources at the company, she was also Carlos’ ex-wife.

  No one at the company understood what the younger man had seen in Kimberly. But they’d come to E.E.R. together. It was Carlos who the company owner and CEO, Everett, had recruited. He was extremely sought after in his line of work. So Everett had offered his wife a spot as well. One year later, they divorced, but they both stayed on at the company.

  The whole thing had happened just before Amy came to E.E.R. So she’d only known Kimberly and Carlos as exes. It was nearly impossible for her to imagine the beautiful, athletic man with the haphazardly arranged, evil dragon lady. Avoiding any eye contact with Carlos, Amy packed up her things and made her way out of the cafeteria and up to the third floor where Julia’s office was.

  Five minutes later Amy sat across from Julia and watched as the woman flailed her arms in the air. “I have just the thing!”

  “Ooookay,” Amy said slowly. “The thing for what?”

  “Your wish. Duh.”

  Julia didn’t look hungover. In fact, she looked as chipper as usual. She was perfectly put together in a smart pantsuit. Her hair was in tiny braids that were pulled up in a beautiful cascading updo. Her dark skin practically glowed. Somehow she always managed to look like a freaking model.

  “My wish?”

  Julia rolled her eyes. “How much did you have to drink last night, girl? I must admit I lost track of what you were up to when I started on my fourth.”

  Amy rolled her eyes. “I remember. I just don’t see how—”

  “There’s a program through the company. Everett’s been talking about implementing it for years. And this year, he wants to make it happen. It was supposed to be Kimberly’s project but she kept dragging her damn heels.” Julia made a face reserved just for discussions of DL. “So he gave it to me to organize. I thought of it immediately last night but I didn’t get a chance to talk to you about it because we were too busy drinking.” She smiled slyly.

  Amy’s answer was hesitant. “Um, okay.”

  Julia leaned over her desk, the excitement clear on her face. “Everett is instituting a mentoring program. He calls it ‘Opportunities in Excellence.’ Aside from the cheesy name, it’s a very cool idea. Each year we are going to pick one employee who’s in third or forth tier.”

  Amy knew what this meant better than most people, since she worked in HR. Jobs were split into levels. First tier consisted of the people at the top, Everett and his six Vice Presidents. The second tier was for middle level workers. In Amy’s department that meant people like Harlan. On the factory floor it was the shift supervisors. The third tier consisted of assistants like Amy and factory floor workers. Fourth tier included the dock workers, maintenance, and seasonal workers. It all sounded like a medieval caste system to Amy when she’d first heard about it, but it wasn’t. The company was set up that way to make promotions more clear-cut and to ensure equal wages across the tiers. It had originally been conceived to prevent gender discrepancy in pay but had ended up working overall to ensure a fair playing field for everyone.

  This new program obviously sought to help people like Amy move up even if they had shitty bosses. “Go on,” Amy encouraged, her hopes rising.

  “So the person who is chosen spends two months rotating in each of the departments they don’t already work in.”

  “Ten months total?”

  Julia nodded. “Yep. And during the two months, the department VP has to spend a minimum of four hours a week mentoring you…I mean, the chosen employee. They can do whatever they want, as long as it’s one-on-one time. For example, I asked Everett if I could take my mentee shopping and he said I could.” She clapped her hands as though she’d won a major prize.

  Amy grinned and nodded. “Ten months of all this?” she asked again. “What happens after the ten months?”

  “Well, the person gets their old job back, guaranteed. But if any of the Veeps want to hire that person for a tier two job that opens up after that, they get first consideration. In other words, it’s a fast tract to promotion. But more important for you, it’s the opportunity to check out different fields in the company to allow you to decide what you want to do when you grow up.” She beamed at Amy.
>
  “Um. Wow. Okay. So I have to apply?”

  “Yes. And since our fiscal year is October to September, applications are due by October 15 and we’re going to select the candidate by the end of the month. The program will start in November and run until August. The program participant may be eligible for a bonus in September before we close out the fiscal year.”

  “Wow.”

  “I know. The timing is perfect! We’ll make a company wide announcement tomorrow. But you should get on it.”

  Amy fidgeted with her fingers.

  “Don’t tell me you’re backing off. This is perfect!” Julia cried.

  “No. I’m just a little nervous about it. What if I get it?”

  “If it’s up to me, you will.”

  Amy shifted in her seat and scratched her chin. “So, how does the rotation work? Can I get you first?”

  “Actually, I already calendared it out.” Julia tapped on her tablet for a moment and pulled up a file. “Let’s see. I have everyone’s availability…Since you won’t be doing an HR rotation…”

  “Thank God,” Amy muttered.

  Julia chuckled. “I can’t be first because I am going to be out of town for part of November. In fact, the only one available is…finance. Then you’d do the other departments. Probably production, compliance, sales, and then marketing last.”

  What had sounded like an amazing idea had turned Amy to stone.

  “Amy? Amy?” Julia said, snapping her fingers. “Are you still with me?”

  Amy nodded woodenly.

  “So? Are you in?”

  Amy nodded again, despite her deep reservations. After all, the VP of finance was Carlos Diaz.

  NOVEMBER

  Chapter 2

  Carlos sat at his desk, tapping his fingers roughly against the varnished wood and dreading what lay ahead of him. This afternoon he had to have a meeting with the head of HR about the budget for the new healthcare plan. He hated having meetings with Kim. She used any opportunity to pick at him.