The Fifteen Minute Novel is a novel written fifteen minutes at a time with each week day’s section starting with the sentence from the previous day. At least it is attempting to be a novel. For now I am just aiming at one continuous story, worked on for fifteen minutes each day. Started Friday January 1st, 2021 (in case you want to search for the beginning. I can’t wait to see where it ends up. It could be good, or it could be a mess. We’ll have to see. For now, here is today’s fifteen minutes.
Day 62: ‘Of course I think I might be the only accountant,’ he reminded himself.
‘Of course I think I might be the only accountant,’ he reminded himself. James shrugged off the thought of who he would eat lunch with and returned to hs office. He was certain that it would eventually work itself out.
Lunch now stashed away safely in the refrigerator, James settled into his desk and resumed going through the necessary paperwork. He left his door open and greeted the various people who stopped by to say hello and welcome him aboard.
He knew he wouldn’t remember all the names but he tried to remember the faces and project a friendly demeanor. He was certain not everyone would be happy with him, but he figured there was no reason to start off on the wrong foot.
The necessary paperwork took him most of the morning to complete. But the time he was done, it was almost time for lunch and just as he was trying to figure out if he should take his lunch now or wait, Linda appeared in his doorway.
“You brought your lunch today?” she double checked.
“I did and I put it in the break room,” James told her.
She nodded. “I’m about to take mine if you want to join me.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” James said. He logged out of the computer, locking it down as he left the office. While he didn’t have any sensitive information on his commuter yet, he had access to several systems and wanted to get in the habit of locking it every time he wasn’t in the room.
James and Linda made their way to the break room and retrieved their lunches. It turned out the floral lunch Bag belonged to Linda. There were two other people in the lunchroom and he and Linda joined them at the table.
James braced himself for the initial personal forays that were inevitable and he mentally ran through his personal details as Linda introduced him to Catherine and Mike. He managed to make it to the point where he was spreading the mustard on his sandwich when the questions started.
“So,” Catherine began. “You just moved to the area?”
“I did,” James said. “I needed a fresh start after the divorce.”
There were the nods and sounds of consolations. As this was a first getting to know him foray no one probed too deeply. By the time lunch was over, everyone knew that James was new in town, newly divorced, and living in a small apartment with most of his things still in storage while he looked for a place to settle permanently.
James now knew that Mike’s sister-in-law was a realtor and that he would no doubt soon be in contact with her and that Catherine was clearly had more detailed questions she wanted to ask. James smiled as he cleaned up from his lunch and went back to his office. Catherine would bear watching. He doubted the interest was personal. He suspected she was just the sort of person who wanted to know everything about everyone. He was just the newest fish in her bond and she wanted to investigate.
Over all the first inquiries went well. James remembered the details of James Ferris and blended them with what he could announce of his own personal life. He left out the details of most things and kept comments general, but suspected he would need to think of some specifics to leak into conversations at some point if he wanted to become friendly. He shrugged. At this point in their lives each of them had their own individual lives. At best they would be work friends. He would share lunch and possibly the occasional happy hour. He doubted anyone was looking for a new best friend. It would be a casual association and at the moment, that suited him quite well.
Ten til Midnight 