Yellowstone

Chapter Three

Upper East Side, New York, USA

July 2017

Georgianna van der Linden

After a few minutes of being completely abandoned, I fight my way through the crowd and towards the exit of the club. Since arriving and leaving, the heavens have opened, soaking the green carpet and the streets around it. I try hailing a taxi for the second time tonight but everyone seems to beat me to one. By the time I am finally able to crawl into one, I am drenched from head to toe. My hair sticks to the side of my head, my shoes squelch as I walk and my already tight dress is even tighter. It has not been the night that I thought it would be.

"'Ave you heard the news 'bout that volcano?" the cabbie asks me on the way home.

"Shut up, just shut up," I lay my head against the cool window of the car and watch as the rain continues to pour from the sky.

After a very silent twenty minutes, we finally reach my apartment. Slamming the car door shut, I storm my way through the lobby of my apartment complex and jump straight into the elevator when I notice that it is free. Silently, I slunk down in the corner as I am carried to the top floor. By the time the elevator doors ping open, my mascara has streaked all over my face, my lipstick is smudged around my mouth and my face looks like a mess overall.

I don't bother turning the lights on as I enter my penthouse apartment, instead I venture straight into my bedroom, stripping myself of my wet clothes and into some warm ones and dive straight under the duvet covers.

Sometime after the sun has risen, my alarm clock rings, waking me from the little sleep that I have had. Reaching over, I take the clock into my hand and with all the force I can muster, I throw it across the other side of the room, hitting my mirror and cracking it.

"Well my luck can't get any worse," I mutter to no one but myself and hide under the covers again.

I only stay in bed for another thirty minutes before eventually crawling out, no thanks to the constant buzzing of my phone. I wake up with two miss calls from my parents, six from work and none from Richard. Ignoring the ones from my parents, I listen to the voicemails from work and groan, remembering that I need to be there in an hour for a meeting.

Walking into my wardrobe, I thrown on the first blouse I see along with a pair of black trousers with matching black heels. Picking my make-up bag off of the floor, I hastily put it into my work bag with the idea of doing it on the way to work. I call down to reception, asking them to call me a cab so by the time I am downstairs it should be there for me. I manage to run straight of the hotel lobby and into another cab. Immediately, I take my make up out of my bag and start applying it, asking the driver if he would mind being careful while going over any bumps.

"Government officials have been notified of the developing circumstances surrounding the volcano. It is currently highly advised that the public remain ready to act in the event of an evacuation being ordered. And now I'll hand you over to our leading scientist Doctor Francis Dietrich- Doctor Dietrich, what can you tell us about the volcano? Is an eruption imminent, and what kind of scale are we talking about?"

"Well, the main thing to take away from this is that something should have been done sooner. Investigations into the increasing activity of the volcano had been taking place months prior to the imminent eruption- there were all the warning signs. The animals in the area were relocating and displaying increasingly erratic behaviour, the temperatures of the water surrounding the volcano increased drastically, tremors from the inside of the volcano could be felt for miles around, you know. And nothing was done about it, simply because it was treated as this mythological thing-"

Doctor Dietrich's droning voice is abruptly cut off as my taxi pulls up outside my office block. Thank god.

"You're late," I hear Claudia scold me as soon as I step inside the building.

"I know but I'm here now. Are they all waiting upstairs?"

"They sure are Gi. They've been waiting a while. The guy here representing Bloomingdales almost left but I managed to convince him to stay."

"Thank you so much. Right I better get up there and wow them. I hope they are as impressed with the Beach Party line as the press were last night,"

"They will be. Now just get up there," Claudia practically pushes me up the stairs as she says this.

The two of walk through the double doors that lead into the boardroom to face a room mainly filled up with men waiting to see if Beach Party should be sold in their stores.

"Good morning. I am sorry for the delay, I am sure you know what Manhattan traffic can be like. I am here today to try and convince you to sell Beach Party in your stores. You may ask, what makes this line different to other lines you already sell or even to other designers that have pitched to you, well I am here to tell you," I begin showing them my designs, some on paper and some actually on models and explaining to them what makes it unique.

"How much would you expect us to sell a single dress for?" the spokesperson for Macy's asks me.

"I am glad you asked. The minimum cost of a dress would be..." before I have chance to finish my sentence, Claudia comes barging into the room.

"- I am very sorry to interrupt this meeting but there has been a development in terms of the super volcano. The government now wants everyone in the country to evacuate. They're saying there should be an eruption in the next twenty four hours. I thought you should know,"

"Oh God, not you too," I mutter, looking at Claudia as I slump down in my seat.

"It was very nice seeing your line Miss van der Linden but I have to go now. I wish you the best," Macy's guy says while leaving the room in a hurry. I watch as everyone else begins to pack their stuff away, looking as if they are about to leave.

"Gentlemen, at most this meeting should last another hour. If the volcano does erupt, then there is still plenty of time between now and then. Please will you sit down?" nobody listens to me as they all file out of the boardroom until there is only Claudia and I left.

"I need to go as well Gi. I'll speak to you later. Stay safe, won't you?" Claudia says before scurrying out of the room herself.

With nothing else to do, I walk across the boardroom to where there is a small television and turn it on.

"America, we urge you to try and leave the country if you can. The Yellowstone volcano has now erupted. If you are on the east coast then you still have a small window of time left to fly towards Europe and if you are towards the west coast, we urge you to travel by car towards Mexico."

I turn the television off, wishing that I had never smashed my mirror this morning because apparently my luck can get worse.