Chapter 1
"Good morning Ms Ava..." my assistant Christie says to me as she walks me to my office. This is our everyday routine, if she doesn't take a taxi or the car with me, she waits for me at the entrance of the office building, tells me my schedule for the day while walking me to my office. I am 26years old, and I am currently the editor of a growing fashion magazine...
"Good morning Christie... when are you going to drop the Ms, and just call me Ava? I know its formality first, but Ms Ava makes me feel really old...what does my day look like today?"
I know it's not easy working for me. I've heard a lot of things about me... but to be something in this world, you're going to be a lot of things people don't like... I am a 26 year old black female, how much harder does it get? And even with all the obstacles I face, I try make it easy for the staff... I'm a very friendly person; I'm just not the most approachable person when you don't know me personally.
"Sorry, I forget that you'd rather be called Ava... anyway your schedule for today, is a tad bit busy, at half 9 you have an editor's meeting in the boardroom, you also have a meeting with an up and coming designer from South Africa at 10, Nicco Rabatti's assistant called to confirm the meeting, says that he is only available this afternoon, so I booked you for that too..."
"Oh, is that all? I don't have any more meetings?"
"Uhm, well you did, but I had to reschedule them because Nicco prefers to do interviews throughout the entire day, and he's expecting you at 11 am..."
Seriously? Who is this guy? I mean I've heard he's the biggest douchebag in New York City... but is he serious? I can't be missing out on meetings because of him? I have work to do... I'll just have to give him a piece of my mind when I see him...
"Hello...Ms... I mean Ava... are you okay"
"Yes, thank you Christie. I kinda just zoned out there for a bit. I'll be in my office until the editor's meeting"
Walking away from my assistant I thought of my life. I love my job and what I do; being an editor for a fashion magazine at such a young age isn't so easy. This industry is filled with many weird and evil sharks and they bite. But I try and I try very hard, I hardly have a social life because my first priority is the magazine and its success... and now this asshole Nicco Rabatti wants to slow me down... I can't seem to put a face to the name... what does it matter? I've decided that I don't like him. Who does he think he is anyway?
I have an hour to kill until my 9am, time to start working. This month's issue is really awesome; our fashion spread is inspired by 10 young and booming designers, who've just entered the industry. I need to organise the story board for that... I have a few pieces from our writer's to read too. Let's get started with that...
Picking up an article by one of the interns, I quickly read through it, I like this piece; it's about shoes and what they say about us... I need to speak to the writer tomorrow, better get Christie to set up an appointment.
"Yes Ava"
"Hey Christie, can you please book a meeting for me with Nicole, the intern, for tomorrow... after lunch?"
"Okay, will do"
"Thanks..."
As I was about to read through another article my phone rings, the biggest mistake I made, was answering without checking the caller i.d. now I have one of my girlfriends chewing my ear off. Why me?
"AVA!"
"Gee Lee, I can hear you." I say while rolling my eyes. I silently laugh to myself, because had she been there, and seen me rolling my eyes at her, she would have flipped out at me...
Lee and I continued to chat; we probably would have been on the phone longer had I not checked the time. I got off the phone with Lee and got my stuff together and quickly headed to the boardroom for the meeting. How am I going to do this, these meetings usually last long, I just hope that we can fit everything in. An hour seems like much, but it's not really, with brainstorming and going over the ideas that we have and perfecting things, it's really not.
I've been in the boardroom for 45 minutes already and we're not getting anywhere; this is when my job sucks. When the ideas lead us to dead ends, very little is accomplished.
I quickly excused myself from the meeting and headed to my meeting with the South African designer. She has the most beautiful clothing I've seen in a long time. I even tried on a few of her dresses, my body felt so great wrapped up in all the different types of materials. We even had time to chat a bit. I really like the girl, we ended up switching contacts, said we'd keep in touch. With 30minutes left to spare I called Christie to confirm my 11 o'clock.
With that confirmed, that gave me 30minutes to head to the jerk's office. 25minues later, I arrived at one of the most beautiful buildings I've seen in a really long time. I quickly made my way into the building and took the elevator up to the 15th floor. When the doors opened I couldn't believe my eyes.
This looks like one of those custom made offices that you see in the movies, only difference is that the decorations in this office look like artefacts you'd find in a museum. How much money do these people make? I mean I'm pretty sure that these kinds of things don't come at a cheap price.
I walked up to the receptionist's desk, and sitting behind the desk was an old woman with grey hair and the friendliest face I've seen in my whole life, these people are rare, it's so refreshing. Just from looking at her, I could tell that she was a really beautiful woman in her days, not that she's not now, she looks really good, she even kind of looks like Juliet Andrews.
"Hi, I'm Ava Jones; I'm here for my 11 o'clock appointment with Mr Nicco Rabatti."
"Ah yes, I'm Mary, Nic's assistant and part-time mother, he's expecting you, please have a seat while I let him know that you're here. I'll be just a minute."
