Page 7 of A World Apart
“Which ones?” she asked, unlatching the door.
“Laura Mercier’s Vanilla and Midnight Fantasy." I replied.
“That explains why you smell like a vanilla candy,” she laughed.
“It’s good though, right?” I said, quite convinced of my own genius.
“When you walk through the halls, it’ll be like Hansel and Gretel following a trail of candies right to the witches house.” She laughed.
“Ok, rude,” I frowned, “am I not the witch in that scenario?”
“Always said you were a baddie, babes.” She winked at me. I tutted and took a sip of my coffee.
Just then, a Honda Civic pulled up to the kerb in front of us and the driver lowered the window.
“Uber?” He asked.
“Right on time!” I smiled and opened the back door, but before I could slide in, Becka grabbed my arm. “Um, hello?” I said, looking at her in confusion.
“Don’t be such a Bambi,” she scolded me before leaning closer to the driver’s window.
“What names do you have?” Becka asked primly. The driver, a young-looking guy wearing a Bears t-shirt, reached for his phone and reading off a message said, “Booked by Kaiya?”
I gave Becka a ‘are you happy now?’ look as she released my elbow, and I slid in to the backseat. It smelt like brand new air freshener trees.
Becka slid in next to me. “Safety first,” she said in a tone that very much implied the ‘duh,’ she didn’t say.
We made it to the studio at exactly 08:05. I tipped Kenneth (our driver) and we made our way inside.
At first glance, everything looked as normal as ever, but on closer inspection it was clear someone had been through here with copious amounts of polish. Everything gleamed and there was a faint smell of lemon on the air.
Becka and I exchanged smiles.
“But sure, yeah, no big deal,” she said. I laughed.
It wasn’t a surprise that pretty much the whole of the 3rd floor was already in or piled in shortly after we did. I didn’t linger in their office, technically I wasn’tsupposed to be there and the minute Becka put her bag on her desk, one of her colleagues came over to speak with her, so I made my way to Jeremy’s office.
“Ah, good morning, Kaiya. Is it just me or is everyone acting weird this morning?” he asked, looking up at me from his laptop.
I shrugged, but answered, “I think it’s probably something to do with the client coming in today.”
Jeremy frowned. “Who?”
I blinked in surprise. “Baek Jihoon from GVibes?”
Jeremy leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers together, leaning his elbows on the arm rests as he thought about it for a minute.
“Yeah, nah, I got nothing,” he said finally. “Give me an equivalent from the 90s,” he asked, raising an eyebrow at me. This was a game we’d played before. I wasn’t completely convinced he wasn’t having me on, but I played along all the same.
“Um, Justin Timberlake, N*SYNC,” I replied confidently.
“Ahh, got it. Frosted tips, as well?”
I laughed. “Not yet.”
“Give it time,” he said darkly. “Anyway, pop stars aside, I’ve got a shit job for you today,” he said apologetically, grimacing slightly. “Some absolute jobsworth in tech wants us to inventory the store room and move some stuff upstairs to the suites and move some other stuff back downstairs to storage.”
“Well, thank God for elevators, eh?” I replied with a smile, even if it was a bit forced. Storage was… probably going to be featured on an episode of Hoarders any day.
