Loreen. 2

Every thing is working against her.

Loreen is finally sure of this thought as she slams the telephone back to its cradle. The moment stretches, and she is vaguely aware of her name on Alice Walker's lips. Her body decides then to betray her as her eyes droop shut and her knees suddenly give way.

After some minutes, she comes to, blinking into the widened eyes of her secretary.

"Loreen," Alice says carefully like she is handling fragile glass, and it catches Loreen offfguard. The surge of surprise is choked off by an abrupt, hacking cough.

Alice hurries to a sterile drawer and chucks out a bottle of water. She pours it into a glass cup and hastily brings it to her madam. After Loreen has taken enough, she raises her eyebrows in a silent question.

"What?"

Loreen shows all her teeth. Her grin is wide enough to expose a flashing diamond stud. "You called me by my name."

Alice's mouth falls wide open and she lets out a little gasp. She had crossed the boundary so easily.

Loreen is genuinely amused. However, just after that moment, her humour runs dry.

Gosh.

She looks around. Her gaze is heavy and sad as it sweeps across the milky blue walls of her office. It lingers on a visual illustration of a sanded beach which stays like an appendage on all that blue like a dull-coloured button. So perfect, yet so empty.

She sighs and lifts herself and Alice sticks to her side like glue.

"Let's pretend you did not hear that," Alice whispers. Loeen hears, but shows no reaction. In the quiet weight of it, the acknowledgement hangs between them, unresolved yet understood.

Alice helps Loreen to dust her skirts and she returns to her desk. The chair sinks down with the crinkle of leather as it bears her weight. Loreen props her elbow on the brown, plain desk and lets her face fall into outspread palms.

Up there in her small mind, is bedlam. Where has she gone wrong? What is she doing differently? How does one still get up from a dead-knot of failures? How does one know the next step is not again a failure?

Her thoughts rage. Her head aches to the point of excruciation. This situation is threateningly familiar.

The memories flash like a lightning bolt - another woman in her matrimonial bed, mangled screams and a smash-to-smithereens meltdown inside a courtroom. An acute pain slices through her scalp and a faint, surprised yelp tumbles out.

Alice pronounces a panicked "Loreen," and pulls Loreen's hands away from her hair.

"I know you want to bald before your season but you have a reputation to protect," Alice berates.

The pain is nothing. She wants to cause a colossal damage.

Simeon Walton. Her thoughts zero in.

He had been her last hope. But then, this last hope is now no hope at all because he had informed her...

No. He had not.

He had relayed a big 'no' to his assistant to pass on to her. She had not even gotten the chance to personally get him in a private conversation. Not even in the insistence of an exigency.

And for what?

Might he be one of those sexists in the closet hiding behind all that power? And those rumours about him making headlines… She sits up.

This man, she has never done business with him. But, if this is how he really is - not the sunshine ball of kindness that he is portrayed to be on the media, with his legions of reinforcements of sickening praise lauders, the man should be cast out and flayed.

That arrogant, egotistic, overpampered brat. Will he act the same way if she is a man asking him for favours? She scoffs admist the growing pain in her chest.

That assistant in a brusque tone had informed her that the last batch of convertible shares had been given to someone else just some days before. God help them when she finally shows up to Walton Holdings and her notion is confirmed.

That award belongs to her family - belonged to them alone until the legacy had been broken and stayed with a certain man that makes sure to drink five bottles of arrogance before he starts his day.

Drained, her face falls into her palm. Alice is quiet as she patiently waits for Loreen to navigate through her muddled mind.

After a long while of internal wailing and plotting, Loreen swallows and sits up straighter. "Please, arrange a private meeting with Mr. Walton."

"What?" Alice is taken aback, "that will take weeks."

"I know." And after a pause, she adds, "I really need this." First, she needs to know who Simeon had given those shares to. Does that person really need it? Considering that Simeon is also a contender for the awards, he wouldn't have much to give out anyways.

Gradually, she is beginning to lose her patience. But she's here now, at one of the most important stages. This process is called the 'elite shareholder requirement'.

Quoting from the long newsletter on the application form she had procured for an exorbitant sum, "To be considered, applicants must demonstrate significant ownership stakes in at least 10 of the country's top elite companies, owning a minimum of 5% shares in each company and must demonstrate continuos ownership of these shares for at least nine months prior to the award show."

The prerequisites changes each season and the newsletter had been quite the read.

Alice later leaves her be after series of strategic planning. It's evening before Loreen walks out at last and into the light of the setting sun.

She flings her bag into the sideseat of her red Audi without looking and gets into the driver's seat. She drives straight to the airport where she is received by familiar faces. She boards a helicopter quickly. She is on her way to a meeting, a socialité club that she joined after some time as the CEO.

Adhering to the advice of her uncle to build connections, she accepted one of the numerous invitations sitting in her mailbox and ended up with a group of snobby women that get her on her nerves.

The helicopter whizzes its way above the steep hills and colorful Victorian homes dotting the distance. The change from San Francisco to Silicon Valley is a bit dramatic, the steepness beginning to fall, the urban metropolis sprawling across flat plains in a seamless blend.

They land in an open runway some blocks away from the venue of the meeting, and a driver, her usual black man Joe is there to pick her up with a goofy smile which she returns indulgently.

They arrive in front of a large, grey hotel. Choosing to linger in the car, she pulls out a small mirror from her purse. Subsequently, she touches her appearance up, dashes a stunning red unto her lips and a light matching eyeshadow. Brushing her red bouncy curls, she lets it shadow the left side of her face. Then, she double checks herself, straightens the blue checkered suit, fumbles with the red heels and slings the purse. Confident enough that she's good to go, she opens the car door and steps out.

Don't give them anything to talk about, she mutters aloud. Those women. Nitpickers.

About to slam the door close, she remembers that she hasn't renewed her baccarat rouge so she leans down to find it and sprays it carefully.

A deep breath, then two. The clacking of locks and the clicking of heels are heard simultaneously in the quiet parking lot. Black man Joe disappears behind her, going to hang around until she's back.

Leisurely, Loreen sets down the path like a model on a catwalk. She offers a perfunctory nod at the receptionist as she passes, weaves her way through glass, gold crested doors and gets into the elevator heading to the fifth floor which leads to their coven.

Women's Power Team, they call themselves. Very enticing, until you are one of them.

The last glass door slides open after her security card scans successfully; and she crosses the threshold.

A big space reveals, reeking of influence, affluence, glitter and glamour. The women, their voices carry with the wind. Certainly, they're all present and seated, prim and proper. True that.

She rounds a corner and enters another space, more like a comparted corner and the click of her heels is suddenly the only thing heard.

A total of twenty women from all angles of the higher class, bourgeois, the upper echelons, and the lot of them spread out. Very much like the women in power team rather. Wives of powerful men. Madams.

They recline in regal chairs, sitting round a glossy, triangular table and at the apex, the highest person in power. Loreen rounds the base and walks forward until she's before the only empty seat, three seats away by the side and from the apex.

"Good evening, Women Power!" She greets loudly.

As routine, she bows first to the woman at the apex and offers another to the rest of the group.

Then, she takes her place and pushes her purse onto the dark wood stool beside her. To her right, she already knows who is there before she turns, but the blooming smile freezes on her visage when the face is different.

Lightning fast, she turns to her left and is met with a jump scare. Whoa, she struggles the cringe off her face to focus on the main point. They must have exchanged seats or has she been absent for too long that she has mixed up the seating arrangement?

"Do you see that?" A high voice perks up smoothly from across the table. It belongs to Mrs. Ashton, wife to Irwin who is Chief Commander of the military personnel in America.

"She must be befuddled," the woman continues and the women burst into a flurry of giggles.

Loreen smiles, or tries to.

The head of the table clears her throat and the sounds fall silent. Only then can the ping of the humidifier be heard.

Mrs. Willow Blake, the First Lady. She is a world class model and was the most beautiful woman in the world the previous year.

For one to get invited into this society follows a pattern and is reserved for the highest in position in their affairs. That's one of the mere reasons Loreen Scott is working her butt off as she had replaced a certain Melanie James that is beginning to claw her way up again.

In the three years of being a part of the group, a few faces have changed, losing power to their replacement. Loreen didn't want to be an ex - woman in power - woman power team. She wants to be here until her prime is over.

If Mrs. Sanders can do it and is still doing it, she steals a glance at the petite woman four seats opposite from her; then, she can.

"You see, Loreen Scott. Mrs. Hudson's husband right here won the seat of excellence, " the First Lady explains and woman in question smiles smugly at her, "and the board decided to up her seat in celebration."

"Oh-" Dear Lord.

Up her seat or seats? It takes her strange glances to remember that she is missing something. "Congratulations!" she hurriedly gushes.

Mrs. Hudson gives her an indiscernible expression and responds with an infused polite but flattered pomp. "Thank you."

Loreen is awestruck as she looks on. Who did this woman's makeup? It can paint a house.

"How impeccable that must be," someone chitters and breaks her off from her marvel. The women fall into the yatter that Loreen had met them in.

It's the usual. Brains dropped by the door. Aimless gossip and anon, a casual break of, "I bought a car"; "and, we were thinking of donating to the poor", and the likes of this and that.

"…husband won the seat of excellence." Loreen peeks at Mrs. Hudson. Her husband is a senator of the States. That award possibly means that he is the best senator. Perhaps, something that should not be far from that. Well, politics isn't her thing.

She turns to Mrs. Klas on her left who meets her gaze with a subtle smile. The woman seems unfazed but Loreen Scott knows that deep within and in every single woman who sits on this table, they are all plotting on how to move their stakes higher.

Reflexively, her head snaps up at the sudden mention of her rival.

"Melanie would have said bollocks to you". It's Sanders' wife to Mrs. Hudson.

Turns out that the mention of Melanie is because of her birthday party which from bits and pieces she manages to grab, will be coming up next month.

When they startarguing about the possibility of receiving invitations. She holds the scoff that almost breaks out from her chest and coyly, pulls out her phone.

Next thing, they start discussing Soirees.

This charade is surprisingly going too well, that's if the constant jabs and barbed mockery are ignored.

Finally, the meeting graciously comes to an end, and Loreen escapes with quick steps. Black man Joe quickly pulls away as always before she's stopped in the false similitude that is socialization.

Back in San Francisco, she fights off the urge to take a drink as she looks through the documents that her uncle had sent for review. Ledgers that illustrate the annual revenue of both wings of the Scott's enterprise.

The Mogul award requires a minimal annual revenue of $1 million dollars. Thank goodness, the American economy is stable enough this year.

"I really need to do something, put my name on the papers for good merit for a while," she soliloquizes aloud in the emptiness of her room.

In the wee hours of the morning, shivering and barfing in the toilet is Loreen. She cannot fathom for the life of her how she wandered into her wine cabinet.

Retches start anew, with her insides wringing up a wash of vomit. Her fair skin is a washed out yellow and the toilet reeks of the wine-tinged contents in her belly.

After a long time, Loreen stumbles out of the bathroom, jittery. Goosebumps stood at attention on her skin and a row of sweat posed by the strands of hair on her forehead.

Fickle. She had drunk too much.