She was Late

Natalie woke up because of the sound of her alarm.

"Five minutes." She said, half asleep, and turned off the alarm, but those five minutes became thirty minutes. She opened one of her eyes when she felt the warm sun on his face. She looked at her clock and her eyes widened when she saw that she only had half an hour to go to the office.

"Fuck!" She uttered and immediately got out of her bed and went to the bathroom and shower quickly. She put on her blouse and slacks at almost the same time because she was in a hurry.

"I'm dead!" She uttered and put on her make-up fast, then went out of the apartment.

She walked fast towards the bus stop.

"Shit! Shit." She couldn't help but curse when she saw how many people were waiting for the bus. She waited with a bunch of people. The bus arrived, but it was also full at that time, still tried to get on, but she couldn't push herself inside, so she got off.

"I'm going crazy." She said then tried to call for a taxi.

"Taxi!" She shouted at other people who were waiting for the taxi.

"Taxi!" She shouted again and looked at her watch. A taxi stopped in front of her, and she sighed with relief, but a guy went inside before her.

"Hey!" She shouted, but the guy pretended that he didn't hear her and the taxi left. "I'll kill you when I see you!" She shouted with frustration and ran her finger through her hair. She looked around and saw that people were looking at her like she was crazy.

"He took the taxi I called." She tried to explain but no one was listening to her. "Think. Think!" She said to herself and looked at her watch again.

"Let's walk." She said to herself, then started walking toward their office. Ten minutes later she felt she wasn't moving at all, so she started running and then walked to rest her knees. When she was almost half way, she managed to get a taxi.

"Golden Star Company." She said panting, then her phone started ringing, she took it out of her bag and saw that there were eight missed calls from Lauren.

"I'm doomed." She said and wiped the tear flowing from her forehead, her phone rang again. "Fuck." She uttered out of shock with her hands on her chest, she breathed before answering the phone.

"Natalie, where the hell are you?" Lauren uttered on the other side of the phone.

"I'm almost there, I'm sorry Ma'am Lauren." She uttered.

"Faster!" Lauren said and hung up the phone.

She arrived at the company, she ran towards the entrance and exactly two minutes before their time in, she immediately ran to the elevator. She can't help but make her nails scratch each other.

She directly went to her desk and prepared everything she needed to edit that Kenzo told her. She didn't have the time to fix herself from that running, her hands were shaking. "Pull yourself together." She said to herself and started working again.

"Five minutes before the meeting, everyone should be inside." Miss Lauren and her eyes landed on Natalie, "You too, Natalie." She uttered.

Natalie looked at her, "Yes ma'am." She said and worked again. She almost finished everything, but it wasn't what she expected it to be, despite not having enough time, she almost finished everything.

"I think this will do." She said, then started collecting what she did and compiled it in a folder that had the project title. She walked towards the meeting room, she breathed in and out before opening the door.

 "You can do this!" She encouraged herself and opened the door.

Everyone looked at her as she entered and some of them covered their mouths to stop themselves from laughing out loud, but some were like they've waited for the moment and laughed while looking at her, except for Kenzo who was looking at her as well. She looked behind her.

"Why?" She asked, then Lauren walked slowly to her.

"Natalie." Lauren whispered to her, "I'll give you five minutes to fix yourself." She said and pushed her outside the room.

"I'm sorry things have been hectic for her." Lauren apologized to her and sat on the chair beside the table.

Natalie goes to the bathroom and looks at herself in the mirror, her eyes widened.

"What the fuck!" She uttered when she saw how messy she was, her hair was like in the air from the helicopter and her face was as pale as white, her make-up was erased because of her sweat. She immediately took her pouch then wet her hair a little bit and sprayed her cologne.

"Better!" She sighed and went back to the meeting room.

She walked past Kenzo on her way to present her work. He smelled her perfume and his jaw clenched to stop himself from sneezing and looked away from Natalie, then turned to Lauren.

"Aren't we going to start?" He asked Lauren.

"We are." Lauren said and closed her tablet, "Natalie?" She called her name.

Natalie looked at her, "Ma'am?" She replied to her.

"We'll start, you'll explain after me." Lauren said and stood up from her seat.

"Okay, everyone, may I have your attention please?" She said seriously and opened her laptop.

"We're all here to talk about our new project, and I'm here to open the meeting." She turned the page of the presentation, "Golden Star Company is known for building prestigious yet affordable homes for everyone, our goal is to create a beautiful home that anyone can live in." She said then turned the page again. "But for this project our main target are people who can practically buy a thousand of us dollars for a home." She added and turned the page again.

"Here's the final design for our new project." She said and gave Natalie the floor.

"Uhm, okay." Natalie started and gave the copy to everyone; Kenzo turned his head away again from Natalie when she gave him the copy.

"As you all heard from Ma'am Lauren, we are advised to create a simple yet elegant home that prestigious people can obviously afford." She paused and stood in front of all of them.

"It has a rooftop where we will put a garden where they can rest and relax that most of them don't have time to maintain, so we provide them a garden that was there even before they lived here." She said and turned the page.

"The building will be surrounded by glass that has a silver lining in it that makes it stand out from the surrounding buildings that have a transparent color and black lining." She explained and then continued to share with them the other details of the building.

"That's a good idea."

"She did great."

"I didn't expect her to think of this." Some of them said while listening to her explanation.

"That's all. Thank you!" Natalie said as she finished explaining to them.

They clapped for her and acknowledged her hard work.

"That's a great design!" One of them commended her.

"Thank you!" She smiled at him and then took her things out of the meeting room. She glanced at Kenzo wanting to thank him for her advice, but he was busy talking with Lauren. She had just left the room.

~

On her way back to their office, Calvin saw her and ran towards her.

"Hey!" He greeted her.

Natalie looked at him, "Oh, hi!" She greeted him.

"So, you were at the meeting?" She asked because she didn't see him in the room.

"Yeah." Calvin answered, "I saw you-" He said, but she stopped him.

"Don't bring that up." She said while covering his mouth.

"Alright." He mumbles and laughs a little.

"Don't laugh." She said to him, "I literally ran to go here because I overslept." She said and laughed at herself.

Kenzo and Jay were walking far from them but still they could see the two laughing together and Kenzo didn't like the way she smiled at him.

"That's Calvin, right?" Kenzo asked while walking slowly with Jay.

"Yes, Sir." He replied to him.

"Did he get transferred to the office?" He asked Jay again.

"Yes sir, only for a week now." Jay replied to him.

"Transfer him on site again!" Kenzo said and took out his phone from his pocket.

"Okay, Sir." Jay answered and looked at him when he realized what he said, "Sir?" He asked, but Kenzo was already on the elevator, so he ran after him.

"Transfer him, I don't like seeing him here!" Kenzo said, still looking at his phone.

Jay pressed the floor number of his office and as soon as they arrived, Jay called Calvin.

"Calvin," Jay said on the phone.

"Yes, sir." Calving said to Jay, "Is there something I should do?" He asked him.

"I just got an order to transfer you on site again, Mr. Anderson wants you to." He said to him.

"Huh?" Calvin asked, "But I just got back here." He said and scratched his head.

"Okay sir, thank you." He said and hung up the call. He stared at his phone with a frown on his face for a moment.