A VISIT

The Director scoffed and chuckled in a funny way that spelt disaster for the young woman standing in front of him.

"Compile the work, there's still much time to do so before the movie",

He smirked maliciously, muttering out his thought as he counted the words which she had mentioned earlier to him one after the other leaving the others as well as Emma a bit curious of what he was going to do about it.

"That's all bullshit, Emma!",

His loud voice which sounded like a whiplash came so sudden that Emma was completely frightened with apprehension that also gripped her with fear and trepidation.

"Are you aware that the manuscripts which I personally gave you to review were missing few important details when Kelly showed me all the nonsense you have been doing this morning?",

He questioned at length, eagerly waiting for her to respond but she was not able to give an answer for she was already dumbstruck the moment she heard that her efforts in getting the manuscripts done in accordance were all for nothing.

She swallowed hard, waiting for the next bombshell to drop and took a glance at Kelly who betrayed her pale innocent look which ruined part of her makeup by turning his face away from hers as if he wasn't listening amongst the other spectators behind the showdown.

Realizing that he had gained the upper hand, the Director moved a bit closer to ensure that she felt the guilt of what he was about to add to his earlier statement that already got her bold defense weakened to the point that she could not utter any word in reply.

"And that's not all... A late notice of the original time that was fixed for the event to take place had been rescheduled by the General Manager and it was enforced today",

"The time was changed?",

She mumbled out in utter surprise and her eyes widened with disbelief at his information that got her bereft of words since she didn't expect that the decision to have the time of the event changed was later decided to be removed from where it was formerly fixed by the board.

"Oh, yes, Emma. It was changed to 9pm and I did sent a prior message to needed personnel to notify them of the sudden decision made by the General Manager which includes you",

"You mean that I received your message this morning and refused to come to the office at the appointed time",

"Exactly",

"But.... I didn't... receive any of such messages before now",

"That's a lie. Check your phone's message inbox and you'll see that I telling the truth",

He answered putting his hands inside his pocket and waited for her as she scoured for her cell phone inside her purse within her fancy handbag that got some of the spectators a bit thrown off their feet by its beauty especially the females.

Gently but hastily, she searched for her Android cell phone using her fingers and soon found it inside the handbag lying beside another couple of her personal things including her wallet. Then she brought it out of the bag and quickly switched it on since she had it put off during her trip back to the office.

Before long, her phone was ready to be used and she checked her messages inbox only to see a text message from the Director's contact number recorded as a new message which she received exactly at 7pm during the hour the same hour that she knew she wasn't ready to go work since the message got delivered at the time she was fully engaged in her cleaning of the attic in her house and she was careless enough not to have read the message which her phone notified her as well after she ended the call with one of her staff workers. Emma was stunned and completely taken aback when she read further in the Director's message that the group of actors would arrive at the exact same time to finish up with the planned scenes on time and they had arrived few minutes earlier before she did but they were told to wait at the lobby for further instructions from the Directors. The group of actors happened to be small crowd that she met at the reception area but she had walked past them and didn't notice them since her mind was completely focused on her getting to her office to finish up the paperwork rather than spending unnecessary time getting acquainted with some fellows who would not be paying her salary at the end of the month.

She did not know what say at that point and just drooped her head down, peering at the desktop screen of her Android cell phone as though she hadn't read all of the messages inside and as though she was seeing her cell phone for the first time.

"Surprised, huh. You can see that I'm telling you the truth and that you have failed in your duty to get the work done in time which you should have done an hour ago",

"But I wasn't fully aware......",

"For goodness sake, shut the hell up, Emma",

He barked out violently cutting her short which left her in complete embarrassment.

"I don't wanna hear any excuses this time around. You can't tell me that the information didn't get to you on time because I sent you a text message. Besides, some of your staff workers knew about it this morning and it seems that they were disloyal enough not to inform you about it",

He explained further as his eye brows widened in hot anger. At that moment, she raised her eyes to scan the other odd familiar faces staring at them from behind till she saw Isabel who had called her a while back before she left her house but she didn't show any sign of anger towards her and just returned her gaze at the Director's black lace up shoes instead. Her staff workers thought it was over but the Director hasn't yet finished with her right there as she stood motionless beside the doorway where she felt her feet glued to the ground.

"Hear what I'm going to say, Emma",

"Yes... Sir",

She meekly replied unwilling to face him clearly to avoid the shame that had botched every ounce of makeup from her face.

"To serve as a deterrent to your fellow workers and to everyone else, your paycheck this month will be withdrawn till the end of next month and I'll see to it that the General Manager approves of this but don't feel too bothered about it because it might be added to what you'll receive the following month if only you won't mess up from now onwards like you did today",

He finally said and hissed before walking briskly out of the office leaving her stranded with no other option than to stare blankly at the remaining eyes in the room. The atmosphere in the room soon became too serene for everyone present in the compartment especially Emma who was lost in deep thought while the rest of the workers all kept quiet and watched her still standing there looking despondent with the whole outcome of what she had intended to do at this hour of the day.

Thinking that she would not leave that spot after the showdown, the others except Kelly, all went back to work in order to complete the other tasks at hand as well but she soon found the strength to head to her desk at the right corner of a inner cubicle that was separated from the main office and had venetian blinds covering the four glassy walls of the small chamber. As she walked past, her gaze fell on Isabel who wasn't sure of how she would react to her eyes that kept making her feel a lot guilty for not telling her beforehand,then, she would have taken a ride in her car instead of a public transport which was far too slow and time consuming for her to reach work on time but she decided not to say anything even though her gaze had told Isabel everything that she wanted to say to her at that moment.

Emma sank into her office chair resting her entire back on it and tossed her handbag on the desk in utter frustration ignoring the curious eyes of a few of her nosy staff members watching her every move from outside her small office through the transparent window. Then she sank both of her fingers into her hair, pondering on what occurred quite a few moments ago and felt utter dismay staring hard on her face which was now partly soiled with tears especially her cheeks that got excessively wet.

She was about to shut her eyes to get some refreshing nap which would help her forget the embarrassment she felt a while ago when her cell phone rang out from her handbag leaving her a bit distress and more furious with the caller who had to intrude at that exact moment when she needed to placate her tensed nerves.

The phone rang twice but she felt reluctant to pick up the call and felt a little bit fatigued picking up her handbag from the desk in front of her till she finally decided to move her limbs sluggishly to take the bag from the table amidst the pile of papers neatly arranged on one side of the desk.

Much of what was said between her and the caller wasn't heard by some of the workers who were surreptitiously eavesdropping on her phone call that somehow changed her mood and quickly compelled her out of the office that got the attracted the attention of workers including Kelly who had started searching for possible errors on the reviewed manuscript before she stormed out of the office with her handbag but she ignored them and walked straight to where Kelly sat feeling a bit nervous about seeing her head towards him. The other workers thought she would reprimand Kelly for his erroneous mistakes and his fault of not informing her sooner of the recent changes made for the show but She left the office in haste after giving certain instructions to Kelly.

Some of her colleagues speculated her downfall the moment she stepped out of the office and kept gossiping amongst themselves about the imminent dismissal of their head manager even when she came back to get some papers from her office before leaving finally to the elevator. She could have taken an excuse for where she was going from the Director or the receptionist at the lobby but she didn't care about what would befall her fate in the company the moment she left the building for all she cared for was that she needed to go somewhere else to save something far more important to her than her job which she believed that she was already at the brink of losing the position in the company.

Her boldness to leave was as a result of the caller who was duly responsible for her sudden emergency that led her to take a train from the subway tunnel downtown to the Eastern side of town to pay an unplanned visit to someone close to her.

After a Forty-five minutes drive from the train station in the central part of the city, Emma found herself sitting in the well furnished living room of her uncle's luxurious apartment which was very much decorated with expensive antiques and subtle colorful wallpapers that adorn the spacious parlor while the cool atmosphere that filled every corner of the room made her feel highly comfortable beyond her imagination ever since she stopped coming to see her uncle months before her father's death which somehow rekindle the forgotten reunion though she felt a bit intimidated by the stylish outlook of every household materialistic furniture used tin giving the apartment a befitting perfect appearance in respect to amount of cash her uncle has stacked up in his bank account for he was a affluent car dealer whose hard earned success had catapult him to be among the notable wealthy men dwelling in the city. Her father had refused to join him in his line of work with the costly mindset that car merchandise doesn't pay much to have a successful career and had taken on the profession of an archaeologist years before he got married to her mother. She sat on a soft brown couch close enough to an air conditioner which relaxed her nerves much more than what she desired all the time she spent the hot summer in her house with barely enough air ventilation to drive away the heat that visited her mostly in the night as she waited for her uncle to show from the inner chambers after having been given a warm reception by the chamberlain who happened to be the first person she met the moment she stepped into the colossal living room that was a bit similar to the lobby at her workplace after she was allowed in by the gatemen still keeping their security post at the gate.

Four more minutes trickled away but her uncle was still yet to show up and she had all ate the delicious cookies that got her mind off the pain she had felt inside of her and was about to fall asleep when she heard two footsteps approaching from within a narrow hallway that ran deep into the heart of the interior building.

She wasted no time to adjust herself back on the couch especially her long hair and wiped off some crumbs from the side of hier lips with the back of her hand. Then she stood up as soon as her uncle walked into the living room not quite thrilled to see his niece standing before him along with the butler who followed behind him as though he was some dog wagging his tail behind his owner.

Emma gleamed a pretentious smile of happy reunion and was about greet her uncle when her eyes suddenly caught sight of something hidden behind the back of the thick suit worn by her uncle. Even her uncle's gesture to take a seat on the brown couch from whence she had got up, eroded the charming smile across her face but she swallowed the insult instead and took her seat back on the couch without uttering any word of protest.

"George, show her the papers in the red file",

Her uncle ordered after he took his seat on a similar couch as well facing her while Emma's eyes followed the butler as he stride to the glassy glossy table in front of her and dropped a red file of papers on the table before taking out a ball pen from his chest pocket and opened the file, scouring from each of the papers which seems looked the same to Emma till he stopped at a scribed paper where the texts was quite fewer than the others and a line without a signature was inscribed on the typescript page of the document. George dropped the pen on the table shortly after he was done pushing a tray conveying an empty white dish of cookie crumbs aside before shifting the opened file towards her. Then he went back to whence he had came and stood behind his uncle waiting for any other instructions from his boss.

As for Emma, she was surprised to see the papers on table staring hard at her appalled face which turned sour after she read a last paragraph of the textual typescript that informed her of a an agreement to lawfully hand over her rights over her father's inheritance to her of a fairly large mansion located near the southern borders of the city though it now lay in ruins after many years of abandonment to her Uncle, which was dear to her for she had spent most of her childhood with her father as a teenager but it was a profitable site for horseracing and a convenient spot to have a good stable for horses. Even her father had one erected around in the corner of the fields though the shelter was not large but it was suffice to keep their horses aliv