This is my entry into the Valentine's Day story contest. It is a tale that takes place in the high fashion industry, and how love sometimes finds people in places and ways they never expected.
*
Sally Hemmings sat looking at the Valentine card that had been left on her desk before she arrived at work that morning. It was very beautiful and ornate, and smelled of La Vie Est Belle, her favorite fragrance. The envelope was pale lavender in color, and
'Sally'
was written in darker lavender ink on the front in a feminine hand. On the front of the card inside, was the image of a single lavender rose, and inside, there was a verse by Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, printed in French script, '
Entre deux qui s'aiment, nul besoin de paroles', and
in the same lavender ink that was on the outside of the envelope, written in the same feminine hand on the bottom of the card was, '
l'amour est pour toujours
', and was signed '
J
'.
Even though her understanding of French was limited to two semesters in high school, she was familiar with the verse, and knew that it said, 'Two hearts in love need no words', and the handwritten note said, 'Love is forever'. Her first thought was 'It's only February 8
th
, that's a little early for Valentine's day'. Her second was, 'Wait, what kind of sick joke is this?'
You see Broderick, the man she had been in a relationship with for the last seven years, had just told her yesterday when he was removing his belongings from the apartment they had shared for five years, that he was going to 'marry' Albert, who had been his best friend since college. To say that she was heartbroken was an understatement. Just when she thought she had found the love of her life, she had discovered him in bed with the 'other man', walking in on them after a particularly stressful day at work, the previous week.
She looked at the card again, and held it up to her nose and thought, 'This can't be from a man. No man would spray expensive perfume on a card and send it to a woman with a romantic message'. Then she thought, 'It must be from a woman, but why would a woman send me a Valentine's Day card? Does someone have a girl crush on me?'
Then she looked at the 'J' at the end, and pondered, 'Julia? Judy? Jennifer? Juanita?' She shook her head and realized that none of those ladies wore the fragrance on the card.
Just then she caught a whiff of the very same fragrance as her boss walked past her desk. 'It can't be, she normally wears Joy' Sally thought. You see, Jacqueline was the ultimate power-hungry business woman. Sally knew that she was in her late forties, but appeared to be in her early thirties. She was a blue-eyed blonde, tall and stately, at 5' 11", dressed to the nines, and always walked like she as on the runway of a fashion show. She acted like Meryl Streep's character from 'The Devil Wears Prada', and always referred to herself in the third person.
No one in the office had any idea what the big boss' full name was. She always signed everything with 'Jacqueline' or just 'J'.
About an hour later Sally was 'summoned' by her boss's personal secretary. When she walked into the large office at the end of the hall, the secretary (and her friend Beth), motioned for her to enter the 'Inner Sanctum'.
As she walked through the door to the inner office, Jacqueline motioned to a Chesterfield in front of her desk, without even looking up from the pile of papers in front of her. Sally complied, and finally, the older woman looked up, and addressed her, "Ms. Hemmings, do you have any pressing plans for the next three weeks?"
"Other than working for you Madame, nothing," Sally replied.
Her boss smiled, looked directly into Sally's eyes and said, "Wonderful, since our personal assistant has decided to abandon us at this inopportune time, we need to replace her."
Pointing to a garment bag hanging on the coatrack by the office door, she continued, "You will be accompanying us on a three-week business trip to London, Paris, Barcelona, and Milan. You will only need to pack the essentials, because you will be wearing what is in the bag tomorrow at six when our driver picks you up at your apartment. The rest of your wardrobe will be provided for you, and be waiting at JFK tomorrow morning. Now please go home immediately, and make whatever arrangements you need to, because you will not be returning home until the first week of March."
She picked up the receiver of her desk phone, punched a blinking button, and started talking to someone in French, as she motioned to the younger woman that she had been dismissed. Sally grabbed the garment bag and walked out of into the outer office. As she passed the secretary's desk in the outer office, she stopped and asked, "What just happened Beth?"