Kelly stepped out of the subway and walked up the block to the bustling entrance of the building at 5 Times Square. A mendicant vet held out a cracked and bent plastic cup. The hood of the gray fleece beneath a camouflage military jacket partially hid his face wrapped up in bandages. He was wearing the dark glasses designed for the blind.
Kelly hunted for some spare change. "Look like it's your lucky day, Mac," she commented. "The smallest I got it is a fiver." She rolled up the bill and slid inside his cup. She flinched slightly to feel the wool glove of his hand grasp her fingers in gratitude.
"You are an angel," he said in a husky voice.
Kelly smiled at the square black lenses and withdrew her hand. "I gotta get to work now."
Her creative ideas cranked out slowly that day. She found herself staring out the window from her workstation. The smiling face of a devilishly handsome male model dolled up in a glamorous tux and angel wings gleamed up at her from a billboard. The product name underlying his classic-cut features and brown wavy hair curled in fancy cursive script: Caravaggio Eveningwear, Celestial Fashion.
"Hi, we haven't met yet. I'm Trisha."
Kelly looked up to see a petite woman with the complexion of mocha topped with frothy blonde curls. She wore a sleek black pantsuit and lavender blouse. A silver ring clamped through her left eyebrow while a glittering stud pierced her right nostril. A rectangular pendant dangled from her neck. Kelly forced a smile to the strange girl whose interruption came like a gush of cold water on the fire of creative process.
"I'm the IT specialist," the young woman announced. "I'm here to check your network settings." Deep dimples punctuated her smile.
Kelly suppressed her irritation through rapid blinking. "Does it have to be done right now?"
Trisha shrugged her shoulders to insist. "This should only take a few minutes. Maybe you wanna take a coffee break or something."
Kelly got up from her desk chair to allow the technician access to the PC. "That's an interesting necklace. Looks like letters. That a name or something?"
"Huh?" Trisha looked to see Kelly studying the pendant. She drew the lapels of her shirt over it. "Uh, no. Nobody's name. Just a fad, you know." She called up a screenful of folders then made them disappear with a keyboard stroke.
The name Jill Beverly blipped on the screen then vanished. Kelly had run across the name while searching for design templates. She had opened a couple of the files to find memos on project details and rollout schedules. They revealed she was in the midst of a massive ad design campaign with award-winning potential. Why she walked off the job wasn't evident, but a letter of complaint about a contract issue dated two days before Kelly's hire suggested disgruntlement. She had to ask. "That Beverly person, she left right before I came, huh?"
Trisha flashed a wan grin and continued moving file folders.
Kelly cleared her throat. "She seemed to have left in a hurry, and in the middle of a huge project. That's kind of odd, don't you find?"
Trisha's fingers stopped. She sighed, stood up, and looked at Kelly. "I'm not supposed to tell you this, but I'm sure you're going to find out." She stepped intimately close and lowered her voice to a whisper. "Jill Beverly hanged herself in her apartment just a few days before you came on."
"What about the project? Are you going to delete the files?"
"The project died with her." Trisha dropped her gaze from Kelly's eyes to her neck. She scoured the lily-white skin with a sharp focus.
Kelly raised a hand to her throat. "What? Something wrong?"
Trisha's eyes brightened with a glib smile when she caught a glimpse of the ligature bruises on Kelly's thin wrists. "Nope. Just thought I saw a mark, but I was mistaken. Sorry. Love your hair, though. What a brilliant color." She waltzed away from Kelly's station with nary an explanation.
Kelly used her lunch break and the fifty bucks in her purse to go to Soho by cab. It was a twenty-block bullet ride dodging cars, buses, and other taxis, but it got her there with time to spare. She entered the tall building with the black glass windows and located the suite number for the business written on the paper, Enrapture, Inc. "We make your wildest dreams come true," read the motto emblazoned in silver across the front of the reception counter. Kelly walked up to her reflection in the polished onyx. "Excuse me, who do I talk to about correcting an error?" she asked the dark-haired woman with the caked-on mascara sitting behind the glossy facade.
The woman didn't look up. "All emendations are handled online. You can access your account and—"
"You don't understand," Kelly interrupted. "I don't have an account, I mean, I never created one, but someone sure as hell did." She passed the wrinkled printouts to the thin dour woman dressed in the black suit and white blouse.
The dull receptionist glanced at the paper then at the pale freckled face looking at her over the counter. "This is you."
"Yes, the photo is of me, but the page isn't mine. Someone set this up without my permission." Kelly's patience chafed at the bit to see the wall clock ticking down the precious minutes of her lunch hour.
The woman stared at her blankly. "What would you like me to do about it?"
"Could you please tell me how I can cancel this account?"
Like a clairvoyant seeking answers from a crystal ball, the woman looked into her computer screen. Independent of her owlish eyes, her fingers worked the keyboard. "What's your password?" she asked flatly.
"I don't know since I didn't create it." Kelly ground the words in her teeth.
"Then I can't help you."
"Look, can I please talk to someone in charge, before I begin proceedings against you for fraud, identity theft, and sexual assault?" Kelly's green eyes grew wide.
The receptionist picked up the phone with immutable ennui. "Dr. Karillian, I have a dissatisfied customer out here." She hung up and resumed typing. "He'll be with you in a minute. Have a seat."
Kelly retrieved her documents and sat down on the plush black leather sofa to the right of the reception counter. A door across from her opened. Out stepped a short man with long wavy black hair graying at the temples. He had burning coal-black eyes. He wore a sharkskin suit and a black silk shirt. "How may I help you, madam?" he softly intoned. He sat next to her and listened to her plight. Without batting an eye, he assured, "I apologize for the confusion and shall see that the matter is rectified immediately. I hope our mystery agent didn't harm you in anyway."
"No, he was a perfect gentleman," she half lied. She didn't have time to go into the depth of her grueling ordeal.
"I can see you're on the clock, and I imagine that is your taxi waiting outside." Dr. Karillian took her hand to guide her to her feet. He noted the lines on her wrists. The edge of his mouth arced slightly. Not understanding why she found this perturbing, Kelly carefully withdrew her hand.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He pulled out a fresh C-note and handed it to her.
"No, I couldn't," she refused. " Take it for your cab fare. It's the least I can do to compensate for your distress." His eyes fixed on her throat. "I'm sorry for staring, but you have the most exquisite neck."
She meekly pulled her collar closed then slipped the bill into her suit-coat pocket. She couldn't help but feel somewhat soiled.
He escorted her to the door. Kelly shuddered in spite of the man's considerate manner. Throughout the entire encounter, he had never once blinked.
Dealing with the credit card company proved far less enjoyable. She had to deal with calling from a payphone where the street noise added to the misunderstanding. "No personal calls on company phone lines," read the signs posted in the work areas.
"What? I told you," she shouted into the receiver. "I never took out a second card. No. Someone has done it in my name. Police? Why should I go to the police? You should cancel that damned card then investigate the matter. No, don't put me back on hold! I have to get ba--" She grunted like a pirate and slammed the phone into its cradle. After two days of juggling phone calls, a rep assured her the card was paid for and duly cancelled. Who had paid for it remained an unknown that Kelly didn't have the means to uncover. A city bus passed by bearing the same handsome face that eyed her through her office window.
A week passed without an intrusive incident. Kelly followed her grinding routine day in and day out. She languished at her workstation to produce prototype composites for the Caravaggio Fashion House catalogue. She'd look to her muse on the billboard and pray for inspiration. Odd how she wound up working on promotional material for the celestial designs he smiled about. Frustration fevered her brain for the senior editor's tirades over petty flaws. "You call this a textured look?" screamed the tall bony woman with the stiff platinum hair. "This looks like my cat's diarrhea!"
"Sorry, Ms. Wilmont. I thought you wanted a soft watery look," Kelly justified.
"Yes, but not in the color of bile! And just look at these patterns. They're all wrong. What's it going to take to get you to understand?" She bit down on the tips of the gold frames of her glasses and set a hand to a thrust-out hip. Jeanette Wilmont looked lean and classy in her hand-tailored peacock-blue silk ensemble she bought in Bangkok. Her salon-tanned skin hid the fine marks of the plastic surgeon's scalpel along her aging face.
"I'm doing my best Ms. Wilmont," Kelly quietly insisted. She gathered up the proofs from her boss's desk.
"I hope this is not representative of that," Ms. Wilmont snottily retorted.
A man's voice sounded on her intercom. "Mees Wilmont," it said with a Latino flare. "I've got the new projections ready."
A long-nailed finger pushed the "speak" button to order, "Bring them to me," then released it. She caught Kelly staring at the brash blue diamond ring on her hand. "Well, what are you standing there for, Ms. Roy? Fix this mess! I'm counting on you."
Kelly scampered out of the corporate diva's office. She brushed by Julio Galvan, Chief of Operations for the Emvar Design Group. "Hello, Kelly. How are you today?" A warm smile radiated his exotic charm. He had a flawless face with smooth olive skin. A neat moustache accented sensual lips. Short and muscular in stature, he posed an attractive figure of a man. His soft almond eyes roved her face and neck.
Kelly gave a shy smile in return and watched him disappear into the mad editor's den. When she finally turned to look where she was heading, she saw she was on a collision course with Brad Ferukka, the fashion editor.
