Amandine

“We still need a thousand more dollars to get your car,” Reggie reminded her for about the fifteenth time. Amandine Aubert was sick of it by now but he wouldn’t stop. She was holding a clipboard, but instead of a sheet of paper, a notepad was attached to it, and on the notepad was a ballpoint pen. In her other hand, she was holding a coffee, which she had completely forgotten about by now.

She and her “unofficial assistant”, Peregrine “Reggie” Moore were standing in Dalling’s Mall, in a Gucci shop, although they were buying nothing. Amandine was a journalist for a big newspaper company, Emerald News and Reggie Moore was her best friend, whom she had chosen as an “unofficial assistant”. She paid him each month or sometimes a little part of what she got paid for each story, which was huge amount of money. Many times it was eight hundred dollars, sometimes, when the news wasn’t good enough or boring or the company wasn’t doing well, then she got paid five hundred dollars and when she got huge news, or something exciting, she got a huge sum of a thousand dollars. She didn’t need to do all of it at all. Her mother was a successful, work-from-home businesswoman, even though her father just stayed home all the time and did nothing.

She had no siblings, although she did have cousins, but she didn’t know them well, because most of them lived in Ireland (her maternal side) or France (her paternal side). Colette Boucher was an annoying second cousin to her. Despite being her father’s first cousin’s daughter, Colette and Mandy didn’t like each other at all. Or maybe that was because they didn’t get along. Collete and Mandy’s fathers were on more than just friendly terms. They were practically each other’s best friends. Colette was a year older than Mandy, and she come to live with the Auberts the previous year. That was because she was going to be attending a university in America and coincidentally, in San Francisco, where the Auberts lived. Mandy’s parents welcomed her whole-heartedly. They now treated her like a complete daughter. They rewarded her for good, punished her for bad. Even Mandy accepted her as a sister.

An evil sister.

Reggie passed his coffee in his left hand, from his right one, and left the hold of the camera that they used to take pictures from. He checked his watch and groaned.

“We’re going to be late for the party, if we don’t hurry,” he told her, almost shoving the watch in her face. It was five-thirty.

“Who would want to go to Colette’s party?” Mandy asked, rolling her eyes. Reggie looked at her, exasperated.

He wasn’t a good-looking or handsome person. In fact, he was far from handsome, but the way he made his expressions paid it off. He had dark brown hair, that hung in a dirty way into his eyes, and he thought that it gave him an intense look, but it just made him look like a sixteen year old guy who badly wanted to be in a band. He had bright green eyes, but that was his only beauty. His cheeks were gaunt, and his nose had been thrice broken. Once from falling when he was three, once from a fight in middle school and once in his freshman year, when he got into another fight.

Mandy had strawberry blonde hair, but she always dyed them with extra strong dyes that lasted for at least five or six months. She had brilliant blue eyes. She thought her nose was too large, but that was just a thought. She was an attractive girl, but she was too busy to look after her looks. Her schedule was very tight, from going to school to working to learning to cook from her mother to helping her to doing her homework to studying for exams to sleeping. She barely had enough time. She always wore long heels, and she wore them so often that even running in them didn’t make her fall over. That was because she was very short. She was only five-two and a half, while most girls in her class were even crossing five-five. She was the only exception. But her heels made her look two-and-a-half inches taller and that did the job. She always tied her waist-length hair into a braid, and she always wore something dark blue, and when not that, she always wore something blood red. She had her thing with dark colors. She adored them.

She yawned. She hadn’t slept enough. And she wasn’t able to find a good enough story. God. No one cared about anything at all. That was when Mandy’s eye caught something and her heart skipped a beat.