Private Relations

5

The cab ride home took a little longer than she hoped due to the usual San Francisco traffic. She trudged her way up to her front door and let herself in. "What a day," Sarah said to herself as she made her way toward the kitchen. She dropped her purse off on the table near the window and rummaged around in her cabinets for a box of tea to make. Sarah was never a caffeine person, so coffee was out of the question. Sarah found the box she was looking for and pulled a bag out, got her favorite mug with puppies on it down from another cabinet and put the bag inside the mug. Sarah then reached for the teakettle and took it to the sink to replace the water. As she opened the top, her home phone rang. Sarah glanced at the clock on the stove, 8:12 PM, she groaned as she went to her receiver. She picked it up and pressed the answer button, "Hello?" Sarah said into the phone. "Hi, Sarah, it's Brandon," the voice on the other end replied. Brandon Davis was Sarah's boss, a 37-year-old man with a beer belly, on his third wife and two kids. Brandon was one of those men that looked like he used to be attractive in his younger days, but now that he's pushing 40 it's disappeared. He was a 5'10" man, sandy blonde hair that had a hint of gray though out. His build was that of a high school principal, out of shape and chunky. He wasn't the most approachable person at work and the fact that he was calling her at home was a bit unusual. "Oh, hi Mr. Davis, why such a late call?" Sarah asked, hoping that she didn't sound irritated, no matter how much he did that to her. He already overlooked her hard work for the last project; she didn't really want to be talking to him while she was at home about to pull an all-nighter. "Well, I just wanted to let you know that our meeting about our new project is being moved up. Our client is antsy and wants to get this started ASAP, so we'll have our meeting on Monday. Sorry for the late notice Sarah," Mr. Davis explained to her. Sarah felt her blood boil, it was 8 o'clock on Friday night and he expected her to finish her presentation over the weekend. She thought she would have all week for this! "That's not a lot of time," Sarah told him. Mr. Davis sighed on the other end of the phone, "I know it's not a lot of time, but we have to get this done. Sorry again for calling so late. See you on Monday." "Thanks, Mr. Davis," Sarah said and hung up immediately. She slammed the phone back down on the receiver and slumped into one of her kitchen chairs.

Sarah abandoned her tea idea for the moment and went upstairs to her bathroom. Sarah headed straight for her bathtub and turned on the faucet. Sarah shed her clothes from the day and stepped into the tub. She let the water fill up around her and added her bubble bath. She sighed and put her head back on the edge of the tub, "Can tonight get any worse?" she thought to herself. Sarah spent the next hour soaking in her tub and thinking about all the work that she was going to put in tonight, for a Friday night this is not how she wanted to spend it. After she got out and drained the water from the tub, Sarah wrapped herself in her fluffy robe and headed back downstairs.

She went back to making tea and set the full teapot on the stove to heat up. She pulled her laptop and press kit out of her briefcase and sprawled them out on the kitchen table, she was going to need all the space she could get for this presentation. She turned her laptop on and took one of the files off the table and began to read over the company that was her firm's new client. A man named Christopher Blake ran it. At 30 years old, he was already the CEO of a company that he started out as a simple intern. His background seemed very impressive and since this Mr. Blake was going to be at the meeting to see who would be running this new campaign for his company, Sarah thought that brushing up on his accomplishments would help her score points with him. Sarah wasn't one for brown-nosing, but this was important to her, she wanted to show her boss that she was serious and capable of being a leader, not just the team player. She continued to read about Mr. Blake; graduate of NYU with a Master's in Business and Marketing, varsity rugby player during his years in college, stock market guru and many more exciting details. The whistle of the teapot rang out through her kitchen and Sarah lay the file down and went to fix herself her tea. She sat back in front of her laptop and pulled up her notes about the project and began to work on her presentation, making diagrams of possible target audiences, useful tips and what she would bring to the campaign with her as the leader. Sarah worked well into the night. She glanced at the time on her computer screen and saw that it read 2:07 AM; she yawned and saved her progress. "That should be enough for tonight, I'll refine it tomorrow," she thought to herself as she shut down her laptop and made her way upstairs. Sarah shed her fluffy robe and replaced it with her baby blue cotton nightgown. She crawled into bed and drifted off to sleep instantly.

*Author's note: Sorry this chapter is shorter than the previous ones, I'm trying to make sure everything is flowing just right. Thank you again for the reads! Make sure to vote and comment!*