PROLOUGE
NAOMI
A flood of flashing lights of local news cameras were blinding me. "Naomi! Over here!"
Was this how it felt like to have it all? Everything you could imagine coming true so fast. Still to this day, it was a strange feeling. This was my new life and I owed it all to my own selfish decisions.
"Naomi! How does it feel to be your own boss?" One male reporter shouted out from a distance. My feet centered better in heels on the top of the staircase of my new palace of passion.
That was a loaded question. I had always been my own boss—regardless of my new net worth. I hadn't played it safe since I could remember and now, I can finally be a positive statistic.
If there was one thing I had ever learned, was that life was too short to just take it easy all the time. Follow every rule there could be until you finally got your big break.
At some point, certain rules were made to be broken.
Pushing past the crowd as a gust of wind nearly swept me down to my knees, an older woman appearing to be in her late forties raced up to me with a graceful smile. Holding up a mic to her pursed mouth as her cameraman followed shortly behind, I flashed her with a grin too. "Miss Naomi! Beverly Hunt, senior journalist of the 'Chicago Tribune', here to scoop out the truth of how a promising young woman like yourself is making a significant difference in this world for the better. Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?"
Standing behind me, I peered over to my favorite girl in the world who kept staring at me with the proudest expression across her soft dimpled cheeks dressed in her Sunday best and agreed.
"Great!" Beverly spun her body to the lens. "You heard her, folks! Live from the grand opening of Your Voice, Your Job headquarters—a non profit organization specializing in outsourcing the least considered candidates seeking the career of their dreams despite all the odds stacked against them, I'm here with CEO and founder, Naomi Warner." She spun back to me. "Now Naomi!" The crowd quieted down a bit. "The world wants to know. In light of everything you've been through thus far—including rumors of being another heiress who just needs to make a tax write-off, how did you manage to start an important cause as this?"
Giggling to myself at how these supposed 'rumors' couldn't have been more farther from the real facts, I couldn't sit here and feed into them.
Your Voice, Your Job's overwhelming success was something I took with a grain of salt. It was a legacy I had to now honor for the rest of my life and I wouldn't let anyone tarnish it.
So if she came for the truth, she was going to get it from me directly.
"Well..." I stared behind me again. My pride and joy nodded, taming her loose and curly long hazelnut hair in a more stylish ponytail for the cameras. "Like anyone in a desperate situation would've..." I faced her and smiled. "With one big lie."
The entire vicinity gasped loudly, shooting me a piercing gaze of astonishment mixed with disapproval.
Busted.
