Frost

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

“Ugh! I’m late! How did that possibly happen?” Miss Frost yelled angrily in shock. 

It was obvious that it wasn’t going to be a good day for Miss Frost, and in turn, it wasn’t going to be good for her devices as well, especially her typing machine. She kicked angrily every single object she met in her way. That was supposed to relieve anyone’s anger, but Miss Frost just steamed up even more and searched for more objects to damage.

It was Monday, and Miss Frost should have been on her way to meet Mr Dillingham at Patrick St that day as he was supposed to show her the building he rented for his business as well as give her more details on his business plans and how he expected things to progress.

Miss Frost’s real problem was not at all being late for her meeting with Mr Dillingham; rather, it was just that she missed her daily one-hour walk, which was what she planned to do before her meeting.  The main purpose of this walk was to maintain a healthy exercising schedule that would spare her the torture of having to participate in one of those silly dance clubs where she had to leap and bend to please an audience of drooling buffoons. At least that was what she thought about such places, and there was certainly no way to argue with her about it.

“I must see a doctor soon. How come I didn’t wake up on time?” She muttered anxiously to herself.

     It took her exactly five minutes to finish up her breakfast, drink her morning tea, brush her teeth, and get dressed. She was terribly sorry that she couldn’t read that day’s newspapers as well in those five minutes before she left the house.

     When she finally reached her destination, she realized that according to the Big Ben, she had arrived ten minutes early.

“Aha! I knew it was a good idea to bring the newspapers with me. Now I surely have enough time to go through them all. Phew!” she thought in relief. She sat down on a wooden bench near the building. The weather that day was a special one. It wasn’t very cold as usual; instead, the warmth of the sun’s rays engulfed Miss Frost. Although it was Monday, the streets were almost empty at that early hour of the morning. Both the calmness and the nice weather helped in improving Miss Frost’s mood to a much better one.

“Good morning! You’re here on time as usual, Miss Frost.”

She immediately recognized the voice, so she simply said without looking at the speaker, “Yes, and you are two minutes late, Mr Dillingham.”

“My apologies. I will try to be more responsible next time,” he smirked. “Now, follow me please; I will show you every nook and cranny of the building,” he added.

“Great! Can’t wait,” she said, despite the boring expression she wore on her face. For the third time, she gave him her usual fake smile.

Though the building appeared old from the outside, it looked completely the opposite from the inside. The walls were freshly painted in one of Miss Frost’s favourite colours—beige.

“I have to admit that beige was a good choice,” she said while looking around in satisfaction.

Since Miss Frost was never known for giving compliments, her sentence pleased Mr Dillingham, and he became more excited than he already was to show her the rest of the building.

“I’m glad that you liked it. Your office was painted with the same colour. I hope that would encourage you to accept my offer,” he said with a smile.

She smiled back without leaving a comment and let him lead her to her would-be office. Once she got there, she couldn’t help but look around the office in admiration. She loved the office. It was simply decorated and was occupied with few pieces of furniture, including a small well-organized desk on which stood a new typing machine to Miss Frost’s delight. All in all, the office was well-prepared for someone like Miss Frost.

“You can ask for more furniture if you need. I just thought it would be better off when kept simple,” he said.

“Good thinking, Mr Dillingham. The simpler it is, the more appealing it becomes,” she said. “What about the journalists? I suppose we won’t be the only ones working here in this company,” she asked calmly.

“Well, of course we won’t be the only ones here,” he said with a chuckle. “I have already contacted some of our colleagues and five of them agreed to join us. I am now awaiting more responses from other people. I presume that since you said ‘we’ won’t be the only ones, you accepted my offer?”

“Well, I certainly can’t deny that it is a good offer. I mean, you don’t get such offers every day. And, I must say, that working in such a peaceful atmosphere rather than suffering headaches from the noisy public newspapers’ offices, is very tempting. So, yes, I do accept your offer, Mr Dillingham,” she said with a smile. This time, her smile was an honest one and was full of eagerness.

“Well, I have to remind you though that this offer doesn’t provide you a higher salary than that you used to receive in London Today,” he explained.

“Oh, I’m not asking for more than what the offer already provides. It must have been financially exhausting to rent this building and pay for the journalists and all the other workers.”

“Well, I have spent the last few years now saving as much as I could in preparation for this day, and I’m truly happy that my efforts finally paid off.”

 “Good luck, anyway. I think it’s time to leave. Thank you so much for the offer. See you soon,” she said. Then she quickly left the building in wide steps.