She was fiercely independent, Brooke Davis. Brilliant, and beautiful, and brave. In 2 years she had grown more than anyone I had ever known. Brooke Davis is going to change the world someday. And I'm not sure she even knows it.
Brooke Davis slammed the book down on the sleek desk before her, sighing at nothing and everything. She looked out the window that took up the entire west wall of her office. The view of the city was a glorious thing at night; yellow and orange building lights gleaming across the endless black sky like dancing stars. The sound of rumbling taxis, angry drivers and bouncy party music. Beautiful women walking the streets with their sparkly dresses and chunky red heels, fire in their eyes, ready for the night's events.
In the beginning, Brooke watched the people and surroundings like a hunter watches their prey. She was hungry for it all: the fame and the recognition. For so long she had dulled her creative shine, and it was for this that she wanted to do something. On her own. No parents, no friends, no high school romances. She wanted just her and the fabric. She knew she had it in her, this ability to create stunning pieces of fashion out of a few articles of material. What she did not expect, however, was to turn this small-town dream into an international million-dollar business.
She also did not expect to be her mother's boss.
When Brooke was in high school, her parents lost all of their fortune, and she had a hard time adjusting to all the changes that occurred subsequently. Something changed inside her. She discovered this determination, this bravery that existed in her that she had never known before. She realized she wanted to create something and build something that nobody could ever take away from her. Something beautiful and tangible that was in her power to make decisions on, something she could fix and control and nobody could tell her she was stupid for it.
She had the skill. There was no doubt about that. Brooke Davis could draw a silk-woven, sweetheart-necklined, empire-waisted, two toned dress in thirty seconds, flat. Give her the material and she'll give you beauty.
What she lacked was the knowledge of the business: stocks, negotiations, the money that goes in and out. Brooke was far from cut-throat, and so she hired her mother, Victoria Davis, to do all the bidding. She hated herself for doing it, but she had no other choice. She wanted a name for herself, and Victoria would help her reach that, albeit not compassionately.
"Fiercely independent," Brooke murmured to herself, her hazel, almond-shaped eyes still on the city. She released something between a laugh and a cry.
"Brooke?"
It was the tiniest of voices. Brooke slid her gaze to the doorway, where her assistant Millicent Huxtable stood with a clipboard clasped against her chest, her eyes red and puffy.
"Millie," said Brooke, getting up from her seat. "Are you all right?"
"I'm okay," she assured, nodding up and down, though she did not look it. "I'm okay. It's just Victoria is asking me to check the supply room, even though I already checked there twice and it's not there, I know it's not, she grabbed it last night and brought it home with her, I told her that but she made me go check the supply room, so I check it and it's not there, it's not, she tells me check again, I check again, it's not there, it's not there —"
"Millie." Brooke had made it to her side in the midst of her fast-paced talking. She pressed both hands on Millie's shoulders and looked at her sympathetically. "Just breathe, okay? Go home and get some sleep. You're beginning to look more and more like Mel Gibson with those bags under your eyes. And I don't want to see your face until Monday. All right?"
"But I have to send all those bustier tops to Seattle —"
"I'll handle it. Now go home and don't worry about anything until Monday. Monday, we will worry. But for today, you need to sleep. Okay?"
"Okay," Millie said to her feet, nodding. "Thank you so much, Brooke. I promise I'll come back well-rested."
"You can bet your pretty little ass you will," Brooke said to her retreating figure.
Brooke shut her computer down, collected her coat, purse, design book, and planner, and flicked off the lights of her office. She made her way through the workplace, taking note of the myriad of colors, textures and patterns that lined many of her employee's cubicles. She told her employees on their first day that they could design their office however they desired, just so long as it was work appropriate and the fur was all faux. Smiling to herself, she ran her fingers over a piece of cerulean silk slung over a cubicle wall. Her eyes caught sight of a sketching laid on the desk, and when she got closer, she could not believe her sight. The fit, the design, the combination of colors. . . It was magnificent. Just as she was about to find the person's name who occupied the cubicle—
"What the hell are you doing?"
She knew that voice better than her own. She pressed her purse closer to her torso, crossed her arms across her chest, and faced her mother. "Heading home."
"It's only 1 A.M. Get back to your office, we have to go over our fall presentation for the board members." She fluffed her bangs with long manicured fingernails. "Was that Millie that just left? She was supposed to do something for me and if she left without doing it –"
"I sent her home," Brooke interrupted.
"You what?"
"She's tired, I'm tired. We've been working eighty hour weeks for this presentation and at some time our bodies can't take it anymore. Today, I can't take it anymore. So I'm going to go home and not speak to you until tomorrow. Bye, Mom." She turned to leave, resignedly throwing her purse over her shoulder.
"You wanted a business, I gave you a business," Victoria said, and Brooke could hear the tone she used on board members when they wanted to cut budgets, her icy arrogance. "This is what a business is, Brooke, and until you stop acting like a child, you will never be able to run it."
Brooke stopped in her tracks. She was so tired. She was so tired and lonely and disappointed. Her whole body felt hollow, weak, cold. This wasn't how it was supposed to feel when your biggest dreams come true. It was Victoria; she was the leech that sucked all of the joy and exhilaration Brooke could feel. She took and she took and Brooke was just so tired.
So she didn't turn around when she did it. She didn't look her mother in her icy blue eyes and say it with her whole being, so that twenty years from now Victoria could remember the look on her daughter's face the moment they locked eyes. She didn't turn around.
She took one last look at the sketch, slipped it into her purse, and with a voice dead of emotion, she said to her mother, "You're fired" and she walked home to an empty apartment. She was fiercely independent, after all.