"Damn that elevator and damn Richard Wellington" I said again, as I felt a bulge rising from where my head had connected with the elevator.
"Out of the way" a man called as he ran past me. He wore a tailored vert shirt with dark pants, and even in motion, it looked really great on him. And I can always excuse someone if he knows his way around a wardrobe.
"Sir! Sir! Could you halt for a moment, I need to run something by you. Please Sir, I have been waiting all morning." I heard the man echo still running down the hall trying to get to where Richard Wellington was.
"Just keep everything for the board meeting, I don't have time for any of it now" Richard called back, halting the man dead in his tracks.
"all morning" I pondered, and yet he didn't stop to even look at the file the man had opened as he ran. How cruel.
Lord knows, what he was doing all morning, that he's coming to work at such an hour and yes, I know I'm not really the best judge for that, but at least I had justifiable reasons for being late. Could the same be said of him?
I watched as the man turned, slapped the file shut and turned in fear to see if his Boss had heard. Exhaling a breath, he began retracing his steps. His face, lined with disappointment and anger.
I looked away, unable to stand looking at Richard even from such a distance. But not before I saw a girl, or a lady rather, in red approach him. She was struggling to walk alongside him and talk to him at the same time, but the brute hardly seemed to care. It was pitiful watching the lady burst into a run just to match his stride.
"Lord knows what she goes through on a daily basis working for him" I thought.
I still stood in the hallway looking around, completely at loss on what to do.
"Didn't Em say that I would join the others, so where the fuck are they?" I asked myself, still looking around.
The hallway stretched on both sides. To the left, from whence the man had begun running from, the walls were a startling white lined with paintings. All the paintings were framed in gold giving the white walls a look of ambience.
On the right where Richard Wellington had somehow disappeared into one of the glasses that marked as walls. Some of the glasses were tinted and glossy and only handles differentiated the walls from the doors. Frontpage headlines of the Wellington Empire from Bogue, New City Fashion Review, Lines and other fashion magazines, also decorated the glass walls in transparent glass cases.
Something that looked like a cubicle, or a desk rather, was situated at the far side of the right. It looked like a secretary's desk with files heaped on top of the glass desk and a black coat was hung on the leather chair of the same hue.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, with the board meeting just a few hours away how does he expect me to present this when he hasn't even approved it" the man who had been running earlier was musing to himself as he passed and I doubt he even knows it.
"Wait, what are you doing standing there?" he asked me, pausing in his tracks.
Looking behind me to make sure it was I that he was referring to, I earned myself a reprimand,
"Can you stop that, it's you who I'm talking to. Yes, you" he said when I touched my chest and asked "Me?"
"I ask again, what are you doing here gawking like a fool, are you lost or what?"
"Sorry Sir, I'm actually here for the interview and I don't know where the others are, do_"
"Of course you don't!" he snapped, cutting me off "with the way you are gawking at everything, it's no wonder you got lost during the tour. They're in the board room, that way. And what are you wearing?"
"Erm Sir, it's kinda a long story, but I appreciate your help, thanks" I quickly said, eager to be out of his scrutiny.
"It's a bit basic, but I kinda like it," he said from behind me, as if talking to himself again.
"But yeah, glad I could help!" he called, startling me.
I passed by the first glass case. It was the frontpage of the Bogue issue, I remember helping to write when I was still interning. By helping to write, I mean I wrote a small article on page 7, I think about "Individuality in Fashion".
It was an honor to be featured in the issue even though I was only given a small space. Other two, Sheila and a name I remember struggling to pronounce correctly until I thought of it as shark, but with a 'Z' instead of the 'sh', Jacques.
They were also given a spot for an article in the Issue. Out of the five interns, we were the only three bestowed that honor. Emily was good, but she wasn't selected.
Sheila Wilson was always a bitch. You know when you're in highschool, that person who is always the mean girl, that's Sheila. She came from a rich home, her uncle was famous in Bogue for his amazing and insightful contents published on every issue. He was also why she was there.
Jacques, was the French hot gay friend I made after getting him enraged on the first day by repeatedly pronouncing his name until I got it right by comparing it to 'shark', to his utmost enragement.
We became friends after he cooled off. I remember looking at French ( a French designer who I later found out that we both loved and believe it or not, that's his name) designs when Jacques approached me.
"He's amazing, isn't he?" He asked with that flair of French accent.
"Indeed, his designs are out of this world, here did you see how he slashed the hem and accented it with florals, like the guy is just amazing" I remember answering.
He then told me of the parts he loved about the designs and they were the same I liked. He apologized in between, emphasizing on how appreciative he was of the effort I took towards getting his name right, even though I was kinda a… what did he call it again? Aha, a fouineur about it.
He said it was a first for him. Normally people just discard the name after a few tries and settle for a nick like 'J', 'JC' or even a variant like 'Jack' which he absolutely abhors.
I had apologized for being a dick with his name, and I remember how he shrugged with a feminine flair. That was another reason why I liked him, he owed who he was without apology.
He went ahead to tell me that if everyone could try making an effort like me instead of settling for monikers, in his words 'the world will be a less bitchy place to live'.
Even some of the boyfriends he had in the past, called him by a nick. That had been when he had been stupid staying with people who couldn't even try to get his name right with the pathetic excuse that a nick was cuter.
Then he had stayed with them because for someone like him love was hard to come across, so for a sliver of it he always held on to it until he met Josh - his current boyfriend then.
According to him, Josh showed him layers of love he only saw in movies and read in books. He made him accept who he was and thrive in his peculiarity.
He had told me all these during our time together for the period of the internship. He and Em, were my besties until I got home and my hellish life swept it all under a rug.
Maybe with this job, I could find time to reconnect with him and Emily. Especially since I hear he's doing so well in his home country, a story I once read even called him "the next French".
Back to the present, the Bogue headline said,
"The Young at it again!. Meet Richard Wellington, the world's youngest CEO who is taking the fashion world by storm".
On the side was a full portrait of the billionaire in a dark Wellington suit, black gleaming Oxfords and accented by his iconic shades. He looked breathtaking and I remember fawning over that picture, but now looking at him, I only feel hate for the handsome devil.
Speaking of handsome devils, a boy with dark blond hair almost fawn in color, and kind eyes like the color of still lake appeared from one of the doors in the hallway and asked,
"Hey, are you one of us? Sorry, I mean are you here for the interview?"
The red tint that colored his cheeks spoke of his shyness even how he had spoken hurriedly, but I doubt that. A boy as cute as he was, could never be shy… unless he was a handsome angel or a handsome devil in disguise.