BENEATH ALL THE LIES

Closer

Since my apartment was close to the office, I walked there everyday. It took me only ten minutes of walking to reach the office and I found it as a good exercise to burn some calories. I just reached my desk when my cellphone rang. It was my mother.

"Hi, Ma"

"Hi, sweetheart. I hope I'm not disrupting your busy schedule."

"Of course not. I just reached office, anyway. And there's still another one hour before my boss reaches. How are things there with you?"

"It's hectic. The restaurant is booked for some political campaign next week and also in two days we are hosting a birthday party of the mayor's daughter. How I wish you were here to help me out. It's not the same without you, Cassey." Times like this made me feel bad to leave her alone.

" I'm sorry, Ma. But at least being busy will make you miss me less. What about I come over this weekend? " I said, trying to cheer her up.

" That's great. I will pick you up. You should have taken the car, so you don't have to travel in public buses."

"You don't have to pick me up, it's not that far anyway. And even if I had taken the car, where would I have parked it?" I told her while rolling my eyes.

"Fine. Come home this weekend. I'll make something special that makes you wanna stay here forever." I laughed at her comment.

"Ma, I think it's time you apply for driving license. I won't be available to drive you around anymore. And the other day, you were lucky you weren't stopped by any police while driving home. Get it done, soon." She bought the car for my graduation present and once I got the license, I used to drive her around since she didn't have any license. I didn't know why she never applied for it since she knew how to drive anyway.

"I will, once I have free time, I will go and get my driving licence. Now quit nagging. Go back to work. Bye, Cassey."

I hang up after saying goodbye and started to prepare everything before Deena arrived, I made sure her coffee was ready and documents needed her attention were on her table. When she reached the office, she went directly to her office . It was a busy day, one by one the staff from design team paid Deena a visit with their sketches. The company was gonna release a new design and the deadline was in 3 months. So everyone was tense. It was almost 2 o'clock when finally Deena got out of her office for her lunch break.

"Mrs. Deevan, I'm sorry. But can you please sign this, before leaving? Design team is waiting for this file." I stopped her when she passed my desk. The leader of the design team, Louis, handed me the file to give to Deena to sign, but since she had had so many companies all these while, I didn't get the chance to do it.

"What's that thing below the yellow folder?" She asked me after she was done signing the document, pointing towards a folder in my desk with a paper beneath it.

"Oh, that's nothing. That's just my doodling". She was referring to a piece of paper with my drawing of dress design on it.

"That doesn't look like doodling. That looks like a design. Let me see it. I have to be careful in case anyone trying to steal my design." Did she just accuse me of stealing her design?

"I didn't steal anything, Mrs. Deevan. Here, take a look." I handed her my drawing. "I was just doodling it while waiting for you in the morning. I saw the entire design team was drawing their design idea and that intrigued me. So I started drawing too. That's all." I tried to explain.

She looked at my drawing, a dress with criss-cross pattern in the front and a bow at the back with flowy skirt up to above the knee. It took her quite some time before she finally talked again.