Hazel Blackmore, was late. She was never late. Hazel prided herself on the fact that she was obsessively early. Like, bring a book and find somewhere to sit and hide, so you don’t look like a nerd, early. She bristled at the nerd label. So what if she tended to err on the nerdy early side? Early was responsible, and early was respectable. Late was for losers. Today, she was a loser. A loser on the most important day of her career thus far.

After spending hours on her finishing touches for the presentation, she had set her alarm before she crashed into bed. She had set it loud enough to rouse the dead, but she’d somehow slept through it. Maybe she should get a roommate. She swallowed a surge of anxiety and picked up her pace as the Florida sun pounded down on her loose, blonde waves. Wasn’t blonde supposed to reflect the sun?

Her heels clacked a determined rhythm on the sidewalk as she hurried toward the office of Blackwell and Crawley. She tripped around a small construction site, a manhole surrounded by a few traffic cones, and there was a long, deep whistle.

“Hey, sexy lady!”

Hazel hated tardiness but thought disrespect was worse, so even though she was late, she stopped on the sidewalk. What was it with these men and their strange desire to express their masculinity through harassment? Did guys really think a wolf-whistle would turn a woman on so badly that she’d feel the need to stop in her tracks, throw her arms around him and thank him for the validation? The construction dude was surprised when he noticed her halted step. He looked even more surprised as she shifted her laptop case and bulky design portfolio so she could place her hands on her hips in what she considered a threatening manner.

“Button it, you! I’m not in the mood.”

Hazel turned away and clacked on. Duty done. She heard his laughter behind her but refused to turn around. Maybe later, the echo of her tough words would help him recall his bad behavior. Maybe he would regret it.  

The sweat was starting to trickle into her freshly ironed collar as she pushed her way into the lobby of Blackwell and Crawley. She felt a strand of her hair stick to her neck and felt a jolt of panic. She hadn’t put her hair up! It was so unprofessional to have loose hair in front of a prospective client. She dug into her bulging purse, pushed past her wallet, her makeup bag, a box of Band-Aids… hey, you have to be prepared for everything, and grabbed the hair clip that was gripping to the bottom. She placed her briefcase and portfolio carefully on the floor, against the wall where no one was likely to have walked, and using the interior glass door as a mirror, she whipped her hair into a tight bun. She smiled and nodded at her reflection. Now that was more appropriate.

The door of the stairwell just outside the second-floor conference room stuck as usual, so she used her left hip to give it a sharp shove and it swung open. Voices.

“So, let’s start with our initial branding concept, and we can delve deeper from there.”

Wait! Was that Samuel speaking? Why was Samuel speaking?  

She rushed toward the room, glancing frantically through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Liz was sitting across from Samuel who was indeed talking; she gave her an apologetic wince of a smile.

“Ah, here she is,” Samuel said. “So nice of you to join us, Hazel. We thought we’d just get started.”

Since the day she started working as a “Partner Consultant” for Blackwell & Cromley, her best friend Liz had had her back. When the popular marketing firm had too much work for the partners, like Liz, they frequently outsourced projects to freelancers they called “Partner Consultants.” Liz had managed to keep Hazel pretty busy by having her as the only freelancer to pitch for projects that came across her desk, but all that had changed when Samuel had come along. A Board Member had informed Liz that Samuel was to be permitted to compete for all projects. He was a best friend of a son, or the nephew of a brother, or the alumni of an alma mater, or something. Supposedly he was an “impresario.”

He was also a sleazebag. And a skinny-mustached 25-year-old who couldn't grow a mustache more robust than a plucked eyebrow, in Hazel's mind, didn't deserve such an adult moniker as "impresario." Plus, she hadn’t seen any proof that Samuel was good at anything other than swiping the last donut from the break room and snapchatting through meetings. But, Liz had been forced to invite him in to bid on this job. This job, the job that was Hazel’s golden ticket to an equity partnership. Sometimes, “Partner Consultants” got an offer to join the firm as an equity partner. Rumor had it that the next invitation would come at the end of the summer. Sure, you had to “buy in” to become an equity partner (i.e.: give the company money) and it would cost Hazel about $20,000, but she would easily be able to save that from the wages earned on this project. Liz and Hazel and had been setting up the “Pelican Key Condos” project as Hazel’s project for months. Hazel would blow the Board away with the results she achieved for Pelican Key, and Liz had confidence that they would be offering Hazel a partnership before the end of the summer.

Hazel stared at Samuel now in shock. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

“Get started?” Hazel turned toward Sharon of “Pelican Key Condos,” the client for her future career-defining project. Sharon was on her side. Two nights ago in a margarita-fueled night out they had bonded so quickly that Sharon had told her how she hated her boyfriend and their crappy sex life. “I’m so sorry I’m late, Sharon. Samuel’s new. He wouldn’t know that I always go first. Just give me a few minutes to set up.”

Sharon smiled at Hazel and shook her head. “No, it’s fine. We don’t mind hearing Samuel first.”

Okay, so maybe she wasn’t completely on her side. Perhaps she regretted the sex life confession. Anyway - did it matter if Samuel went first? Samuel’s ideas were terrible, and his presentation skills were worse. He hadn’t won a single project yet. If he went first, he would just make her ideas shine all the brighter. Still, that thought didn’t calm the angry butterflies that suddenly swarmed her stomach.

Hazel smiled and gave Sharon her best, “I’m not concerned” shrug. “Sure. Whatever you’d prefer, Sharon. You’re the boss.”  She made her way quickly to a seat at the conference table scowling in Samuel’s direction. He pointedly ignored her. As she was trying to untangle herself from her bags, she glanced around the room at the easels she had come in to set up the night before. Easels she’d spent hours placing at just the right angles to show off her stellar design concepts and blow Sharon away. It wasn’t fair that Samuel would get to use them before she did.

She stopped, her butt hovering just above the leather seat, her briefcase dropping to the floor with a thud.

Hang on a second. Were those her designs? She rubbed her eyes and looked again. Nope - she hadn’t been seeing things. Those were her designs. What were her designs doing on those easels when she knew for a fact they were in the portfolio case at her feet? She leaned toward the easel closest to her to get a better look, and Samuel turned toward her and out of Sharon’s line of sight. He grinned, his eyebrow mustache curling creepily, and gave Hazel a surreptitious wink.

A wave of impending doom rolled down the conference table toward her. She stared at the easel. Well, for sure the graphics displayed weren’t the ones sitting in the portfolio at her feet. The work was executed sloppily; she would have never presented it in that state. It had obviously been created without care and attention to detail. The wobbly edges and blurred pixels set her teeth on edge. But they were her designs, all right. She glanced around the room again, and the easels wavered. Her brain felt fuzzy.

What the hell was going on?