In Charter headquarters the halls were filled with people answering phone calls, having meetings, coffee runs, and the keys of keyboards clacking. It was another busy day as editors, writers, journalists and leaders worked to publish the latest issue of their magazine.
Charter Magazine is the leading print news source in the business sector. Anyone who wanted to be a known business person or have prestige for their company wanted to have a feature in this magazine. And here I was working alongside them.
To be honest I did not want to venture into writing columns about how a fortune 500 company was founded by "self made" people when almost everyone who is featured is a nepotism baby. And on the rare occasion they are not, those few are usually not as self made as the word is defined to be.
I initially did not even want to be in this specific focus of journalism, I was more interested in true crime or investigative journalism. I liked finding out deep hidden truths or facts about people. The thrill of knowing something you are not suppose to and revealing it was exciting to me.
However, upon meeting Felix he encouraged me to go this route instead. As his future wife I needed to watch for his reputation as well as our safety. If I messed with the wrong people both of us could take the hit and what we worked hard to build would come crashing down.
But I still could get a taste of what hidden truths there were among his social group. "Sol get in here!" My boss Thomas Rudd yelled as he walked in his office carrying a large stack of folders in one hand and a large cup of coffee in the other.
I sat up from my cubicle and followed him in. When I first started working here I thought he was angry but instead its more of a cue about a new assignment. "Sol your last article was a huge success, but this next assignment will be a true test of your skills."
'Test of my skills?' I nodded along as I waited to see what he thought would be a challenging piece. "This interview was originally for Raya to cover but her surgery was scheduled at the same time so she recommended you to take over. You will interview top women CEOs for our highlight reel on female leadership in business."
"Oh wow! While I am very grateful for being recommended by Raya to take over, what about the current article I am working on?"
I had convinced my market leader to allow me to draft an article where I interviewed Felix about his company and conservation efforts. I hid my connection to him so that way I could release it without it being seen as favoritism.
"We are going to scrap that for now. I really want you to focus on this project. Especially since we will be attempting to interview Miss Celeste D'Angelo."
Celeste? Based on her information that is available to look up, not much is known about her personally besides her familial relationships and her current business role. Save her ancestral line and their contributions to the economic growth our country is at today.
"This is an important interview and we are right now securing her appearance. In the meantime I would like you to submit questions to ask her and a working draft for the introduction for the segment."
Would she even agree to it? Based on the few times I have seen her, she seemed really closed off and private. Despite being with Felix now, he only spoke about her superficially. Any time I have pried into knowing more about her he shuts me down. 'It is not worth it talking about her. All you need to know is that she is boring but very filthy rich.'
I doubt she would agree and if she saw I was doing the interview, even less. 'Why would I do all this work when she is not gonna agree?' I could only bite my tongue and cooperate. This was common practice. Rather than getting to ask what you wanted, you had to get a large set of questions approved beforehand. You could randomly select from that list but not deviate from it.
It was a pain as it takes away from the real aspect of journalism. There was no need to 'pre-approve' what you are allowed to ask. "Sure right away."
"Atta girl! Alright get out of here and go make me some money." Thomas sent me back just as quickly as he called me in. As I exited the office I caught sight of Raya who mouthed thank you as she went back to finalizing what I assume to be distributing her projects before her surgery.
Back in my cubicle I thought back on the conversation I had with Frankie Rhodes. The nouveau rich young lady who I met a few weeks back.
Since our conversation she has texted me a few times about having dinner with her but my work schedule has not allowed for it. However, from what she shared at her party it was clear she had a lot to say about Dean Cortez but very little about Celeste D'Angelo.
'There is not much to say about her. She was the Queen Bee at our school but was never cruel like the other kids. She studied all the time and was our student body president. Basically a machine, she just kept the same routine.'
'Really? Nothing stands out about her?'
'If I had to say, her only standout fact about her was the odd relationship between her, Felix Carter, and Dean Cortez.'
'Relationship? I heard they only started dating in college.'
'Oh sure officially yeah but since they were in high school it was very obvious Felix liked her but Dean often made him make a fool of himself. Celeste never addressed it even though she was the only one Dean even remotely listened to.'
'Why was that odd?'
'That in of itself is not odd, after all her family is the top of the top, it makes sense he does not cross the line with her. Rather it was an incident that happened at our school and the nasty rumors that followed that makes their relationship odd.'
Her next words shocked me. Even Felix did not tell me about this and it seemed to be too big of a deal to just not mention.
'I wonder what she will say if I ask her about it.' The more I repeated Rhodes in my head the more urgent I was to see what she had to say. I typed up some basic questions but formulated how to get her to answer.
Her whole personality seemed fake. She was blank faced and boring but surprisingly or rather allegedly had a dark skeleton in her closet. 'What face will you make when I ask Celeste D'Angelo? Are you ready?'