The buzzing of the alarm clock on the nightstand jerked Maria out of her sleeping state. She rolled over, covering her head with one of the pillows that had been pushed around the previous night in her tossing and turning fit. "It's too early for this," she mumbled, gripping the white pillow tightly over her ears. Obviously it was too early for her to realize that all she had to do was knock the damn clock off of the nightstand to make it turn off for the remainder of the morning.
But, after a minute or two of listening to the intensely annoying shrieking of the clock, Maria sat up in the large bed. She flung the pillow that she had clamped down over her head at the ringing object. As soon as the feather-filled pillow knocked the clock over, all was silent. And that was just how Maria enjoyed to keep her mornings in her apartment.
She dragged her feet into the bathroom, shielding her eyes as she flicked on the light switch. She put her palms on the cool white sink as she stared into the mirror that hung above it. Her hair was rumpled and quite a mess, her eyes were red and tired, and she certainly didn't look like the person she did in the office. But, it was nothing a shower, a hairbrush, and a little bit of makeup couldn't fix.
Maria rid her body of the pajama shorts and tank top she had worn to bed the night before, dropping the articles of clothing ridden with sweat into the laundry basket. She'd definitely need to do the laundry when she got home from work; the basket was nearly full with her clothes. In her mind, she could hear the voice of her housewife of a mother saying something along the lines of "that's not sanitary, young lady," which made Maria laugh as she stepped into the tiled shower.
A few minutes later, after every inch of her body was cleaned, Maria rung out her dripping wet hair and flung it over her shoulder. She wrapped a cream colored towel around her body, and opened the bathroom door. The steam from the shower rushed away, and the fresh cool air hit her right in the face as she stepped out of the hot bathroom.
Once in the kitchen, she picked up a copy of Raw magazine, which had been published months before. Her current challenge was sprawled across the cover for that month's issue, and an entire section was devoted to the Massachusetts-native. As she waited for her brewing coffee, Maria flipped through the pages carefully, skimming a few of the paragraphs as quickly as she possibly could.
Taking her coffee with her, Maria went back into her room to get dressed for the day. She had already picked out her outfit for the day, which wasn't much of a surprise. A spring-themed skirt, and a blue top would go just fine, along with her favorite sandals. Maria never did like to scramble around to find clothes for the day, so she settled on putting her outfit together the night before.
It didn't take her long to dress, so she poured what was left in the coffee pot into a large traveling cup and headed off to work. She stepped into her car, which was parked on the street across from her apartment building, and turned the radio up just a tad. "Another day in hell" she mumbled as she pulled into the street, rolling her eyes slightly.
To Maria's surprised, she made it to work in record time. There hadn't been any traffic, and the roads were cleared of almost all construction. She silently wondered what was going on in the city, but didn't bother to question it as she strode into the office building.
"Good morning Rachel" Maria said, greeting the receptionist at the desk with a friendly smile and a nod as she walked briskly by. The two always greeted each other in the morning; it was sort of a ritual, as they were two of the only people considered friendly in the entire building.
Rachel smiled in return, "Good morning to you too, Maria. Oh, Leslie wants you to be in a meeting in three hours. She didn't say much about it, but I'm sure she left you something on your desk" she said as Maria raced to catch and elevator, nodding that she heard her.
Once inside her office, Maria shut the door and went straight to her desk. She sat at the swivel chair and moved a few papers around, searching for something--anything--on this meeting that Rachel had told her about. A yellow post-it note was stuck on top of a filing folder, and Maria quickly snatched it up. It read simply: 11, meeting office 2, be there.
She sighed, crumpled the yellow square up, and tossed it into the garbage bin. "Well, that gives me all of three hours to get to work" Maria said aloud to herself. If Leslie planned on letting her attend the meetings the entire week, she'd only have half of an article to hand in. And she wasn't about to let Leslie get to her; she'd just have to work that much harder.
She spun the chair around, in order to face the computer, and logged on to the World Wide Web. She didn't know how much information she'd find on the new poster-boy, but she might as well be happy with what she could turn out. But, the Internet would have to be her main source, as there weren't any books with the name John Cena printed in them, and, without a shadow of a doubt, Maria new that an interview with the man himself would be out of the question.
Typing as fast as she possibly could, notebook in hand and a pen held behind her ear, Maria went searching. She took notes, scribbling across the pieces of paper in the notebook quickly. And, within an hour or so, she had five pages of notes and quite a few random doodles in the corners and margins of her paper. Maria had to thank the high heavens for the fans and their little websites, which she now referred to as masterpieces of the Internet. If it had not been for them, she'd have absolutely nothing.
Two hours later, Maria was running down the halls in her high-heeled sandals, trying to make it to the elevator in record time. And, she did. She tapped her foot the entire way up to the sixth floor, and then bolted toward the meeting office she had been told to arrive at. Maria made it, with two minutes to spare, as she sunk down into one of the very comfortable-looking leather chairs.
