Melted: One Shots

Two: Building a Team

Author's Note: Holey Artisan Bakery is a real bakery in Bangkok. The picture above is from their website.

From Chapter Three in Melted: "Reunion (Max)"

Ann was in her early 40s and was the leader of the team. She was excellent at her job, firm, bright, cool. She was a quick thinker and able to read a room very quickly. When Max first met her a little over a year ago, he had been surprised that she was even on this team. It had been clear to him that this team had been made up of people that no other team wanted, so the successful and clearly put together woman did not seem to fit.

However, she had soon admitted to him that she was placed on this team to keep her out of sight since the manager of the other team and a favorite of the hire ups was engaged to her ex-husband. When Max had been surprised at her candor, she had simply replied, "No one says this out loud, but everyone knows this. There isn't any reason you shouldn't. It will just make everyone feel awkward."

The members of Development Team 2 before Ann had come along really seemed to accept their fate, just happy to still have jobs. However, when Ann came, they started to have successes. She seemed to know how to bring out the best in people, even Max's curmudgeon uncle. Thus, it was even more of a surprise when they got a new director, and that director was Tul Pakorn who had had no experience. It seemed to Max almost as if someone wanted the team to fail.

***

Many would say that Wanna's world changed when Anne Thongprasom hired her as an intern, and Wanna wouldn't disagree . . . exactly. She would probably say that she changed or her mind about the world changed between a Friday and Monday a couple of years ago: between the announcement that Anne was being moved to Development Team 2 and the day she started on the team. Friday: the announcement. Monday: Day one.

Wanna had heard all the rumors, and she had even stood up for Anne on a couple of occasions (something that surprised the people who heard her). No one really noticed Wanna. She did her job, did it diligently, but she wasn't popular despite her beauty or her brain. A drama director would have looked at her fine bone structure and captivating kind smile and seen her potential for one of those heroines who the second they took off their glasses, changed to clothes that fit, and got a decent haircut would be dazzling. Wanna wasn't interested in any of that though. She saw what happened to those women—even the heroines—and she didn't want that kind of life that led to the spotlight. Her hero, Anne, was just another example of what the jealous world could do to such women. If such a thing could happen to Anne, what would that world to do her? She wouldn't be able to stand up to it.

When Anne had hired her as an intern, Anne had just gotten married. She and her husband were the golden couple at Shilapath. Anne carefully kept her private life private or as private as it could be when she married Ben Soppat, another director at the company. Wanna had heard that many were surprised when they started dating because everyone agreed that Anne was the bigger catch of the two. However, some men, men who had been rejected by her, were quick to say that it was clear that Anne couldn't handle anyone with more power or prestige, that she had to be the boss at home just as she had been at work.

But that hadn't been the worst of it. Wanna hadn't been worried at all because Anne had just laughed off those stories, but she couldn't laugh off finding out that her husband had cheated on her with another director at Shilapath. Nor could she laugh of the fact that he got engaged to that woman a day after their divorce was final. Wanna had watched it all from the sides just like everyone else. The speed and the order with which it all happened looked like something out of a lakorn plot synopsis.

                        a. Happy marriage: two years. Anne gets promoted, Ben does not

                        b. New director, Yeo Jin Baek enters company and assigned to a parallel team.                                           Daughter of Metinee Pakorn's 'friend" from graduate school