The Importance of Being Kept

Chapter 12. The Highest Position

Kia let out a loud yawn and blinked rapidly to clear her eyes of leftover sleep. She could barely see the computer screen in front of her. She'd been a walking zombie when the twins had come by her apartment. Bryan kept teasing her about her slow responses to their small talk. He'd even gone so far as to gently nudge her out of the elevator when they'd reached their office. Her brain was just not co-operating especially with all the food she'd eaten last night.

"Monday's are always the hardest, isn't it?" Bryan said cheerfully as he walked into the office with a cup of coffee. "I made it extra strong for you."

"I'm so sorry, Bryan, I should be serving you and Darren coffee this morning its part of my job..." Kia gratefully took the coffee.

"Well, we're blaming ourselves for keeping you up so late last night. We didn't realized the time when we left our parent's house."

"I had so much fun there, your mother, coolest person in the world," Kia smiled and sipped on the coffee.

Bryan grinned. "You see, it wasn't so bad. I don't know what you were so nervous about, but it was cute watching you fidget and blush so much."

Kia threw a paper clip at him.

Darren poked his head in the room. "Bryan, teleconference meeting in five minutes. Kia, I hope you have those papers ready for us to sign after the meeting."

"Yes, yes," Kia waved him away. "They'll be ready and on your desk before you get out of your meeting."

Darren nodded in approval and left.

"See ya later, sweetie," Bryan winked at her and left.

Kia began to type the correspondence. She reached for her coffee and ended up knocking it over on the desk. She jumped up before it could spill in her lap. "Dammit!" She cursed. Half of the business letters were covered in hot, black coffee. She would have to do them over again.

She ran to the ladies restroom to grab a couple of paper towels and passed by a large meeting room as she walked down the hallway. The room had three beautiful women in them, all of them looked very sophisticated and from the expensive business suits were well off financially. She kept walking, but stopped when she heard her name.

"Have you seen her yet?" One of the women asked. She was blonde with green eyes and pale skin.

"No, but what kind of name is Kia?" asked a brunette.

"Ghetto, is what they call it," said a woman with long black hair. "She's half black."

"Well so are the twins," the blonde said.

"Yes, but they don't really look it. This girl, though, you can tell. All that kinky, frizzy hair on her head. She doesn't have the decency to straighten it out and look presentable. Seriously, I don't know where the twins picked her up from all of a sudden. I mean if they needed an executive assistant, they could have chosen someone with a little more class to represent them."

"I heard she's quite beautiful," the brunette said.

"She's got amazing blue eyes that's the only thing she's got going for her. Her hair is this weird shade of light brown with golden highlights and her skin is darker than the twins, like she's got a permanent tan. I guess if you could call low class trash beautiful, she would be it."

Kia was stunned. Never in her life had she heard anyone talk about her so badly. Sure, there had been some jealous girls in college that had said petty, trivial stuff, but never had she been called low class trash. She had always been sensitive about her hair and now to hear supposedly professional women talk about it...She wondered if they were right, did she need to change her hair style in order to look more professional?