Taking a chance
The Chili-red Mini Cooper pulled off the road and into the drive thru of Coffee Heaven, the automatic window lowered and the driver spoke her order into the box,
"One white tea and a double shot cappuccino please."
"Will there be anything else?"
"No, that's all."
"Drive though when you're ready." said the voice and the car drove round to the pick up window.
"That's nine fifty please." said the staff member at the window, the driver handed over the correct money and in return was handed her order, she set the take away cups into the drink holders and continued forward and back out onto the road. A few streets away the car pulled off the road again, this time down a wide driveway and stopped at a key tag box, the window was lowered again and the driver stuck her hand out and swiped her I.D tag past the sensor. The large roller doors to the private underground car park rose noisily and Bella Swan drove under it, she drove around towards the elevator and pulled into her reserved parking spot nearby. She took her time organizing her bag before turning the ignition off so she could sit in the air-conditioning, the day was forecast to be a scorcher and she wanted to delay stepping out into it for as long as possible. She took her phone off of the hands-free cradle and opened the door, even though she was putting in a nearly start the heat was already threatening to ruin her good mood even before she'd picked up the first manuscript of the day. She stepped out and leaned onto the doorframe placing her Jimmy Choo Attila flats on; these were the shoes she wore in the interim times, her favorite shoes normally being-none. She grabbed her bag and the drinks, locked her car and started for the elevator.
It was still so early that when she got out of the elevator on the third floor the only other person there was the cleaner, he was an older man in his sixties and wasn't surprised when she walked up to him and handed him the tea.
"Hey old man, you missed a spot." she said jokingly.
"Morning young Bella, thank you, you're early today."
"No mucking around Carlisle, lots on; I have six manuscripts to plough through and I can only choose one, seriously the stuff some people submit for publishing is so boring, you're grand daughter Rose could write better fiction and she's six!" she said and Carlisle laughed.
"So no time for a date then?" he asked as he always did in jest, "I've been working out."
"Eww that's gross what are you like a hundred? Although if there was going to be any day I'd run away with you it'd be today, but I have to make a living and you can't afford me so I guess we'd better stick to our day jobs." she replied carrying on with the in joking that they had acquired with each other over the years.
"Ok but you can't blame an old man for trying. Maybe I can help you out though, did I ever tell you that I have a son you're age?" he asked.
"Oh you're sweet but no match making please, I'm not interested."
"No, silly girl I wasn't trying to set you up, my son, Edward, he's a writer and a very good one." said Carlisle.
"Is that right? That sounds like a biased dad talking, has he published anything I may have heard of?"
"Not yet, his agents are terribly lazy, I keep telling him to bring his work in here but he keeps refusing, he thinks it would be a conflict of interest because I'm employed here."
"Aha, I knew it, you're secretly working here to get in good with the editor so your son can make his millions and look after you in your old age! And here I was thinking it was about me, personally, I'd say he's running out of time though." She joked.
"You got me, my secret's out little lady."
"Well you should tell him I said to stop being an idiot and ditch those losers, sounds like they're holding him back. I'd better get a start on Carlisle, take care, have a nice day."
"Alright then, see you tomorrow morning Bella" he said looking a little deflated, he had hoped she would have offered to review his son's work and began to push his cleaning trolley down the hall.
"Carlisle, wait," she called out and walked back up to him, Bella had a soft spot for him, he'd always been so nice to her, she hoped she wasn't going to be wasting her time with this but she couldn't deny a struggling writer a chance. "Tell you're son to drop in his work and I'll have a read over it for free, I'm a sucker for a good story."
"I will, you've made an old man very happy, thank you love." he replied and continued to push his trolley down the hall towards the exit.
As she pushed through the heavy glass doors that lead through into the main floor the automatic sensor lighting came on, she walked past the rows of partitioned off cubicles where the creative arts department, marketing and legal services worked and continued down to the far end of the room. To her left was her office, she unlocked it using her tag and entered. Her phone beeped indicating she had four messages. She sat down behind her desk and began to listen to them, one was from her boss August, the publisher, from 2am that morning telling her that he had forgotten to put the delivery of todays manuscripts onto her desk and for her to go in and collect them from his office, the other three were from her Ex boyfriend Ryan who had stopped calling her mobile and started calling her at the office, he insisted that he wanted to talk and sort things out, Bella didn't want anything more to do with him after she had busted him leaving her neighbors house one afternoon when she'd decided to go home early, they'd been going out for just over six months and she was heart broken but knew she had done the right thing by ending it. She hit delete after each of them had finished and left her office to collect her day's work.
When she returned she sat back down at her desk and kicked off her shoes, she began to read through the first of the manuscripts and only got to a quarter of the way through when she tossed it across the room. "Garbage." she said to herself and started on the next one, the same fate awaited that one and the next four meaning that by lunch she had not only had her time wasted but now had no viable pieces of work ready to submit to her boss when he arrived back into the office later that afternoon.
"Jacob Black, my office now motherfucker." she said into her mobile, five minutes later a tap was heard at her door.
"Stop fucking around and get in here Jacob." she yelled and the door opened. Jacob was a nineteen year old native American with short black hair and cocoa colored skin, he stood as tall as his 5'8 inch build frame would allow him to in front of Bella's desk and held his hands behind his back waiting for her to speak.
"Do you see this? Do you see what I'm doing Jacob?" Bella quizzed him; she was sitting with her feet up on her desk in a relaxed pose.
"Yes, you look quite comfortable, is something wrong?" he asked, he knew very well something was wrong and that he was in deep trouble. It didn't faze him that she was swearing, Jacob was use to Bella's colorful vocabulary and it was usually only just noise but this time she was making the hairs stand up on the back of his neck and he realized this time he was really in for it.
"Do you think that at five to fucking one in the afternoon I should be able to sit and relax like this?" she said raising her eyebrows and opening up her hands at herself showing that she had nothing better to do, "thanks to you I may be out of a job by the end of the fucking day!" Jacob stood there and didn't speak; he knew what she was talking about. Bella moved into a proper-seated position, the theatrics over with.
"Don't ever fucking waste my time again with such shit Jacob" she scolded him throwing the last manuscript in his direction, "your job is to pre-review, I've been here since 5:30am trying to get a head start so that our boss has something tangible to market, and you know what I've got?" she asked.
"I'm guessing not much."
"Nothing Jacob, not a fucking thing, not one viable piece that we can possibly work with, and you know what that means?" Bella berated to her P.A.
"That I'm in trouble?"
"Yes, you're in trouble. Listen Jacob, I'm a good boss, we have a laugh and a joke and I tell you off and it's normally ok because you're young and we all make mistakes but I think you're starting to take advantage of my good nature and that sucks, it sucks for you because do it again and you're gone, and I mean it, don't fuck with me." Bella said and Jacob was formally informed. "So what happened? Why did you pass this garbage?"
"Bella, I'm sorry, it won't happen again, it was late Friday afternoon when they came in and to tell you the truth I just wanted to get out of here, I had a date."
"Well I can't fault your honesty, she'd better have been worth it that's all I can say, what's her name?" Bella asked, like Carlisle she had a soft spot for Jacob he was bright and had a keen eye for a good story- that is when he did his job.
"Renesmee." he replied.
"Reneswhat?" Bella asked.
"Renesmee." Jacob said again.
"What kind of a fucked up name is that?" asked Bella and Jacob knew he was off the hook for now.
"I don't know, I think it's pretty, and I hate to say it but she was worth it." he replied. "I am sorry, what can I do to make it up to you?" he asked genuinely.
"I don't know, lets just hope August is in a good mood when he comes in otherwise I really don't know what I'm going to do. I'm still so pissed at you" she said and half smiled, "get the fuck out of here- and get my lunch!" Bella called out to him as he left her office. Being the lead Editor Bella had to be tough but was always fair and rarely took crap from anyone, the staff under her including the lower ranking editors respected her authority and they knew not to put a foot out of line, her tolerance for assholes was limited and she could easily make or break their careers.
Without anything else to review, Bella put her shoes back on and strolled out of the office to go for a walk. She'd barely made it past the front doors before her phone rang and it was Jacob excitedly telling her to come back upstairs, they had received a walk-in and this was a rare event. Bella quickly reentered the building and tagged her way back onto the main floor.
"Hold all my calls please Alice." she instructed as she walked past the front reception desk outside her office.
"Yes ma'am." she replied and answered an incoming call.
"He's waiting in your office already, I grabbed your hand bag and your power heals from under your desk before I left him, here" Jacob said and he handed her the bag and the shoes.
"Well done sunshine, go offer him a drink while I freshen up, I'll only be a few minutes, we can't lose this fish." she said handing him her flats while putting on the heals. Jacob smiled widely knowing he had redeemed himself.
Bella approached her office, opened the door and the visitor courteously stood, he silently stumbled, shocked by the unexpectedness of Bella's beauty as she stepped through without looking at him and closed the door. When she turned around to greet him she too faltered and for a few seconds totally lost the ability to speak. She stood in front of her visitor and they looked at each other, instantly thrust into a moment in time where no one but the two of them existed.