InsaneJournal

Millie worked the front desk at the New York City Welcome Center. As far as Millie knew, she always had worked the front desk at the welcome center. "Welcome to New York City! If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere! You're looking for who? I can help you with that."

The cork bulletin boards that lined the wall behind Millie's desk were strictly for the displaced only, but Millie was sixteen and she loved going to the pictures and watching the glamerous people flit around on stage. Except, she worked so often she couldn't remember the last time she'd been to the theatre, so she picked through the magazines that were always fresh laid in the center's waiting room and tore out pictures of her favorite movie stars. Natalie Wood, James Dean, Julie Andrews, and Marlon Brando were all peppered amongst the scraps of paper pinned to the boards, scribbled with messages from new arrivals searching for people they knew. Millie needed something to keep her entertained, because the job was monotonous at best.

"Do you need a place to sleep for a few weeks? Because I can help you with that too."

Millie also slept at the center-- well, in the towering apartment complex behind it. She knew the place like the back of her hand, and she spent her days carrying bed dressings as she led people back to their new, temporary living spaces. "Temporarily," she would stress. "Just until you get on your feet. No more than four weeks-- five if you have to." Most people didn't complain, happy enough that they just had a place to stay for awhile, but those who did ask why they couldn't stay longer than that always recieved the same answer.

"Because that's my boss' rule."

There were vending machines of Coca Cola and Utz potato chips that never seemed to run out and never seemed to be restocked. Chips were fifteen cents and Cola was fifty, but more often than not her visitor's coins got stuck and jamed the thing up. So Millie kept a bowl of appropriate nickles and dimes on her desk and invited everyone to help themselves to at least one snack. Many were as hungry as they were confused.

"What do you mean we can't leave?"

"The city's closed off," Millie said patiently, holding out a few coins. "But New York is just amazing. If you can make it here, you'll make it--"

"Yeah, yeah, you'll make it anywhere. I know." He snatched the coins from her hand and walked over to the machines.

She explained the bulletin boards, handed out room keys, and separated classified sections from the rest of the papers so that she could hand them out to those who wanted employment. That was mostly everyone, even the women, the Blacks, and the Asians. Millie watched people pour through the classifieds while she looked at the pictures in the society and arts columns, sighing over Elizabeth Taylor's latest dress and pouting when she remembered that she'd never gotten to see Cleopatra.

"Are there any jobs available here?" one newcomer asked her, forcing her eyes away from Gegory Peck.

"No, ma'am."

"You work here all alone?"

"Yes, ma'am, and my boss won't be hiring anyone else. I'm sorry."

"Maybe I could talk to--"

Millie shook her head. "Oh no, I'm afraid that won't be possible. I speak for the both of us." She smiled and put down the society section. "But I'm happy to help you with anything else."

A lot of conversations went like that, but Millie was used to it. It was better to keep things simple than to admit that she'd never met her boss, and took instructions from notes left for her each morning on the bulletin board in her bedroom. She'd never met the man she worked for. In fact, she was only assuming it was a man.