The woman sat hunched over her latest drawing. 'Damn why did I wait so long to get this proof done?' She thought. Her eraser just wouldn't keep up with all her mistakes. 'My boss is going to kill me. These are due tomorrow morning at 8 exactly.' Lacey glanced at the clock by her bed and winced. '12:15!' Carefully she re-drew the sailboat and the happy people's expressions making sure their eyes looked really excited about the trip. After the outline was done she looked at the clock again. '1:20.' She had wasted over an hour on that little bit. No wonder she was so far behind in her work.
The ad she was completing with colored pencils was an ad for a sailboat tour around Japan. 'Now just a bit of color in the center to draw the eye of an unsuspecting customer.' Her hand reached for the red and to her horror she toppled the can of paint brushes that had been sitting on her desk. The paint brushes rolled across the desk, the water in the can was a sickening color of brown from all the colors of paint mixed together. She gasped as the used water drenched the ad. Shocked and trembling, she dabbed at the ad with a dry towel and was relieved for a second when the boat was unharmed, but soon found out that the people were just blobs. She dried the paper as best she could and sat it on the window sill to dry. 'It wouldn't work. Those people don't even look like people and that was my last piece of drawing paper.' Her thoughts went to the other drawings she had crumpled up and tossed in the trash. She cleaned up the rest of the brown sludge on her desk and placed the paint brushes back in their can with some fresh water so they wouldn't dry out.
Her eyes landed on the heap of trash that overflowed the trashcan into her bedroom floor. She sighed and rolled her eyes. 'Look at this mess.' Hopefully one of these pictures would be good. She got down on her hands and knees, picking up rolled balls of paper and un-crumpled them only to wad them back up and toss them over her shoulder. One after another she went through them. She was getting desperate. She picked out a piece of paper at the bottom of the can and looked at it. "It's not that bad." She said to herself. "If I can just fix this little thing here..."
Laying the drawing on her desk she began to erase the words over the picture and...rip...her pencil eraser went right through the paper leaving a hole. She mentally screamed and wadded the paper back in to a ball and threw it across the room, only to go and retrieve it again. "Tape?" She found some clear tape and carefully taped the hole in the paper from behind. Again she began to erase the wording, but a little more carefully than last time. She wrote a new advertisement slogan. 'A whole new experience' on the top of the drawing and leaned back satisfied. With this and a few others from the discard pile she might just make a good presentation.
Around 7am, Lacey awoke with a start. Her head was resting on her desk and she raised her eyes to glare at the annoying alarm clock, before switching it off and getting up. She sat up and stretched feeling dry-mouthed and ragged. Her legs buzzed with the odd sensation of having fallen asleep on her while sitting in the hard wooden chair all night. She grumbled and tried to walk some feeling back in to her stiff legs.
After brushing her teeth and washing her face she quickly brushed through her curly red hair. While applying the slightest amount of makeup she noticed a gray hair. "The stress of this job is going to kill me." She mumbled to her reflection.
Lacey looked up at the clock over her head. "Why am I always so late?" She dashed through the living room in her underwear and flung open the closet door. Flinging clothes on her bed, she finally found what she was going to wear and slipped it on. Fumbling through her purse for her keys, she left her apartment and locked the door.
She had just stepped off the elevator, when she heard her friend practically scream her name. Janice grabbed her by the elbow, knocking her off-balance. She juggled her coffee and her presentation board while trying to keep up with her office friend. "Janice, what's the rush?"
They turned down a long hallway and Lacey found herself in front of large double doors. "The boss is really mad at you Lacey." Janice hissed. "The Japanese have been here for a half hour already!" She took Lacey's coffee cup and sat it on the receptionist's desk. The receptionist blinked at the cup, but said nothing. "Mr. Moorley is totally pissed, he wasn't expecting them to arrive so early."
Lacey tugged on the hem of her skirt and straightened her shirt before knocking on the door. Janice backed away with a thumb up and an awkward smile. 'How was I supposed to know they would be so early?' She grimaced at the thought. Lacey's heart jumped when she heard her boss bid her enter. She opened the door cautiously, and stood in the doorway for a moment, her green eyes circling the room. Two men sat opposite her boss and Lacey knew they were the potential clients. She stepped into the office and closed the door behind her when Mr. Moorley motioned her to a seat next to him.
It wasn't until she sat down that she saw the other person in the room. The woman was slight and pretty with dark eyes and hair. She nodded at Lacey and Lacey guessed she would be the interpreter. A moment later one of the two men began talking and she explained to them what he had just said. Her voice was soft and lilting, but she knew her job well, because she also kept accurate notes of what was being said.
Lacey heard her boss say something and realized he was looking at her pointedly. Mr. Moorley grumbled something under his breath. She nearly jumped to her feat, causing her to trip on her high heals. 'Deathtraps!' She steadied herself on nervous legs and put her presentation board up on the easel. Her hands shook a little as she went through each of the drawings. Four sets of eyes were on her as she spoke. Her blood rushed in her ears and a blush crept up her cheeks.
The interpreter took notes while speaking. Both the Japanese men nodded and gave comments to her boss about the drawings. Mr. Moorley looked pleased, but Lacey knew there was something dangerous lurking behind those eyes. Lacey finished up her presentation with a flourish and was even a little bit proud of her work.
The men stood up to leave and bowed slightly. Mr. Moorley bowed back stiffly. The young woman that acted as interpreter stood also and flipped her notebook shut. She smiled at Lacey, then at Mr. Moorley and then bowed out of the room, following on the heals of the two Japanese gentlemen. They chatted on their way to the elevators and Lacey let herself relax as they entered the elevator at last and the door closed.
Apparently she had relaxed too soon, because Mr. Moorley chose that moment to start yelling at her. "Well Ms. Keegle, It looks like you just cost the company a four million dollar deal!" Mr. Moorley's face was red with anger. He strode over to her presentation board and took the drawings off the easel. "What the hell is this?" He was livid. He snatched the drawings off the cardboard background and shoved the wrinkled paper right in front of her face. She looked shocked. At her lack of response, he went on to berate her. "This is shit. I asked for excitement and sexuality and you give me smiling happy families?" He ripped the paper and tossed it in the trash.
"I thought...I would try to show it as a family sort of place..." She gulped as her knocked over the easel with a kick. "I thought maybe a different direction..."
"A different direction? A different direction? Sex sells not this happy go lucky family shit." He swiped his hand through his hair and stormed across the room. He was only a foot away from her while he yelled directly in her face. "You listen to me girly. I'm the boss around here and what I say goes. If I say sensual and exotic I mean just that!" Lacey backed away from him, bumping into the door. "I could strangle you. Four million dollars! Four million!" He turned away from her leaning heavily on his desk. He was breathing heavily trying to calm down. "Nobody believes in traditional family values Ms. Keegle." She thought he was acting more like himself. He looked tired and stressed. She sure it was just stress that had made him yell like that.
His secretary came in with a worried look on her face as she stared from her boss to the frightened look in Lacey's eyes. She took pity on the woman and interrupted. "Um Mr. Moorley you have a call on line two. I think it's your wife." She backed out of the room quickly and went back to her desk.
Lacey stood up straight and fixed her appearance into something more stoic. She shook off the strange feeling of dread and stood watching Mr. Moorley for a minute. "Sir?" She waited for him to respond or at least look at her. "I'm sorry Mr. Moorley I won't do it again. I was just trying to...I thought they liked it."
Mr. Moorley shook his head and looked her straight in the eyes. His eyes were sharp and his voice was cold as he spoke. "You're damn right you won't do it again." He sat at his desk and picked up the receiver to the phone. "Hello?" He said into his phone. Lacey went towards the door about to leave him to his phone conversation. "Ms. Keegle." He had his hand over the receiver, looking directly at her.
"Yes?" She turned back expecting maybe an apology.
"You're fired." He returned to listening to the person on the phone for a second and then looked up at her as though he were surprised to see her still standing there. "Go clean out your office. I want you gone in an hour." He returned to his conversation effectively blocking her out of his mind.
Lacey felt like a zombie as she walked out of her ex-employers office and down his hall to her own office. Janice was in front of her office door, the smile on her face fading. She put a hand on her friends arm and felt her tense up.
"What happened in there? We could hear him yelling from across the office building." She remembered hearing Mr. Moorley bellowing at the top of his lungs, but they hadn't quite made out the words as they were muffled by the large wooded doors. They had assumed he was excited about the new account since the Japanese had looked so pleased on their way out. "Lacey do you want some coffee?" She asked her friend worried by the blank stare she received.
"He fired me." Was all she could get out, those words catching in her throat. Now that she said them out loud she could feel the sting of them. Her eyes felt dry so she blinked and found that they weren't dry at all. She rushed in to her office and let the door shut behind her with a soft click. She slumped against the door and laid her head on her knees, crying into her skirt.
Janice helped her friend pack up what little belongings she had in her office. She promised to take her anything else that they might have missed while cleaning up, but Lacey had done so little work here in the office that she didn't really have enough to fill the file box she now carried. Janice walked with her to the elevator and watched her friend smile weakly as she pressed the down button. Her eyes were still full of tears, but she held them in. She smiled back.
"Lacey wait." She jumped in the elevator as the doors slid shut behind her. "I'll at least walk you down to the taxi." They stood in the elevator silently thinking their own thoughts while they descended. When the door opened they both walked out into the daylight that seemed so bright in comparison to the florescent lights of the office building. At least that's what Janice told herself as she blinked the tears back that threatened to overflow. "Lacey..." Lacey looked at her friend and then nodding put the half empty box on the sidewalk. "You're the only one I liked in that stuffy building." Janice cried as she hugged her friend close. "I'll miss you."
"Janice we'll see each other again." Lacey tried to smile for her friend, but it came out lopsided. "It's not like we can't go out anymore."
Janice sighed heavily taking a step back, but still holding on to her friend's hand. "I know, but it won't be the same. We won't be able to talk about problems at work and laugh over the stupid things we did all day." Janice smiled this time a genuine smile. "You know what though?"
"Hmm?"
"At least you won't have to be around that asshole Moorley anymore. Besides you were meant for better places than this hellhole. Ads really aren't your forte." She giggled and Lacey hugged her again.
Letting go she picked her box back up and looked forward to getting home to a warm bath and maybe a nap. Yeah a nap sounded really good after all the scrambling she had done the night before with very little sleep. She hailed a cab. One stopped a few feet away from the curb and she got in, sitting her box next to her on the seat. "Things will work out." She shouted out the window. "Maybe one day you'll be working for me?" That made Janice laugh and she was feeling better herself. Janice was right. She didn't need the office or that job and in a few days she would be on her way to a new life. She waved until she couldn't see the lone figure on the sidewalk anymore. She sighed and told the cabby the directions to her apartment building.