Charlie

I push the doors open and watch as Olivias face transforms. She goes from looking bored and unexcited one minute to her eyes getting this bright glow in them. Her frown of prepared disappointment turns into an o of surprise.

"There's so much," she comments.

"I told you it was big." I place my hand on her back and gently move her into the room. Her feet seem to glue her to the ground for a minute before one picks up the memo and takes a step forward.

"I didn't expect it to fit this many people in here."

I look up. There's about forty or so stalls placed up around the space. Some line the walls and some make aisles throughout the space. There's about another sixty or so people milling about and going from booth to booth. "Lots of people come to these things."

"It seems more popular than a farmers market on a saturday morning."

I laugh.

"So." She rubs her hands together before looking up at me with a nervous look. She bites her lip. "Where do we start?"

"Well, the best way to go is to zag zig up and down the aisles. So, m'lady, pick which way you'd like to start with."

She turns back and looks from the left side of the room to the right side of the room. I watch her as she seems to weigh the option of both ways. "Let's start with the right."

I nod. "If you say so." I pocket my hands as we make our way over to the first booth. It's nothing special. The booth just has a table and a few posters hung up on the dividers around it.

"What's this?" Olivia asks. She walks up to the table and takes one of the pamphlets sitting on it.

The guy sitting down smiles. "We work with the local rehab center."

Olivia nods and flips through the pamphlet. "What do you all do?"

"We help our patients focus on themselves," he says.

"And how do you do that?"

"Well we help them through their detox period. It can be a hard and difficult time. After that we help them find a sense of normalcy and make sure they're doing alright before we consider them for outpatients."

Olivia nods and hums. "Do you enjoy what you do?"

He nods. "My dad used to have an addiction and going to a clinic really helped him. So I always felt like I would end up doing something to help others like him."

My gut churns as he speaks. I look away and around the space at the other booths.

"That's really sweet." I look back when Olivia speaks again. She looks down at the pamphlet in her hands. "Can I take this with me?"

The man nods and holds out his hand. "Let me write my email down for you in case you'd like to learn more."

Olivia hands him the pamphlet and we watch as he takes a pen and writes his email on the back of it. He hands it back to Olivia. "Thank you," she says.

He smiles. "Thank you for your interest. Have a good rest of your day."

"You too." Then she turns and we walk away.

"So?" I ask.

She looks at me. "So what?"

"Do you think this would be something that interests you?" I gesture to the pamphlet and continue to ignore the plea in my head hoping it isn't.

She hums. "It's possible. I do like to help people, but I'm not sure this is how I'd want to go about it."

I sigh in relief. "Then maybe we should keep an eye out for more jobs that would let you help?"

She nods. "That would be good. I think I'd maybe like doing something that gives back to people."

"I think something like that might be doable."

She grins before hopping over to the next booth. I watch as she talks with the person and asks them questions about the career, what they like about it and how they got into it. She listens and watches the person like they're the only one in the room. Her face lights up when they tell her a sweet story about how they got interested in the job. She picks up a pamphlet and asks them for their email. At the end she waves and turns to me.

"You know what I think would be a good job fit for you?" I ask her as we make our way to the next booth.

"No. What would that be?"

"A job that lets you work with people. You're very outgoing and get along with everyone."

She scoffs. "Not everyone." But I catch a blush creeping up her face.

"Maybe not. But I think if we found you a job that lets you interact with people you would flourish in that environment."

She chews her lip as she thinks about it. "You might be right," she admits. A little reluctantly if I was hearing right.

"Really?" I raise an eyebrow and give her a smug smile.

She rolls her eyes. "Let's just keep this going."

For the next hour we visit stall after stall. As I watch her interact with each person, or group of representatives at the stall I start to pick up on how she feels about each job. When one catches her attention she'll ask a billion questions, like what do they do, how did they get an interest into it, what's their favorite part of the job. She'll smile and laugh, and joke around a little. And then she'll take their pamphlet or business card and ask them for their email if it isn't on the piece of paper. When she's not interested in whatever job the person is representing she'll get a far away look on her face. She'll nod throughout their speech. She'll stop asking questions and will give one word responses. She'll then smile, say thank you and move on. For those ones she doesn't take any business cards or pamphlets.

By the time we've made it around half the room her hands are overflowing with pamphlets that she keeps dropping on the ground. But she doesn't seem to notice as she hops from stall to stall. So I bend down and pick up all the ones she's dropped. I try to hold them gently in my hand so they don't get too crinkled.

I watch as she goes to grab yet another one. It's like watching in slow motion as the ones in her left hand hit her side and fly all over the place. Her mouth forms an o as I go and dive to attempt to grab some. I land on my knee and catch about five out of the fifteen that dropped.

"Crap," she says. I look up to catch her just staring at me.

"I think you dropped these," I say holding the pile I have out to her. Pamphlets are scattered around us on the ground like flowers. I try to fight a grin as she rolls her eyes and sighs.

"I couldn't see that."

I laugh. "Clearly if I have a pile."

She shakes her head as a grin grows on her face. She bends down and starts to recollect the ones still sitting on the ground. I go to reach for one at the same time as she does. Our fingers brush and I swear a shiver goes down my back when they do. She snatches the paper and sits up so fast she hits the back of her head on my forehead.

"Ow!" she exclaims.

"Shit." I rub my forehead as I rock back on my heels.

"Sorry." She grimaces as she rubs her head.

"No. It's okay, I probably shouldn't have been so close to you."

She laughs. "Gosh. We're horrible."

I grin. "I don't know what you could possibly mean." I push to my feet and hold my hand out to her. "M'lady."

She laughs and rolls her eyes but takes my hand.

I look at her other one and mine that have probably about thirty pamphlets. "Shall we call this an end to our first job hunt outing?"

She blushes as she glances between our combined papers. "I think that would be a good idea. But now you see why I'm having a hard time picking a career."

I laugh. "Because every job seems interesting?"

She grimaces. "Almost every job."

Right. She avoided almost every stall that had anything to do with baking. "I'll drive you home?"

"Please."