To Color Your Life - Chapter 40

To Emily’s surprise, colleagues did not comment on her two-day absence from work. Nobody cast sidelong glances at her, and there was no whispering behind her back.

Either people were busy or they didn’t care. Considering how quickly rumors (truthful and not quite so) spread throughout the department, everyone was aware of what was happening. Or could have guessed.

The bird got into the cage. The hunter got his prey. The fact that the boss and the newcomer were both absent from the workplace at the same time was all too obvious evidence.

“Hello! Why are you so gloomy? Has Bradley ruined the mood again?” Catherine Joyce appeared out of thin air in front of Emily. She looked, as always, stunning. “If he said too much, I will-”

“Hello. It has nothing to do with him, go easy on the guy,” Emily waved her off and walked to her desk. She wanted to plunge into work as soon as possible, and not return her thoughts to yesterday evening.

“Hmm,” Kat looked closely at the girl who had already sat down in the chair and turned on the computer. She took another chair from nearby and set it down next to Emily. “Okay, I will not pester with questions, especially since this is not my style.”

Joyce sat next to her, “But I won’t leave until you check out the photos from the last photo shoot. Have you noticed how busy everyone is?”

Emily glanced across the adjacent tables of her colleagues. So it didn’t seem to her. People were really busy, so they didn’t pay attention to her.

It was a good sign. Still, work is more important to them than gossip.

“Something happened?” she asked Catherine, who was crawling on the edge of the chair like a junior high school student who raised her hand and wanted to answer the teacher’s question first.

“Ohoho, yes, since you came here, something happens every day!”

Hmm, I can say the same about my life, Emily thought.

“Come on, already! Open your corporate e-mail!” Joyce urged on.

Emily entered her username and password and entered the personal account of Pharaoh Publishing for employees. She clicked on the last message.

“Wow, Gregor wrote to you personally! Goodness gracious!” Catherine leaned over to the monitor, cheek to cheek next to Emily.

Receiving a letter from the acting editor-in-chief was suspicious. What else has she done without even being present at work?

Emily began to read the message, “Dear Ms. Hayes. In view of your outstanding services to the Pharaoh magazine in such a short period of time, the magazine’s management decided to include your candidacy in the list of permanent models, with a salary… What??” Emily’s eyes widened at the amount of the zeros of the salary offered to her.

“Emy, I understand that this amount is not so big. Bradley, for instance, has a salary three times bigger than that. But for a start, it’s pretty decent, really,” Joyce began to calm her down, thinking that the girl was upset.

Not so big? Not bad, really, that’s what you’re saying? You know, this is indecently a lot! For the whole last year, she made less than one monthly salary offered to her in the message!

“Catherine, what is this? Why a model? I don’t understand this! One random photo session is not a reason to take the first comer to work! Who made this decision and why did no one ask me about it?”

“Wait, my brain can’t analyze so many questions at once!” Catherine stopped Hayes’s confused tirade. The blonde took the computer mouse from Emily’s hands, clicked on the screen icons and opened the electronic version of the magazine, “Look, last night there was an issue with several photos from the last photoset. What do you say?”

In front of Emily’s eyes was the spread of the magazine, where she was sitting on the couch and holding Bradley by the shirt, like a naughty puppy by the leash.

“Is it really me?” Hayes brought her face close to the screen to see each pixel. She did not recognize herself at that moment when she looked in the mirror before shooting. But now, seeing the final footage, Emily was even more shocked. Like the girl on the screen and the one looking at her were two different people.

She didn’t think of herself as super-beautiful, but rather pretty. But the girl on the cover, with professional make-up, styling, in a stylish suit, was simply incomparable.

“There was a real boom in views and downloads overnight,” Joyce said, “We haven’t had such sales in a year and a half. In fact, we have added over two hundred percent in subscriptions. Can you imagine it? And people wonder who you are. They want more stuff with you.”

“All this sounds surreal,” Emily muttered as she studied the volume’s statistics. The number of reposts and downloads was indeed higher than the usual numbers. Much bigger.

“Therefore, at night we gathered the magazine’s council and decided to take you to our team. Great, huh?” Catherine was ready to clap her hands and dance in place, if not for the thoughtful expression on Emily’s face, which clearly showed that the latter is not so happy about this wonderful news.

“I’m not sure I can handle this responsibility, Kat. That’s not my cup of tea, really. I am not a fan of publicity, and I prefer to tinker with texts. In addition, my replacement term ends in two weeks and I plan to quit.”

“What??? What do you mean, to quit?” Joyce was taken aback for a moment, “I thought you enjoyed working with us and you will stay. Something happened?” Emily shook her head.

Catherine leaned forward and added in a whisper, “Is this about Justin? Has he offended you?”

Emily smiled, “No, Mr. Evans has nothing to do with it.” Well, almost. “The fact is that since I got to Pharaoh, I’ve had a feeling that my life is going according to a scenario conceived by someone else. Everything happens so fast that I can only go with the flow. I’m not used to this.”

“You know, Emily, I don’t want to impose my opinion on you, but it seems to me that you are afraid. Afraid to come out of the shell which you drove yourself into. I don’t know who or what made you do it, but I’ll say this: you can do much more than you think. I see potential in you. The potential, from which not only our magazine, but the entire Pharaoh Publishing will tremble.”

Catherine Joyce looked behind the girl and chuckled, “It seems to me that some of the tops of the publishing house have already suffered from your fiery energy.”

Emily turned and saw a huge bouquet of chrysanthemums in front of her eyes, and behind the flowers she saw the one who brought them. Justin Evans himself.. Almost on time.