Secrets to a Happy Ending

Chapter 1

Five years later...

Lydia sat at her desk twirling her pencil while she looked at the computer monitor facing her. The sounds of telephones, amplitude of voices, and clattering keyboards surrounded her in the background.

She stared at the finished edited article on her computer screen and looked at the clock, which read 3.35pm, 25 minutes and she would be ready to hand it to press. Knowing that she had met her deadline well in time, she wondered what she could do to make herself look busy until it was officially met, so that she was not given another story to start at this time of the day.

She sat thinking to herself that this time tomorrow, she would be on her way to collecting herself the biggest bottle wine she could imagine. A celebration to herself that it was the weekend, and she was beginning to think of her plans when suddenly her daydreaming came to an abrupt ending.

It had been a painstaking week which she had been at the high court for most of it, following a murder case of a seventeen-year-old girl. She hated writing about court cases, it was interesting hearing all the evidence and questioning, but she found it monotone and bland, nothing that she could sink her teeth into, she reached the part in her thoughts, where the jury were about to deliver the verdict when she was distracted.

"Boo!"

Lydia jumped and looked behind her it was Denise the office dog's body that would do all the errands for the journalists on the floor of the news department.

"You bitch! You had me thinking it was the boss there."

Denise laughed loud and hard.

"If you could have seen your face there."

Lydia not looking amused swung her chair round and faced Denise.

"And what can I do for you?"

Denise caught on to what she said and sarcastically started making curtsies to Lydia.

"Begging your pardon ma'am, didn't mean to disturb you ma'am, few of us going to for a Carvery, ma'am, wanna join us Ma'am?"

Lydia rolled her eyes and faced back to her desk and replied.

"Denise, you know fine well, I don't do nights out on a work nights, as it affects the work I do."

Denise shrugged moved over to Lydia's desk shoved some paperwork out of the way and sat down on the desk.

"Doesn't stop the other journalists going out, they manage to find the time?" She said.

Lydia looked at Denise with a distant look, a look that told Denise that her comment was not appreciated in the slightest. Denise knew the look but chose to ignore what Lydia was about to imply and instead said.

"You know Lydia you have been here for a year now and never have been on a team night out, anyone would think you are trying to ignore us?"

Lydia was just about to reply when over her desk her boss Michael the editor and chief of The Gazette and Herald appeared.

"Lydia a word when you have a moment?"

Lydia nodded, she turned and faced Denise and said.

"Looks like I would not be able to make that meet up now anyway." She gave a smug smile as she said it and walked off.

Denise shrugged while waving her legs about on Lydia's desk and dived into Lydia's bowl of peanut m&m's and then said.

"He could be being just nice and giving you a day off?"

Lydia looked over at Denise who sat on the desk looking while shoving a handful of the m&m's in her mouth.

"When have you heard about him giving people a day off, it's bad enough trying to get a weeks holiday. Besides I have given up trying to get some time off now, I guess I am too dedicated to the job."