Brie made a final check of the address on her phone as she scoured the street through the windows of the slowing bus. Already ten minutes late she was thankful the office building was so close to the stop, leaping from the doors the moment they opened.
$200 for three hours work, she bit her lip as she entered the building hoping her tardiness wouldn't derail the job opportunity arranged by her employment agency before it even began. With no reception desk, she hurried to a list of businesses beside the elevators, searching for the appropriate floor.
CD Promotions-25th Floor, she read and rolled her eyes. Of course it would be second from the top of the building, she bemoaned, hammering the call button of the lift, willing it to arrive as soon as possible.
Taj slammed the door of the uber behind him, his regular driver laughing and yelling out an encouragement to 'run' as he weaved his way across the busy road toward the same office building. Nearly fifteen minutes late by his reckoning, he cursed a slow moving Prius and skirted the rear of a departing bus as he dashed the last few yards to the entrance.
Entering the lift, Brie tapped the button for her floor and reached into her handbag for a mirror, a final check of her makeup before making a first impression, albeit a late one. The doors were slow to shut and her hand shot out to tap the close door button just as she caught sight of a man running towards her.
"Hold the lift," Taj pleaded as he sprinted toward the closing elevator, only to see the two doors come together as if in a mocking clap, catching the sympathetic grimace of the girl inside as she raised a compact to her face. "Fuck!" Taj hissed under his breath, wondering if he should attempt the stairs but already puffing from his unexpected exertion, quickly put it out of his mind.
The lift was painfully slow and it gave Brie time to wonder what work she was actually showing up for? Marketing and promotion, had been the description given by her employment agency. Vague, but with prior experience it usually meant handing out energy drinks at train stations or flogging charities to pedestrians annoyed at being stopped in the street.
With thankfully no stops along the way, the elevator finally reached its destination and Brie followed a hand written sign directing her to a conference room at the end of the hall. A glass wall revealed two speakers, an assembly of twenty or so seated before them, and as she opened the appropriately squeaky door to the room, all heads turned in her direction.
"We started fifteen minutes ago!" An attractive woman in tight grey business slacks and white blouse informed her. "Just please take a seat."
Allowing the vociferously protesting door to close of its own volition, Brie slinked toward one of the few remaining chairs at the rear of the group, just glad the majority of faces had again concentrated on the speaker.
"So we need you to be the spirit of Froggy Pops..." The woman began before the sound of the door again opening had the entire group turning back toward Brie. This time however past her to the guy Brie's elevator had closed upon.
"Sorry, this is CD Promotions?" Taj asked, self conscious the entire room was focused on him.
"Well we're obviously not the ministry of punctuality!" The other presenter, a young exec with too perfect skin and hair, helpfully assisted.
"Yeah sorry, there was an accident on the freeway," Taj tried to explain as the door noisily accompanied his entrance.
"Well WE all managed to make it here on time," the presenter countered and Taj immediately formed a hatred of him. "Can you just join the group and you can regale us all with your wondrous adventures afterwards."
Eyeing one of the last remaining seats, Taj looked at the girl in the next, her face, unlike the others still fixed on his. The recollection was immediate and he pointed at her accusatorially as he sat down beside her, smiling.
"You're one of the reasons I'm late!" Taj whispered, her face turning red as he spoke.
"I'm sorry, I tried to hold it but I was too late," Brie defended herself, aware she was blushing. Was it embarrassment or shame, the reason she felt so anxious she wondered? Or that he was possibly the hottest guy she'd ever laid her eyes upon? Turning back to face the speakers, she reasoned it was probably a combination of all three.
The two presenters waxed lyrically on the merits of their new breakfast cereal, its energy and protein advantages, as Brie, still facing forward leaned to her side, closer to her tardy compatriot.
"You know it was why I was late as well!" She whispered, referring to the accident.
"Yeah? The freeway? I can't blame it totally though; maybe if I'd had my Froggy Pops this morning I might've made the lift!" Taj whispered in response and Brie couldn't hold back the snorting laugh that leapt from her, dropping her face as eyes once again turned in their direction.
"May I go on?" The male speaker inquired of Taj who managing to contain his composure nodded accordingly. "Thank you. So summing up, what are we?" He shouted to the audience.
"Froggies! Froggies! Froggies!" The gathered participants chimed.
"And what do we say?" The female speaker added.
As one the seated audience, all but Taj and Brie, began croaking as frogs.
"Ribbit. Ribbit. Ribbit..." They sang in unison as the two latecomers turned to face each other in bewilderment.
"What the fuck!?" Taj mouthed amid the chanting which caused Brie to again burst into a bout of laughter.
"...Ribbit, ribbit," the male presenter chorused. "That's right guys, be one with the frog! Now come up and collect your uniform and let's get out there and show the world what Froggy Pops is all about!"
Joining the rear of the throng, Taj and Brie filed towards the front of the room, both thinking the same thing without expressing it to one another. What the hell had they signed up to and what the fuck had they missed in the fifteen minutes prior?
With the other participants claiming their uniforms from large boxes marked "guys" and "girls," Taj and Brie finally made it to the front to be faced by the leaders. Taj taking it upon himself to speak for the both of them.
"Yeah look sorry we were late, is there anything we need to know about what we'll be doing?"
With a sour look on her face, the woman with a name badge that read Vanessa handed a green parcel to Brie and corresponding to Taj.
"We don't have time to run through the training again for you two, bus leaves in ten," she forced herself to convey. "We'll need your social security details and you'll have to get changed. You can get a rundown on the bus. To be honest," she scowled. "Brad and I aren't happy with either of you promoting Froggy Pops' good name. You can consider yourselves fortunate we need you to make up the numbers!"
Chastened, though bemused, Taj and Brie filled out their details before being directed toward separate alcoves off the conference room.
Brie entered the space and immediately had flashbacks of high school change rooms. Nine other females, some still naked, most already sliding into the gaudy green lycra they'd been given. Finding an empty chair, Brie placed down her handbag and removed her own costume from the provided bag, a green felt frog mask and matching spandex or lycra full length bodysuit with attached booties. "Oh God," she whispered to herself as she again scanned her peers. She could have been backstage at the Miss America pageant such were the perfect bodies on display. The majority of the girls blonde, tanned, silicon aplenty and as far as she could tell, not a pube shared amongst them.
Taj recognised a couple of the other guys from modelling jobs. Only on nodding acquaintance, he kept to himself and tried not to look at the other cocks being openly displayed as they changed into the frog suits. The whole scenario strange, he reasoned with wearing the mask, at least no one would recognise him in such a comical guise.
