Budding Banker

Prologue

I was running in circles trying to find the gate to the building. That’s when my phone beeped, and when I picked up, my heart sank. It was the HR complaining I was late. By half hour. On the first day of my internship.

When I finally managed to find the gate, get past the security, climb the 10 floors and reach the AV room, people were still settling in. Much ado about nothin’!

I grabbed the folders placed on my seat, settled myself in and turned around to look for the four batchmates from my Bschool. But my gaze stopped at someone seated in the middle row. Fair as falling snow, hair as black as ebony, and lips as pink as a rose. These are lines from the Snow White series I managed to memorize when maybe I was 10. And there she was, a full 18 years later, seated in the same room as me, as my co-intern.

The HR started the welcome note and the first session rolled by. Somewhere close to 11am was the tea break. I caught up with my batchmates and a few other interns from other Bschools. But I chose to steer clear off Snow White. She was way out of my league. Snow White’s companion, though, was a friend I knew from an earlier interaction at a college competition. I effortlessly walked up to her and started chatting about all the things that happened since we last met. My eyes, still dare not look at Snow White. But that didn’t stop Snow White from looking at me while I spoke to our common friend. We were talking about another common friend, a prodigy to have scored a 99.99% and one who managed to slip into L in the last list. Some more chitty-chatter, a laughter here and there and that’s when I finally looked at her. My heart skipped a beat.

Her eyes were the colour of honey when in shade and turned liquid gold everytime a sunbeam fell on them. Her skin was smooth and had a rich creamy texture. Her upper lip was shaped like the McDonalds’ double-arch. When she sipped her coffee, I noticed how thin her fingers were. Her eyebrows were thick and her baby hairline which started from onto her temples, only accentuated her perfectly symmetrical face. I had seen the Himalayas and the Arabian sea, the many rivers and hills that lay in between, but I had never seen anything so beautiful before.