In the Rain (Prequel to Rain Again)

Chapter Nine: Crossing Boundaries

She smiled as though she were a cat. She smiled as though she'd gotten the cheese.

Now, she was going to time everything correctly and find her place inside that damned conference room. It seemed like a place where all the interesting stuff happened in the company.

She watched as Mr. Leon came out and greeted the agency people. And as she eavesdropped on them very discreetly in the pretense of placing a couple of houseplants in far better places, fixing one of the legs of a desk that looked suspicious, dusting off mites from a handrest of a leather chair, and saving an employee's life who looked kind of surprised, then there was that spot on the wall and the glass of the senior Leon's cabin seemed uncleaned. This office was a disaster.

At one point, Mr. Leon gave her a long look of warning. And she gave a look back that said 'I'm the peon, dude, it's my job!'

Soon they got into the conference room.

Kate watched Miss Nina rush in too with a cheery Gloria in tow. The girl was like happiness stored inside a bottle. She waved a hi to Kate. Kate threw her a mischievous smile. Gloria drew her brows together in confusion. Kate winked. Miss Nina glared. All faces went back to normal.

"On the count of five, they are going to call me in there," quite confidently Kate announced to one of the employees closest to her. They had all stopped working to stare at the group entering the conference room. After all, not a lot of interesting things happened on this floor.

"Huh," the employee dismissed her words like a joke. "They wouldn't call any of us in there and you're saying they would call you."

Kate smirked and began the countdown, "Five, four, three, two, o—"

"Kate, hon, could you please bring more pamphlets in here?" The conference door opened partly and Gloria's smiley face peeked out.

Kate flipped her hair, gave the employee a smug look, and then turned back to smile at Gloria. "Sure, coming right away."

For the first time in a long time, Kate finally began to feel like she was winning at something as she grabbed a stack of the required pamphlets and marched into the conference room. Already there was a discussion undergoing in there as she moved towards the desk as slowly as she could. The pamphlets fell from her hands, she hoped no one could tell it was a willing action, and she began collecting them at the speed of a snail.

She watched people from the advertising agency starting to present an idea they'd already prepared before coming here. She found it was one of the leading ad agencies in the continent, and they were costly, and people liked them; it was kind of a big thing working with them.

"As we are going to work with sportswear newly launched by Quartz," a tall, lean guy with long hand movements led the PPT slideshow. "We could bring in one of the country's best muscle models, they would move with the beats of exhilarating music," images of the sportswear in discussion appeared, a piece of high-beat music played in the background, a couple of faceless males and female models popped up next. "They will pose with gears and accessories involved in the respective sports related to the wears. The brand name will be spray painted on the wall behind in the most interesting way; we'll include dancing and all that. It's going to be a sure success, my friends! Like always!" The guy looked complacent ending the presentation.

Everyone clapped nodding their heads in agreement, including Alex.

Kate was watching on with concentration, now placing the pamphlets she brought in front of the agency people. Gloria was close to her, they smiled at each other briefly in a secretive manner. In the meanwhile, Alex had already given her way a couple of irritated looks, making it known that her presence here was unwanted greatly. However, the outstanding thing was that he was unable to do anything about it at the moment, she could clearly sense, in fear it would cause a bad impression in front of the ad agency people. Thrill pumped in her vines at the vibe of such helplessness in her boss.