Death Do Us Part

Patience

Early morning on the day she was to join Korlin Group, she stood in front of the mirror holding the new clothes that she bought a few days ago, feeling thoroughly inadequate. What was she thinking! What does she know about corporate culture! Moreover, what on earth, could she bring to the table that her new boss, the prodigal CEO of Korlin Group does not already have in abundance! After all, everyone knows, how smart and long-sighted generally are the plans of Korlin Group. Quickly she got ready and ran her eyes, one last time, over Aron Korlin’s schedule for the day, that was mailed to her the last night, and left for work. 

She left half an hour early to leave enough time to reach the headquarter of Korlin Group and finish her orientation before the first meeting of Aron Korlin, which was scheduled at 8 am. As planned, by the time she finished her orientation and received her ID and a smart key to the elevator exclusive to the staffs of the fifty-eighth floor, she still had half an hour left to the meeting. With a smile, she punched her key and stepped into the elevator and as the door closed, she started to rehearse how she would introduce herself to the boss and how she would handle it if he asked her a tricky question or a question that she doesn’t know the answer of. As no one was inside the elevator other than her, she looked straight at the mirrored wall on the side and practised her body language freely.

She could sense the nervousness building up rapidly and stopped practising as the elevator reached mid-way. As it stopped on the fifty-eighth floor, which was solely for the use of the CEO, she could feel the pressure that she had put herself under. For the first time in her adult life, she felt like a little introvert child that was sent to the stage to recite a poem and wanted to run away, but she forced herself to step off the elevator and walk into the huge open space. She quickly spotted a stunning woman sitting behind a semicircular desk that was right beside the door to the CEO’s personal office and approached her.

Before she could open her mouth to ask anything, the woman spoke up in an emotionless tone “Miss Ray?” Although there was a question in her tone, she did not wait for an answer. Instead, she continued with the same monotonous voice, “I am Andrea Buenos, Mr Korlin’s secretary.” What does a man need both a personal assistant and a secretary for?

“You are to accompany, Mr Korlin to the Aetic Valley Power Plant Project meeting,” Andrea continued. She handed her a folder and then said, “Here is the information on today’s matter of discussion and development of the project. You might want to go through them before you leave for the meeting.” Rhea suddenly was extremely thankful that she had half an hour left for the meeting. She quickly opened the folder but could feel the disapproving gaze of Andrea on her, so she raised her head only to find Andrea pointing at the visitor’s chairs with her eyes. Rhea quickly walked towards the chairs, sat on one of them and began to go through the papers in the folder. 

She had a sharp memory, which was how she had finished her degree in journalism and economics simultaneously. Within ten minutes, she had a thorough knowledge of the project from the operational and business point of view. However, she was having a bad hunch about the project. Everything seemed too perfectly lined up, but she had no information that could point at any misdealing.

She was considering whether to talk to Mr Korlin about it and was also hesitant because it was her first day. Why would he pay any consideration to her intuition that she cannot support with facts? Yet, she finally decided that she would tell Mr Korlin about her hunch and he can decide himself if he wants to pay it any mind. But where is Mr Korlin! It was already ten minutes to the scheduled time of the meeting and he was not there yet.

She had already asked Andrea once whether the meeting had been postponed only to be stared at disdainfully before being answered in negative. Five minutes to the meeting, she again walked to her and asked by what time Mr Korlin would be there. This time, to her surprise, Andrea replied that Mr Korlin had been in his office the whole time. He did not leave last night.

So, to avoid the chance of being late to the early morning meeting, he stayed the whole night at the office! No wonder he is such a revered name in the industry! She could not help but admire her boss’s dedication towards his work. This admiration wasn’t to last long. Within five minutes, she was shifting in her chair, as Aron Korlin did not come out of his office as the time of the meeting came and went.

*** 

At ten minutes past eight, she decided to approach the door of Aron Korlin’s office with the intention to remind him of the meeting but, before she could knock on the door Andrea’s bored voice reached her ears, “What do you think you are doing?” Rhea turned to Andrea and informed her of her intentions to remind Aron Korlin of his meeting. Andrea dismissed her immediately saying, that Mr Korlin does not like to be nagged and that he has asked not to be disturbed by anyone until he instructs otherwise.

Rhea felt helpless. Was she supposed to attend the meeting on Mr Korlin’s behalf or was the meeting to be re-scheduled! She asked Andrea, “Then have you re-scheduled the meeting?” Andrea without raising her eyes from her computer screen replied, “no,” then sensing the next incoming question she added, “I follow Mr Korlin’s orders. He has not asked me to cancel the meeting or to reschedule it, so I cannot reschedule it.” Before she could ask the question the woman added, “And no, he did not leave any instructions for you either.”

Almost on cue, somewhere a phone started ringing and Andrea chimed, “You would want to take that.” She was baffled for a moment but quickly regained her instincts and realized that the sound was coming from the desk following that of Andrea. As she approached the desk, she noticed her name on the nameplate that read,

“RHEA RAY

Personal Assistant to Aron Korlin, CEO, Korlin Group”

She quickly picked the wailing phone. The calm yet urgent female voice on the other end introduced herself as Miss Ellie Berns, the executive assistant of Korlin Energies and asked how much time it would take for Mr Korlin to show up to the meeting as the client is insisting on leaving by half-past eight. She wanted to howl that she hasn’t even introduced herself to Mr Korlin yet and that he insists on not being disturbed by anyone but, then she remembered that within fifteen minutes Mr Korlin has a video conference with the executives of Korlin Info Services. Given the subject matter of the meeting today and that Mr Korlin has not made himself available yet, she calmly inquired if the meeting could be postponed until after lunch as the schedule of Mr Korlin was packed until then. With a knowing humph, Miss Ellie Berns said that she would call back after discussing with the client.

Within five minutes Miss Ellie Berns called back informing that the client insists that no other time slot is convenient for them and that the meeting can be arranged only sometime in the next week. Rhea quickly logged in to the server from the desktop in front of her, checked Aron Korlin’s official calendar and gave Miss Bern’s a list of dates and time slots that were still available and shortly after Miss Berns confirmed the rescheduling of the appointment on next week.

Aron Korlin did not come out of his office for once in the following five hours. During this time, Rhea studied all the projects that he was actively handling, the documents that he was sent to consider or sign, and the proposals that he was looking into. As his personal assistant, she had executive access to all his work and schedule; and she did not waste a minute before going through them all. In the meantime, ten minutes to every appointment of Aron Korlin, before which he did not show, she contacted the executive assistant of the CEO of the concerned daughter company of the Korlin Group and rescheduled the appointment. Every half an hour, she called the office of Aron Korlin only to find the line dead.

By the end of the fourth hour, she ran out of documents to go through and started digging into past projects of her new boss. First, she went through his past work then she started to comb through his schedule where she found many instances of similar no-shows of the CEO to important meetings. She finally realized what Rory Korlin was talking about when he said working with Aron might seem a little tasking. By this time, she was already fuming.

She has waited for long hours, sometimes days, in hiding or scavenging for information when she was a journalist, but nothing seemed to have tested her patience the way these few hours, of Aron Korlin refusing to come out of his office, have done. As she was going through every detail available on Aron Korlin on the server, she noticed regular calls from his office to a particular Chinese restaurant.

As the fifth hour ended, she called the Chinese restaurant’s number and asked them to send the same food as they usually deliver to the fifty-eighth floor of the Korlin Group’s Headquarter. Then as the lunchtime arrived and so did a cafeteria staff holding a tray with the food, she knocked on the door of Aron Korlin’s office, despite Andrea’s disapproval and found that the door wasn’t locked. She announced loudly that she was going in then after half a minute’s waiting entered the office and found no one in there.

As she was about to leave she heard the sound of laughter, in a woman’s voice, from somewhere inside the room. She looked carefully and realized that the sound came out of a side door. By the time Andrea entered the office voicing her objection, Rhea had barged into the resting lounge of the CEO through the side door only to find a half-dressed CEO surrounded by four scantily clad women. Women that in any other circumstances she would have found intimidatingly beautiful but at that time she had no intention to pay any mind to them.

She directly looked at the “prodigal” CEO and said, “Sorry for the inconvenience Mr Korlin, but you have an entire afternoon and a significant part of your evening packed with back to back appointments and meetings and if you want to do your lunch before that you’d have to do it now. I’ve already ordered your food from Waldorf.” For a split second, Aron Korlin’s eyes looked surprised as he spotted the familiar logo on the containers on the tray that the cafeteria staff behind Rhea was holding.

Rhea gestured the staff to place them on the side table continuing to talk to Aron “I’m afraid I haven’t ordered enough for your…friends,” She ran her eyes over the two women that were perching on the arms of his couch, “but I can order for them if they tell me what they’d like to eat.” Running her eyes across the room she spotted the emergency closet, walked towards it and picked a fresh set of formal attire all the while talking to Aron, “However, I’m afraid by the time that order would arrive you’d already be out on your first appointment.” The mockery was clear in her words though not audible in her tone. She laid the clothes that she’d just picked carefully beside him then stood straight as if waiting for his orders.

Aron Korlin looked a little dazed. No one in many years has dared to barge into his office, let alone into his resting lounge, not to mention picked his food, his clothes, in short told him what to do in such a passive-aggressive way! He saw her looking at him inquisitively waiting for his orders, and then as if suddenly realizing something, said, “Oh, I am Rhea Ray, your new PA” and extended her hand towards him.