The Press Conference

Monica

'bang', I banged my hands on the table in extreme annoyance, although conscious and careful enough not to break my phone.

"What an a**hole, who actually does this?!!" I exclaimed.

Turning to look at the time, it was half past eleven, meaning that I only had about two hours to prepare for the members of the Press coming. Thinking some more I figured that the man had probably never intended on coming today, the arrangement he had made with Janice was obvious evidence. My annoyance was not even about him dumping it on me, no, it was about not informing me on time, a task like this could not just be delegated to another a few hours before the actual event, it wasn't simple work.

And on another note he sounded so much colder to me than when we met on the bus, I frowned in thought.

My phone soon lit up, notifying me of a new message, picking it up from the table, I opened it, it was the message that Mr. Marcus said he would send, it was just a brief summarized listing of the key things I was to say to the media, quickly looking through it, I put off the phone whole scoffing.

No matter how annoyed I was, I knew that I had to do it, but I decided that afterwards I would have a good talk with Mr. Manager, even if he was a superior, he couldn't just dump things on people like this.

"... and on that our customers can be well assured."

'flash flash flash' the several cameras went off in succession, blinking my eyes I finished off the moderately long speech I had quickly prepared before the Press came, and from the look of things It was good enough. A round of applause immediately began, I waved my hands a bit and then quietly waited for the audience to quieten down, the most tricky part was coming up next, the 'Question and Answer' session.

We were on the third floor of the company building, there had always been a specific hall for meetings or conferences of any sort present, and so it was the one being used to host the Press.

Once the place quietened down, we began, pointing at the raised hands of one of the seated journalists, I looked on and waited for his question

"Good day Miss" clearing his throat, he continued.

"I just wanted to ask , like I'm sure so many of us want to as well, where is the new Manager ? Who is he? Of course we know his name as it was updated on the online platform, but your customers are at least entitled to see the man right? The company has been a bit vague on that, is there anything wrong?" then the man sat down

"Thank you for the question Mr Joseph"

I replied as I quickly glanced at the name tag resting on his chest. I Looked around the whole hall briefly, sighing within and then I continued.

The Conference lasted for about 2 hours, in that time I had managed to convince the lot, that the new manger was the hardworking sort and that he just couldn't be around because of the various complications of the branch he needed to sort out, I think most bought it, or at least pretended to buy it I almost even believed my self.

Some asked about the former manager and the possible reasons for the decision that he took, questioning if maybe the company was the cause, I was honestly a bit speechless, even after seeing and experiencing these things for so many years i was still rendered speechless by the type of questions reporters asked.

After some pictures, the number of people remaining slowly trickled to single digits and after a few more minutes the hall was now empty besides the cleaning ladies and I.

The time was a few minutes past five , and still that waste of a good looking man , had not yet come to the office, yes that was what I had already tagged Mr. Marcus, well, only in my head that is, because I kept and am still wondering how such a good looking man could still be so rude.

I had been intentionally, wasting a bit of time, in order to maybe meet him before I go home, but, obviously It was not to be. Suddenly deciding that I would not delay anymore, I stood up and carried my bag, as I was already done for the day, the computer had been put off earlier. Locking the door on leaving the office I made my way downstairs, 'the place is so quiet' I thought, it was time to go home.

Marcus

I came to the company by a bit after four, that was when a lot of people where still leaving, I could have come earlier, because I had been done with 'Choice Homes' since earlier in the afternoon, but I decided against that, I didn't want my face on the late night news or the next days morning paper, yes, that was what would have happened if I had shown up, my father and by extension, I, was not a small figure in the upper class of society and as much as we had great friends, we also had great enemies and the lasw could only do so much once you got to a certain level. That I could even move around now and not be hounded so much was because the name on the official company website was written in a misleading way at least reducing the probability of the media sniffing me out from there. I could not hide forever, I knew, but for the mean time I was not having any of that.

Even when I came, I did not enter the company at all, I camped out around in one of the surrounding cafés, I was taking no chances. I was outside now, just outside the branch building, but because it wasn't so light outside I was almost completely submerged in the shadows. It was here that I stood as that secretary, Monica, passed, she still looked as great as ever, even if she did look a bit tired, but I thought nothing of it, it was what she was paid for.

Once I was satisfied that certain parties were no longer around, I entered the building.

"Good evening sir" one of the security men at their outpost greeted, he had obviously recognized me, I waved my hands a bit and went on inside in silence.

As I got to the top floor, I entered my office, turning on the lights, I closed the door and went around to my office table. I wanted to go over the events of today, as I waited for the computer to boot, I looked out from the window beside me, it was bright city, the lights had made it even more beautiful at night than the day, and this was one of the things I saw different from my time in Florida.

The booting went quite quickly so in a few dozen seconds I began perusing the files prepared for me. It included the points that some journalists raised that she thought were important, and then several remedies she thought could solve the issues, though at the end she 'strongly advised' as she wrote, that the absence of the newly appointed manager after the fiasco of the former, was not presenting a good front to the company's customers. When I got to that I smiled and scoffed a bit,

'was the woman now telling me what to do?' I thought.

I finally left the building by 7:25 pm, it was late, but it wasn't the latest time that I had ever left from work, so it was all good, although the beautiful secretary, Monica, wasn't all to my liking, but I had to admit that her work professionalism was top notch.

I went home back to Great View Hotel, although I had reached a deal with the 'Choice Home' Agency, it would take some time before I could actually live there, maybe up to a week, but I was not in a rush though. As I sat down on my bed, listening to the 8:30 news on my Android tablet, a thought suddenly popped up in my head,

'I wonder how Monica is feeling?'

Suprised, I paused,

'was I feeling sorry?' I thought again, if It was, then it would be the first in so many years, I suddenly felt very angry and frustrated, the thing was, I probably knew why the feeling crept up, it was the face, the face that I had apparently never forgotten.

Monica

"This is officially the worst Tuesday of my life! " I exclaimed.

This was the very first thing I said over the phone, I was talking to Meagan yet again, I just felt the need to talk to someone immediately, and as usual she was the first, best and sadly the only choice I could make, like she had always said, I lived a lonely monotonous life, I agree, I did, and I kind of liked it, but there were times when which I wished I didn't, and today was one of them.

"Girl wait" she said,

"don't go spilling anything out yet, let me sit down properly" I could hear her moving around in the background, and then after moving what sounded like a chair she exhaled heavily, I guessed she had probably sat down.

"it think it's better I switch this to a video call, don't you think?" she asked

"ok" I said and so a few seconds later, we were both looking at each other.

"Yeah, you are right, you do look bad, even worse than I thought " she said while briefly frowning,

"what's up?" she asked.