Savrienna

Chapter One

                I awoke to the annoying blare of my alarm clock. I half mindedly reached out and punched down on the snooze. My arm fell back onto the bed and I sighed. Morning came too soon these days. It seemed as if I never got enough sleep. With a groan of exhaustion, I pushed myself up into a sitting position.

                After showering and blow drying my hair, I wandered over to my closet with a towel wrapped around my body. I parted the doors and moaned at the sight of my meager wardrobe. With my old job, I hadn’t been able to afford the luxury of amazing clothes. So, I just settled for casual and somewhat elegant.

                I got dressed in a tie die tank top, a pair of plain skinny jeans, and a pair of cream colored gladiator sandals. I was fixing my golden earrings when my cell phone started to ring. I reach over and answered it with one hand while finishing messing my earring with the other.

                “Hello?” I said. I wedged the phone between my ear and my shoulder as I moved to fix my hair.

                “Do you know what today is?!” a high pitched voice squealed in my ear. I nearly dropped the phone and stabbed myself with a bobby pin.

                “Um, no,” I said, annoyed now. I decided to just leave my hair down and chucked the bobby pin back into the basket with the others. “I don’t know what today is.”

                “Hello? Is this Savri I’m talking to or some weird alien thing that has replaced her?” the person on the other end asked. I shrugged.

                “I’m pretty sure it’s Savri,” I said. There was a sigh from the other end.

                “Well then, fake Savri, today happens to be the opening of the new bookstore downtown as well as our favorite author’s book signing!” I laughed and picked up my leather shoulder bag.

                “Oh, that’s right,” I said with fake realization. “If you see Margo, tell her I’m sorry if I forget things when someone squeals into my ear.” Margo snorted.

                “Yeah, whatever,” she said. “So, when are you getting over here?” I walked over to the door and pulled the keys to my apartment out of my bag.

                “Please tell me you’re not standing outside already,” I told her. She sighed.

                “How else are we going to get in before the mob gets here. Besides, there’s already a line.” I sighed and slipped out the door. I locked it and headed down the stairs.

                “Well, if you have forgotten, I have a job to go to. It would be stupid to not show up on my first day,” I said.

                “You’re going to be there all day! You’ll never get here before the store runs out of copies of the book,” she said, exasperated. I walked into the apartment building lobby and smiled at the receptionist, Simon.

                “Well then, buy me a copy and get it signed for me. I’ll pay you back later,” I said. “Now, I have to go and try not to get hit by a car. Bye.” Without letting her respond, I hung up and stuffed the phone into my bag. Then, I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. She was so finicky sometimes.

                “Margo giving you a hard time about something again?” Simon asked me from where he stood behind the reception desk. I smiled and nodded.

                “How could you tell?” I asked. He shrugged and pulled a magazine out of the pile next to him.

                “An angry boyfriend you could possibly be having a fight with doesn’t have a squeaky voice that you can hear all the way from the stairwell,” he answered casually. I laughed.

                “Simon, you know I don’t have a boyfriend,” I told him. He shrugged again.

                “You never know,” he said. “Have fun at work.” I grinned at him.

                “Thanks. See you later.” With that thought, I pushed through the lobby doors and left the building.

                The streets were full of people making their way to wherever they had to go. Some were holding cameras and snapping photos of everything that they passed. Others had briefcases in their hands and were checking their watches every thirteen seconds. I glanced down at my wrist. I should probably get a watch one of these days, huh?

                Soon, I got to a building that had the words The Fashion Intrigue written on a large sign hanging over the front door. I stopped outside of it and took a deep breath. I leaned back slightly and gazed up at the multiple stories that no doubt held my future office. This was it. My new job lay only a few feet in front of me. I took a second deep breath and headed inside.

                The interior of the building was much more spectacular than the outside. A grand marble lobby was spread out before me. There was a large reception desk on the opposite side of the room from where I stood just inside the doors. A female receptionist with big, bouncy red curls was filing a stack of papers as she stood behind it. Her curls shook and bounced as she moved her head and arms. I strolled over to her and pasted on my best smile.

                “Hello,” I said. She looked up at me with large intelligent green eyes. “I’m Savrienna here for my first day of work.” The receptionist smiled.

                “Right,” she said. “How could I forget someone with an interesting name like yours? One sec.” She turned around and picked up a telephone. After mumbling a few words into the receiver, she hung up and turned back to me.

                “Mr. Andros will be down in a moment,” she told me. I smiled and nodded. Then, there was a ding and the elevator a few feet away opened.

                Now, when you hear about the editor of a fashion magazine, you normally picture a girl or a guy who looks as if he’s gay or bisexual. Not that I have anything against those kinds of people, but I was totally caught off guard by the person in front of me.

                “Good morning,” the tall man with coal black hair said. “You may call me Sebastian.”