Beautifully Broken

Keira Swanson opened the glass doors of Viatorum magazine and entered determinedly. It was Labor Day, but she, like the rest of the writers, had been summoned to work at the last minute.

Keira knew full well that there was no emergency, nothing important enough for a public holiday summons. But the travel magazine was an extremely competitive environment, and its boss, Joshua, liked to “create opportunities to weed out the weak.” Anyone who made too much drama about working on a holiday, or who seemed too .

unhappy during his meetings, he would quickly find himself unemployed. Keira had worked so hard to get a writing job, she wasn't going to make it an obstacle, even if it meant leaving her boyfriend Zachary at home to organize a family brunch without her.

Her black high-heeled shoes clicked on the pristine white floor as she hurried over to her desk. Viatorum's headquarters were located in the trendiest part of New York City, in a huge old warehouse that had been elegantly adapted for an office. The windows were huge, stretching from floor to ceiling domed, where steel beams with large pegs still stood from when the place was used as a warehouse. The open environment meant that every conversation was heard. Even the whispers echoed. It also meant that no one dared bring anything that smelled too strongly of lunch. Keira still remembered the day a new writer, a silly young woman named Abby, brought her a tuna salad on her first day. The moment Joshua smelled the salad, he quickly ensured that this was Abby's first, last, and only day at the Viatorum.

As she surveyed the large room, Keira noticed that she hadn't been the first to arrive. Nina, a friend of hers and one of the assistant editors at Viatorum, was already hunched over her desk, typing on her keyboard. She flashed a brief smile at Keira and dove back into her work.

Keira tossed her bag onto her desk and dropped into her chair, careful that her sigh was inaudible. She didn't know that working at the highly regarded Viatorum magazine would involve so much acting, so much false interest in conversation, so much pretending to be oh-so accomplished.

Through the glass partition that separated Joshua from his employees, Keira realized he was watching her. She wondered what he was thinking, if he was surprised to see that she had been the second person to answer his urgent summons, or if he was hunting someone to fire and she had just become the prey that had wandered into his territory.

Joshua appeared in the glass partition. He was wearing a bright blue suit and his hair was done up in a pompadour. He approached Keira's table.

“Have you finished your research on Ireland yet?” he asked, not even bothering to say hi.

Ah yes, the article about the Festival of Love that Joshua had been assigned to write by Elliot, the CEO of Viatorum. It was supposed to be a huge and important project—or so Joshua implied—though Keira couldn't understand how a silly article on arranging marriages, during an outdated ceremony in a strange village in Ireland, could be conceived as important. Still, Joshua was in an even more sordid mood than usual, and his newest writer, Keira, had been tasked with doing all the research he was “too busy” to do.

More like very arrogant, Keira thought silently as she looked up and smiled. “I emailed you before I left on Friday.”

“E-mail me again,” Joshua demanded without hesitation. "I don't have time to search my inbox for him."

“No problem,” Keira said, remaining more cordial than ever.

Joshua returned to his office and Keira sent him the email containing the vast amount of information she had gathered about the Irish Love Festival, smiling to herself as she remembered how silly it all was, how sickeningly romantic.

As soon as the email left her inbox, the doors opened and a handful of Viatorum writers walked in, all pretending not to be bothered to be in the office on what should have been a national holiday. Keira could hear the chatter as they tried to outdo each other with their sacrifices.

“My niece is competing in a baseball tournament,” said Lisa. “But this is much more important. She cried a lot when I told her I was leaving, but I know she will understand when she is older and has a career of her own.”

Duncan was not going to let himself be bested. “I had to drop Stacy off at the airport. We can visit Madrid at another time, it's not like Madrid is going to move.”

"I just left my mother in a hospital bed," added Victoria. “Her condition is not critical or anything like that. She understands that my career comes first.”

Keira continued to smile to herself. The corporate environment at Viatorum seemed completely unnecessary to her.

She wished that her career could develop through dedication, skill, and hard work rather than her proficiency in flattery. That's not to say Keira wasn't focused on her career—career was the most important thing in her life at the moment, though she wouldn't admit it to Zachary—she just didn't want to change to fit the magazine's culture.

She often felt like she was biding her time, biding her time to shine.

A second later Keira's phone vibrated. Nina had sent one of her confidential messages.

I don't think Joshua prepared you for the fact that Elliot is coming to this meeting.

Kira was surprised. Although the Viatorum CEO was a million times nicer than Joshua, she was more anxious in his presence. It held the key to her career future. He was the person with the power to hire and fire, the person whose opinion really mattered. Joshua would never tell Keira if she had done a good job, or that her writing had improved, no matter how hard she worked. Elliot, on the other hand, gave praise when it was deserved, which was rarely, but it made getting one even better.

Keira was about to text Nina when she heard the sound of Joshua's fast footsteps approaching.

“What the hell is this crap, Keira?” he yelled before he even got to his table.

His words echoed through the office. All heads turned to watch the latest verbal attack, simultaneously happy that they weren't receiving it, and excited by the possibility that another sacrificial lamb would satisfy Joshua's need to fire.

"Pardon?" Keira asked sympathetically, even though her heart was pounding.

“That crap about Ireland! All that is useless!”

Keira didn't know how to respond. She knew she'd done some good research; she followed the specifications, she presented her findings in a friendly document, she went above and beyond what was asked. Joshua was in a horrible mood and taking it out on her. This was probably a test to see how she would react to a public verbal attack.

“I can do some new research if you want,” Keira said.

“Not enough time!” shouted Joshua. "Elliot will be here in fifteen minutes!"

“Actually,” Nina interrupted, “your car just parked.” She leaned back in her chair and looked out the large window.

Joshua turned red. “I won't take the blame for this, Swanson,” he said, pointing at Keira. “If Elliot is disappointed, he will know whose fault it is.”

He strode back to her table. But on the way, one of his leather shoes ended up in a puddle of coffee that one of his eager, hurried writers had spilled onto the tile floor in his haste to get to work.

There was a moment of suspenseful animation, where Keira could sense that a terrible event was about to happen. And there it began, Joshua's cartoon-like slide and stumble motions.

He twisted his torso as if in a strange dance as he tried to keep his balance. But the combination of tile floors and macchiato was too grandiose to top.

Joshua completely missed his stride, with one leg going forward while the other twisted awkwardly beneath him. Everyone gasped as he landed heavily on the hard floor. A crunching noise sounded through the huge office, echoing sickeningly.

"My leg!" Joshua yelled, grabbing his shin.

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Writer of this book: Sophie Love.