Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 95311 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95311 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Finally, exhausted of tasks to do, she lay down in her bed and stared at the ceiling fan. She tossed and turned. Got up to get water. Turned the lights on. Turned them off. She checked her phone over and over and played the game of "well if I go to sleep right now, I will have six and half hours of sleep" and then six. Then five. She fell asleep somewhere after four hours and forty-two minutes and dreamed about having twelve phones to answer at the same time because if it went to voice mail she would be fired.
CHAPTER TWO
EM CORPORATION HAD an imposing headquarters. It was fifteen stories high- all shiny, flawless glass and white-as-snow stucco. It looked like money. And that was probably because it was made of money.
It seemed like it had sprung up out of nowhere just five years before where there used to be an old sub shop. What they did, exactly, was a matter of debate. It seemed as though they owned a lot of things. They were in the news all the time for buying a small, struggling companies, building it up, and then selling them for a fortune. Why that required fifteen floors and hundreds of employees was simply beyond anyone's comprehension.
Hannah pulled her beaten-up green sedan she had gotten, already quite used, for a present on her seventeenth birthday, into the parking garage and drove past row after row of gleaming BMWs and Mercedes and Jaguars. She felt as if she needed to give her car a pep talk so it wouldn't feel so inferior to all the late models and their shiny paint.
She checked her reflection in the mirror. Simple makeup. She had applied a layer of mascara and some pale pink lipstick after fussing over shades and eyeliners for nearly twenty minutes. Her hair was pulled into a sleek ponytail as she felt she looked too young when she left it to do its own thing and fall in straight strands to her waistline. She reapplied a quick coat of lipstick, grabbed her keys, and got out of her car.
She had worked in her share of office buildings when she worked as a temp in college. But never one quite like EM Corporation. The lobby was vast and open with cool black tile, gray walls, and an assortment of lush potted plants. There was a seating area through the front door and to the left. Numerous people sat there typing furiously on their laptops or talking into cell phones and looking altogether too important to be kept waiting.
Exactly how important was this company?
Hannah walked up to the security desk situated in front of the only two elevators. Behind the desk were two men in typical blue security guard uniforms. The older of the two men checked his computer, handed her a white credit card sized piece of plastic with a bar code and the word "visitor" across it, and waved her toward the elevator. She stood there dumbly for a moment before she realized she had to scan the card before the doors would open.
"Top floor," the officer barked, dismissing her.
As the doors slid closed, Hannah sank against the wall and took a deep breath. Interviews were always nerve-racking, but something about the vastness and frantic energy of this particular building was more intimidating than she cared to admit. The man to her right was on his phone negotiating what seemed like some kind of business deal for over two million dollars. She was glad when he got off on the eighth floor and allowed her to ride up to the fifteenth floor by herself.
As the doors slid open, she stepped out into the enormous space with a refreshingly open floor plan. The tile was flecked with shades of brown and red, the walls were painted tan on top then met cherry wood wainscoting half way down. Directly in the center of the space was a seating area with a leather couch, two striped captain's chairs, and a cherry wood coffee table over a large lush tan carpet.
Both sides of the room were flanked by four secretary desks made of the same cherry wood as the rest of the room. At the desks were women of varying ages and one man who looked to be about her own age. Each of them had a phone glued to their ear and were tapping furiously on their keyboards, making the whole room fill with clicking noises. All of them seemed to notice her but none acknowledged her presence.
Hannah stepped away from the elevator doors as they chimed and noticed that straight ahead behind the seating area, where the windows should have been, was a wall of red wood with a door on each end where, she assumed, the CEO or president or... whomever must have worked there. On either side of the elevators were rooms. One was closed off like an office, the other room was open on both sides with a small wall in the center like a passway in a restaurant. Maybe it was a mini kitchen for the staff.