Cheated [NaNoWriMo]

Noon Day 3

She glances at the clock. Eleven am. It's almost lunch, which makes her smile widely. She's always happy to be getting comments on her artwork before it's up for auction online, but she's starving at the same time today.

She pulls her usual peanut butter sandwich from her laptop bag the sits and arms length away and finishes it off quickly as she watches the comments on her painting pile up.

She can’t help but to smile at all the praise these people are giving her. A few of the names she recognizes as recent buys, but others are brand new to her.

Her phone rings nearby and she rises from her seat with a groan. Her back is stiff from sitting around all day hunched over in her stool.

Angel's eyes wonder around the room in search of her phone. A light if making its way through a scarf she forgot there recently. She tosses the scarf aside and picks up the phone answering with a dorky, "Shello."

"Hello, Ms. Angelina I presume," the person on the other line states swiftly and with poise. Heat rises in Angelina's cheeks when she noticed her word choice wasn't the best for a possible conference call.

"Yes, it's Angelina. You are?" Angelina recovers quickly. The person on the other side lets out a nervous sigh before she beings speaking. Her voice is scratchy like she's been speaking loudly a lot lately.

"I'm Jillian. I'll be sent out to Montreal to monitor your work with the sculpture. My boss instructed me to call you saying that you don't warm up to people very quickly. I thought it best as well since I didn't want to be on bad terms with you once I arrived. Three weeks is a long time," Jillian replies with authority.

Angel is nodding her head as Jillian adds more details such as her lodgment and transportation issues.

"Everything around here is pretty close together, so don't worry about transportation. If you need a ride, you can just take a cab. Since everything around here is so close together, it's pretty cheap. First things first though. Can you please stop talking so formally to me? It's too needy, your throat must be sore, so stick with simple words," Angel replies in a motherly tone.

A small couch is audible on the other side.

"You can just call me Angel or An if you'd like," Angelina says after a few moments of silence. A louder couch is heard before Jillian finally replies.

"You can call me Jill then."

Angel smiles widely. "Well then Jill, when are you planning on arriving?" The rustle of papers makes its way to the speaker.

"I'll be leaving in a day, so I should be in Montreal in a couple days. Sorry if this seems short notice," Jill says awkwardly.

Angel chuckles. "I've had shorter notice before. My manager was waiting at the airport for around an hour because he emailed me when he arrived. I'll pick you up, so just email me when you'll be landing. Your boss has my email if you need it. Don't bother taking my manager's email though; he only cares about deals and stuff so he'd probably delete it."

Jill chuckles in reply. "Well, I'll email him for it then. Hope you have a good afternoon," Jill replies.

"Have a good night too," Angel replies before hanging up.

She may have just made a new friend. Who knew that a business trip may end up giving her a new friend?

She smiles slightly as she pulls on her sweater. Ben, one of the other artists, had the A.C. cranked on high since he was sick. He looked like a sweating pig when he came into the building, but insisted he needed to work to meet a deadline.