Cutting Loose (29 page)

So that’s exactly what she did. But
unfortunately, sleep didn’t come easy and she was tossing and turning, thinking
about Larissa and imagining how scared she must be, even if she wasn’t showing
it. It was Just in her nature.

Ever since Sabrina knew Larissa, she was
never easy to get along with, especially in the beginning when they first
became friends. It was Larissa sharp tongue that they met, when Sabrina was
back in college and they were roommates during junior year. Sabrina couldn’t
stand the way Larissa was always playing her music loud on the stereo while
Sabrina was trying to study or whatever. They got into a handful of fights, but
nothing ever escalated into anything serious and after a while, they got used
to each other and a friendship blossomed out of the impossible.

It was because of Larissa that she was
having nightmares of Larissa in the waiting room of some dark, creepy clinic
that didn’t even look pleasant, where Larissa would end up bleeding to death.
It was just horrible and a part of her whished that she could have fought
harder to make her change her damn mind and do the right thing. If anything, it
had something to do with the fact that back when she made the choice to have an
abortion she didn’t have a choice or say in the matter, whereas Larissa was
just throwing everything away.

She dozed off into another dream, this
time where Larissa didn’t bleed to death like in her other dreams, but she
somehow changed her mind and at the last minute went into early labor and died
on the table from complications. It was so weird seeing her best friend die
right before her dreams over and over again. Then it got even weirder when she
saw a glimpse of her younger self when she went to have the abortion and how
scared out of her mind she was when she saw all the instruments laid out on the
table, the creepy look plastered over the doctors face; it was all just too
much.

Despite the fact that she slept most of
the day, Sabrina managed to squeeze in a little time with her mother to
celebrate Mother’s Day and enjoy some quality time away from the office and
Camille and her drama and the whole ordeal with Larissa. She pushed everything
from her mind and just focused on the dumb, but fun activities her mother had
planned after she left the spa and called Sabrina over to her house for some
relaxing and lounging.

The day zoomed by and before Sabrina
knew it she was back in her bed waiting for the next day to come and go just as
quick. For one reason or another she hated the way Tuesday morning started off
and left an eerie feeling in her stomach. She was glad to be seeing Camille
finally get the boot after all the years of putting up with all her crap.

So it shouldn’t have surprised her that
she would have a thousand messages on her answering machine congratulating her
on her new position as Editor-in-Chief. But that was so not the case when she
actually checked them and heard an alarming message from Sean.

She immediately called him back and was
startled by the urgency in his voice.

He said, “Sabrina, thank God you got my
message! Listen, you have to get to the office pronto! Camille has lost her mind.
Also, the magazine is in serious trouble.”

“Wait, slow down. What’s happened?”

“Look, I think it’s best if you just
come down here and see for yourself what I’m talking about.”

“Okay, I’m on my way.”

“Please, hurry.”

 Instantly, Sabrina went onto overdrive
and threw on her best pantsuit after taking a quick shower and making sure she
didn’t forget anything before jumping in her car. Whatever Camille did, she was
sure it was something crazy. Sure in the past Camille had done some really
stupid things, but this time had to take the cake. Never had she heard Sean
sound so panicky.

She tried to calm her nerves and think
that things wouldn’t be so bad. She figured that Camille might have spent all
her time on some stupid feature that she thought was perfect without consulting
Sabrina about and then found out that she was fired and couldn’t handle it. Or
maybe she finally showed how psycho she was by holding the place up for ransom
or some craziness. Camille might have played a fool sometimes, but she was
smart and manipulative when she wanted to be and Sabrina could bet any kind of
money that this was no different. Something was definitely up.

Once she was at the office she and rode
the elevator, she knew something was different as soon as she stepped off and
noticed that Sean was talking to Raquel and a nerdy-looking accountant whom was
rarely ever seen.

Sabrina briskly walked over to Sean and
asked, “What’s up?” She didn’t really see a reason for either Raquel or the
accountant to be in the office since Sean had the office closed, being that it
was the day after a holiday and he wanted to give the employees a break.

Sean said, “Sabrina, it’s really bad. I
told Camille that she is fired from being editor in chief last night and when I
came in here this morning, I couldn’t believe my eyes.”

“I’m guessing she didn’t handle it so
well.”

“Not so much,” said Sean

The nerdy accountant spoke up and said,
“I was working on some figures to be turned in and all of a sudden the lights
went out, like a power outage but then they came back on a moment later but then
I discovered a problem.”

“What kind of problem? “Sabrina asked.

He said, “Well, my computer crashed…as
well as all the other systems.”

Sabrina looked form the accountant and
back to Sean. “Is this true?”

“Yes.”

“And you think Camille is responsible
for this?”

“Yep.”

Raquel stepped in and said, “The
security guy said he got her on tape doing something suspicious and she was
with an accomplice.”

“Show me the video.”

A moment later they were looking at the
tape security had given them of Camille and what looked like her old friend
Tasha, putting something into the computer in her office. Afterwards Camille
laughed and stalked off with her accomplice as if nothing happened.

Sabrina immediately she went to her
office and tried her computer only to see the words “Operation Camillionaire”
across the screen.

“All the hard the hard drives are dead
and they can’t be recovered,” said Sean.

 “You couldn’t retrieve anything?”

“Graphics, layout, editorials, photoshoots—everything
was destroyed. We lost the entire magazine.”

“Shit!” Sabrina said hotly. “The
magazine ships in less than twelve hours—how the hell are we going to make the
deadline?”

“I don’t know, Sabrina. Just hold on.
Start calling and try to get as many people here as you can.”

“No need,” Raquel chimed in. “I called
everyone I could think of. Thought you could use some help. ”

“How did you—” Sabrina started to day
but Raquel cut her off.

“Hey, just because I’m an assistant
doesn’t mean I don’t know how to delegate. You can thank me later.”

“Thank you so much,” Sabrina and Sean
both said at once.

The three of them went over to the
conference room that was filled with staff members sitting around the circular
table waiting for further instructions with blank, but alert expressions on
their faces.

 “Do you think you can handle this?”
Sean whispered to Sabrina. “I know this is a lot to handle, especially on your
first day as editor in chief.”

Sabrina half-smiled. “Yeah, I got this.”
She turned to the staff and said, “Listen up people, as you may or may not
know, I am the new editor-in-chief of this magazine and it is my job to make
sure we recover from this catastrophe that we are in. I admire all of you for
being here and I promise you hard work won’t go un-noticed. So, without further
delay, we have to get to work if we want to get this magazine on the stands as
scheduled. So, let’s get to work.”

It wasn’t easy, but Sabrina definitely
was making things happen and she was quickly getting things done. It was a good
thing she had saved some files on a flash drive and was able to recuperate some
lost editorial spreads that was essential to the next issue. She still couldn’t
believe it was all happening. And still her remind was in overdrive as she was
only three hours in and it looked like things still were messy.

Then the unthinkable happened when she
called for the style and beauty section of the magazine.

“Present and accounted for,” said a
cold, familiar voice from behind Sabrina. “My, oh, my. Why such long faces?”

She turned around and found Camille
flanked by her pal Tasha smiling devilishly with her hands crossed over her
chest.

“You’ve got some nerve showing up. Come
to clean out your office, Camille?” snapped Sabrina.

“No, I’ve come to clean out yours.”

Sabrina laughed softly, despite wanting
to wring her neck.

Camille turned and said, “I am so sick
and tired of this stupid magazine and well, I’m seeking the other side where
they say the grass is greener, and if you’re smart, so can you.” She snapped
her fingers and said, “Tasha, now!”

Her sidekick Tasha pulled a sheet over
an easel to reveal a poster of what looked like a premiere of a magazine called
Camillionare with a picture of Camille.

Tasha said, “Camillionare, the luxury
magazine for trendsetters and those with an eye for style.” She smiled at
Camille.

“You have got to be shittin’ me.”
Sabrina laughed. “I mean come on. You can’t be serious.”

Camille glared, her icy stare could be
felt from across the room “I am dead serious.”

“Seriously, this is a joke, right?”
asked Sean. “Come on, Camille. You don’t even have money, let alone the
resources to start your own magazine.”

She ignored him and said, “We are
currently setting up offices and there are still positions available, if
interested. So, who would like to leave this crumbling dynasty while you still
have a chance?”

No one moved.

Camille said, “I forgot to mention that
Camillionare employees will receive a fifteen percent raise with dental and
medical coverage.”

People started to file over to her
Camille’s side.

“Oh, and cosmetic surgery.”

Then all hell broke loose.

“Camille, you can’t do this. You should
be ashamed of yourself,” said Sabrina.

Camille just smiled and said, “To those
few of you who are choosing to stay behind, your bravery is quite admirable. Kind
of reminds me of when a ship is about to sink and there’s no more life boats.”

“This magazine is not sinking!” said
Sabrina hotly. “My mother built this company from the ground up and I’ll be
damned if I let you think you’re going to come in here and change that.”

“Oh, boo-hoo. Cry me a river, Sabrina.
You’ve always wanted my job as editor-in-chief, haven’t you? Well, now that you
have it, enjoy it while it last in these last few minutes. It’s been fun
working for this garbage magazine that won’t stand a chance against mine. I
can’t wait to hear about the demise of
Fabulous
magazine.”

She turned on her heels and waltzed out
of the room as if she had done something great.

After a moment of silence Sean said, “I
can’t believe that woman is my daughter.”

“That makes two of us,” said Sabrina.
“Now what are we going to do? We’re extremely understaffed.”

Sean said, “We’re going to do just like
your mother would expect us to do and not say anything to her and get this
magazine on stands.” He paused and added, “I believe in you and know you can do
it.”

Now, if only she could see what he
could, she might believe it too.

Even with the extra help Sabrina
received from all over the place, it still didn’t seem like they were getting
anywhere closer to meeting the deadline. The printer was scheduled to have the
magazine by midnight and here it was going on nine-thirty and they still didn’t
have a cover yet, which was the icing on the cake, so to speak. Sabrina knew
being the editor-in-chief was a tough job but she wasn’t expecting to have so
much responsibility riding on her shoulders at once.

She didn’t want to take the chance of
slacking off and instead; she focused all of her energy into making sure she
didn’t overlook anything crucial like reviews, spreads on the spring lines and
photo shoots that had been booked months in advance. Then she got the idea to
call up Chad and had him send over his designs that were supposed to go in the
last issue but didn’t, thanks to Camille. And now, she was finally out of the
way once and for all.

“I’m so proud of you.” Sean snuck up on
her and was standing in front of her desk. “Through the Grace of God, you’ve
managed to save this magazine, for the umpteenth time.”

Sabrina smiled. “Thanks. But I can’t
talk all the credit. Everybody has been very helpful with their contributions.”

“I see.” He paused. “You know, I don’t
know if you your mother ever told you this, but you have your biological
father’s eyes.”