Perfection

“And just a couple of blueberries. Bring in those antioxidants!” she giggled to herself preparing her daily smoothie.

She went through her morning routine, a harmoniously synchronized ritual that took years to bring to the perfect state it was in today. The last step was to carefully tuck in her agenda in the purse. The agenda was her treasure, her main source of pride and joy. It was filled with colored paper markers sticking out, none of them out of place, they were each pointing to a specific page where the neatest handwriting indicated an important color-coded reminder.

She left the house very early, as she usually does, to avoid the traffic, but also to still arrive to work in time in case there would be heavy traffic. She hated the lack of control over her commute, but she was satisfied with her precautionary measures. She loved her job as an executive assistant to one of the main partners in the company. She was happy to show off her exquisite organizational skills and it made her feel important, after all, the partner would be completely lost without her.

In the office, she placed her purse in its designated spot next to her desk and took out the agenda. She would look though it and have a few smoothie sips while the computer was booting up.

That’s when she saw it, smoothie stuck mid-swallow, shock filling her eyes, in red ink and followed by three exclamation marks: “7:00 AM - Come to work one hour earlier and prepare the meeting room for William!!!”. She looked at the clock: 7:38 AM! She dropped her beloved agenda and ran towards the meeting room. Through the glass door she saw William, her boss, sitting at the meeting table and listening to the presentation that was going on. She analyzed what she saw. Did he have his laptop? Yes, but the charger was not there! What if the battery runs out?! How could William contribute to this meeting with a non-functioning computer?! Did everyone have drinks? They seemed to have gotten coffee from the kitchen, but where were the biscuits? People will want to relieve the bitter coffee taste and there were no biscuits! She looked closer at William’s face. Did he seem upset? Was that a frown? He must have been looking for her, needing her and she was just not there!

She started feeling cold and hot at the same time, vision blurred, knees giving in. She ran to the bathroom and into the first stall. Hands shacking on the lock as she slowly melted to the ground. The boulder sitting on her chest was making it difficult to breathe. “How could you forget?! How could you be so stupid?! William will hate you! And he should. You messed up really bad!” In matter of seconds she went through the scene of her boss yelling at her, leading to her inevitable firing, the impossibility of her finding a new job, because who would hire a failure?! And then the image of her mother’s disappointed face, the same strict expression that has been staring down at her for her whole life.

After a few minutes that seemed like hours, she came back to the present and realized William’s meeting will be ending soon and she should be there to face the music. She stood up, unwrinkled her clothes, combed her hair with her fingers and slowly walked back to her desk.

William finally came back from the meeting. Let the storm begin…

“Hey Laura. How’s it going? Oh, before I forget, can you set me a reminder to look through the March sales report before the end of the week? Thanks!”