Four Evelyn
How old was she? The thought popped into my mind the following week as I took a break from the hours of work laying ahead.
We’d been interacting more, talking a bit after each meeting, and I couldn't help but wonder. Her smooth skin was flawless, showing no trace of wrinkles. With her hair down and a less stern, playful expression, she couldn’t look past thirty.
But she had a mature demeanor and way of carrying herself that no one young would be capable of.
With her position and obvious wealth, looking her up to find out would be easy.
I typed in her name to see countless photos of her, all of which she looked stunning in. Distracted, I kept scrolling, admiring her shamelessly. Her style was impeccable; whether it be a shiny cocktail dress or a suit, I was captivated.
One recent photo was captioned, The thirty-two-year-old CMO of Vector Line Media. Well, here was my answer. Now smiling, I continued to scroll, relieved she was only seven years older, creating a perfectly normal age gap. It shouldn’t have mattered to me, but it did. So much.
Too curious about her to stop, I ended up reading anything and everything I could find about her.
She attended a top business school and won several impressive awards. While that piqued my interest, there was very little available about her personal life—no relationships. It was impressive how private she managed to stay, making me eager to uncover anything I could.
Mindlessly, I scrolled past information on her sister, her not being the type of woman in Vanessa’s past I would have been interested in uncovering.
All the photos online were professionally taken, clearly not uploaded by her.
Besides old photos with her previous boss at her former place of work, recent ones only included other corporate-world executives and co-workers I recognized around the office.
Among other millionaires, in many photos over the last year she kept appearing with one woman.
Mia Carcier, the caption read. She was beautiful, but not my type.
With long platinum-blonde hair and brown eyes, she was the type of girl any guy would consider hot.
Maybe she was the one who’d dragged Vanessa to the bar that night?
She looked like the woman Vanessa had needed to help walk out.
Intrigued, I looked her up, eventually finding her social media, which was public—unlike Vanessa’s, which I’d already tried.
Having planned and evenly distributed my work for the day, I could waste twenty minutes and still finish over the next few hours. So, there was no harm in browsing through her page in hopes of finding some photos of Vanessa, since they were clearly close.
Immediately, I was taken aback by a recent photo of her kissing some woman. So this mysterious acquaintance of Vanessa liked women. It felt good knowing that if Vanessa found out I was a lesbian—if she hadn’t already, with my shameless staring at the bar—she wouldn’t have an issue with it.
I kept scrolling through Mia's page, hoping to find a more candid photo of Vanessa. But, much to my disappointment, there were no photos with the striking redhead.
Had they had some sort of falling out, or was their relationship strictly professional? It hadn’t looked like it, based on how they looked laughing in some photos, their arms around each other. Vanessa was far too closed-off to be like that with just any business acquaintance.
Wanting a laugh and expecting to find the cringe-worthy comments girls with a lot of fake friends tend to receive on their posts, I took my time looking through her comment sections.
In one of her somewhat recent posts, she was in a bikini with the same brunette on the beach.
It was their first post as a couple, so obviously her friends would go crazy.
The girl’s biography read that she was twenty-nine, only four years older than me, and held some editing position.
But with over 10k followers, she wasn’t the type to act her age and realize she was no longer in her teenage years.
I never understood how people could post this stuff publicly while having a decent job.
As usual, the most liked comments were on top: “Girl upgrades!” and "Not a literal model replacing the workaholic bitch," followed by, “Wow, a girl who lets you post her.”
Who had friends this immature? This was so middle school. Then again, maybe I'd just been forced to grow up faster than most.
I rolled my eyes at another comment. “Hotter than the uptight ginger,”
Wait.
Suddenly, it clicked. Vanessa Walton was Mia's ex-girlfriend. Vanessa Walton was into women. And I was a woman.
A knock on my door made me jump. "Come in," I called out, shutting my tabs before the door swung open to reveal Jane, a disgusted expression of entitlement plastered onto her face.
"You didn't approve my social media advocacy plan for this month? What is your superior approach to showing our loyal customers what we stand for?" Her nasally voice demanded civilly enough to pass as appropriate.
When I rejected her already-late proposal this morning, I knew it would become an issue.
"Unfortunately, politically controversial marketing is an approach that, as a whole, we are avoiding after seeing it repeatedly cost other major companies irreplaceable numbers," I said, staying calm and friendly, reminding myself that no matter what she told herself, I held the power here.
"Well, for the next week, all my plans are no longer going to work by your standard, so you need to put something together. I don't have the time anymore."
It was my second week, and this avoidance technique was not my own or even my choice.
It was something communicated to me through the man who previously held my position.
This was way above me, and Ms. Walton was the one she should go to.
But she knew Ms. Walton wouldn’t tolerate this nonsense, so instead she was bitching to me.
"This is beyond my authority. If you'd like an exception to the policy to be considered, you'll need to raise your concerns with the CMO. The policy was available to you well before you created your plan."
She shook her head as I spoke, not even listening. "You can't just sit around and dictate my work. You need to contribute to the social media assignments too.” Giving up on blaming me, she was now attacking my efforts. Poor choice on her part—I was an exceptionally hard worker.
"If you would like to look at my job description, I'd be happy to show you," I offered, smiling as I watched her frustration increase.
"God, I'm sorry, okay? Just please help me, I'm going through a lot right now.” In a few seconds, she went from almost screaming to begging.
If I helped, this would be a great opportunity to earn her respect.
She was sacrificing her pride now, since I hadn’t given in and taken the blame.
Helping her now, after she asked semi-nicely, would be completely different and come from a place of empathy—not weakness.
If I wanted my team to respect me, I needed to prove we were one.
God, I was so different from Ms. Walton, far too kindhearted to dismiss people without feeling guilty. Still, I didn’t tolerate disrespect from most people and needed to make that exceptionally clear.
"Don't ever speak to me like that again. You do not get to come in here and blame me for your mistakes."
I paused, waiting for a reply, but Jane just nodded, suddenly quiet.
"As your boss, I want to support you, and I understand that accidents happen.” It was a little ironic Jane had made a much larger mistake than accidentally bumping into someone, yet I wasn't threatening her job.
"I'll help put together a new outline that will hopefully utilize most of what you have already prepared if you share your notes with me.
But tomorrow, it is your job to conduct whatever processes you need to in a timely manner. No excuses."
Though surprised, Jane seemed grateful, muttering a thank you and a few empty promises before leaving.
The rest of the day, my own work received all my attention, and it was late afternoon before I reached Jane’s. She had claimed she’d put together a full and detailed plan, so it shouldn’t have been too hard to switch the focus of it using her intended day-by-day models. Or so I thought.
It quickly became clear Jane had used the policy as a scapegoat. She’d left out all the important details. The types of interviews she planned to conduct and feature on our page were vague—none of which she’d even reached out to arrange.
If this project got messed up by those under me, it would reflect horribly on me.
My boss could not find out that an essential marketing component was incomplete.
Or worse, my boss’s boss. I could already imagine her reaction, and it couldn’t become a reality.
While she could handle Jane, Jane had been working here far longer, making me appear to be the issue.
My second week was too early to be problematic.
After making a coffee, I worked vigorously.
A few hours passed, and it was 8 p.m. by the time I finally finished.
With nearly everyone in my department gone, the quiet of the halls as I headed towards the exit was pleasant, as the relief of having fixed the problem—at least for now—settled in. Never again would I let myself be taken advantage of like that here.
In the distance, the sharp tap of heels against the marble floor caught my attention, growing louder with each passing second.
"Sorelle, what is possibly keeping you here so late during your second week?"
The familiar voice made me look up just as Ms. Walton rounded the corner. She crossed the remaining distance quickly, and within moments we were face-to-face—though she had nearly a full head on me.
“Just staying ahead. "I was purposely vague, not needing a lecture on time management or to start trouble that would inevitably backfire on me. But vague answers never satisfied her, and I should have known this by now.