Lost and Found (A Novel) (7 page)

The presentation was supposed to take about twenty minutes but Caelie was talking so fast that she finished it in just about ten minutes. She could practically hear the shakiness in her voice and avoided making eye contact with anyone in the room, sweeping her gaze constantly across the room. Thankfully Wynne was seated right at the back of the room so Caelie did not have to look at his face. That would most probably have melted whatever confidence she had left. When she was done, she remained standing stiffly, keeping her eyes down, hands clasped tight behind her back, waiting for the criticisms that were bound to come.

Wynne watched with amusement as Caelie stared hard at the ground. Her nervousness was so apparent that he would have a field day mocking her had her proposal not been that well-done. He had to admit that for a first attempt, Caelie’s ideas were good. With some polishing, it could jolly well helped them clinched the deal with the client. Although the way she was rushing through her presentation did not do it much justice. A good thing he had snuck a peak at her proposal papers when she was not at her desk earlier, otherwise, he probably would not have been able to catch much head or tail of it. Even though he already knew the content before Caelie started speaking, he had kept a straight face, not wanting to give her the pleasure of knowing how good she was. He found out soon that he needn’t have done so since the girl was practically ignoring him throughout her presentation. That was probably a smart move since he was sure he would have scowled at her just to intimidate her and that would have probably been disastrous for her.

Clapping from the rest of the members broke through Wynne’s thoughts. Words of encouragement floated through the room but still Caelie stayed rooted at the front, blushing sheepishly from the attention. Smirking, Wynne stood and made his way to the front, leaning casually against the table beside Caelie.

“Well then guys, that concludes our meeting for today. We will be using Caelie’s proposal to pitch.” Caelie’s eyes snapped up towards Wynne incredulously, causing his smirk to grow wider. “I want every one of you to help her touch up the proposal. You have a week to do so before the presentation to the client this Saturday.” There was a chorus of agreements from the team, all of whom were satisfied with his decision. Now, here came the best part, Wynne laughed gleefully in his head. Turning purposefully towards Caelie, Wynne gave her one of his rare award winning smiles. A hint of a smile started to form on her lips. “And Caelie, please brush up your presentation skills. You will be doing the pitching.” Wynne grinned widely as he watched Caelie’s eyes grew bigger, the ghost of a smile disappearing completely from her face, replaced with a gaping mouth instead. The whole room seemed to have grown quiet too. With that, Wynne sauntered out of the room and made his way over to Elise’s office. Elise was sure going to be over the moon that her judgment had been spot on, as always.

“Hey, how did the presentation go?” Alex looked up from her desk as Caelie walked past her cubicle. Her smiling face scrunched up with worry once she registered Caelie’s pale face. Caelie shrugged her shoulders at Alex and sat dejectedly on her chair. Within seconds, Alex had pulled up her chair beside Caelie, looking at her questioningly. “Caelie?”

“My proposal will be used for the pitching.” Caelie said grimly. She heard Alex let out a sigh of relief beside her.

“Well, that’s good then. Why do you look like Wynne had pointed a gun at you? Shouldn’t you be happy?” Alex gave Caelie a baffled look.

“He might as well have.”

“Huh?”

“Wynne wanted me to do the pitching.” Caelie squeaked, dropping her face into her hands.

“And...that is as good as pointing a gun at you because...?” Alex drawled trying to prompt Caelie into elaborating her point.

“Alex, I can’t do presentations!” Caelie moaned, throwing her hands up exasperatedly. Alex still had a puzzled look on her face. “I have what you call stage-fright. I can’t talk in front of a group of people. Just the presentation to my team members alone had me shaking like crazy, what’s more the client! Wynne must have known the jitters I had and he is just doing this to embarrass me.”

Alex frowned slightly as she pondered over what Caelie had said. “Hmm, you can’t have been that bad otherwise Wynne wouldn’t have asked you to pitch. I don’t think he wants to risk losing a client.” No sooner had those words left Alex’s mouth, she suddenly gasped, putting a hand to her mouth, her eyes growing wide as if realization had dawned on her. “Would he?” She finished softly.

“Alex! That’s not helping. You are making me feel worse.” Caelie whined, dropping her head on her desk. She could not afford to cause the company to loose a client and her gut feel was already telling her that she was going to blunder through her presentation. What would Elise think then?

“Hey.” Caelie looked up as Chanell came leaning on her cubicle. She looked questioningly between Alex and Caelie for an instance before returning her focus on Caelie. “Ms. Kerbs wants you in her office now.”

“Great. Just great.” Caelie muttered under her breath as she stood up and made her way to Elise’s office. Looking back at Alex, she saw her mouthed the words ‘good luck’ and gave her a thumbs up. Bracing herself, she continued on through the open door.

Barely two steps in, Caelie stop dead in her tracks. She blinked as she caught the figure seated on one of the chairs in front of Elise. Unconsciously, her lips turned downwards into a frown. Why wasn’t he perched at his usual spot by the window? Should she take the vacant seat? That would sure be uncomfortable.

“Come, take a seat Caelie.” Elise’s clear crisp voice rang through the room before Caelie could make up her mind. Awkwardly, Caelie made her way towards the chair. Sitting down, she could feel Wynne’s eyes following her movements. He seemed to be enjoying himself, much to Caelie’s displeasure. Deciding to ignore his presence, Caelie focused her attention on Elise and what she had to say. “So Caelie, how has it been for you working in Wynne’s team? I did promise you that we could review this project and if you think that you are not gaining anything at all from this, then we can stick to what you do best. It’s your call Caelie.”

Caelie swallowed her saliva. This could be the solution to her dilemma. The answer to her prayers. The easy way out from her predicament. All it needed was for her to tell Elise that the project had not benefited her. Even though she had indeed learnt much from it. Could she lie to Elise just so she need not have to pitch? But that would mean disappointing Elise and she had promised her that she won’t. There was an underlying meaning behind Elise’s words. It was as if she was confident that Caelie would give a positive response. Unconsciously, Caelie sighed.

A soft chuckle came from her right. She knew it! Wynne would do just about anything to get her off his team. Lying to Elise would saved her from the humiliation of pitching and potentially losing the client. But she would also be playing into Wynne’s cards and gave him another cause for gloat, not to mention breaking her promise to Elise. Quick Caelie, decide, she implored herself. She had to say something soon. Already, Elise’s intense gaze was beginning to unsettle her.

“We don’t have all the time in the world to wait for you to form your first words.” Wynne remarked, a tad too cheerfully.

That made up the decision for Caelie. She turned slowly towards Wynne with a wide smile plastered on her face and then turned back to face Elise. “I loved working for the team, Ms. Kerbs. It was a great learning experience for me.” Two could play at the game, Caelie thought smugly. Beside her, Wynne shifted uncomfortably while Elise broke into a huge grin, certainly satisfied with Caelie’s response.

“I’m glad to hear that Caelie. I knew I had made the right decision by placing you under Wynne’s wings. Certainly Wynne thinks likewise too since he had given you the honor of presenting the proposal.” An unexpected chuckle came from Elise. “Wynne always did the pitching himself. This would be the first time that he is sending someone else, what more an intern. I trust his judgment so I can’t wait to see the respond from our client.”

Uh oh, Caelie thought as she glanced sideways at Wynne. There was a grim look to his face now as he gritted his teeth, his jaws clenched tight. Clearly he had not expected the response that came from Caelie. Even she herself did not realize the repercussion of their game. No wonder the whole team had gone shocked silent when Wynne announced that she will be doing the pitching. It had never happened before!

“And since Caelie is such an asset to the team, I am going to extend her attachment with you, Wynne.” Elise continued.

“WHAT?” Wynne’s jaw dropped and his eyes almost bulged out of their sockets. What? Caelie echoed silently. Her own mouth gaping. Perhaps ‘loved’ had been too strong a word choice. “You can’t do that. What about her journalism?” Wynne reasoned. Desperation could be heard in his voice. Absentmindedly Caelie’s head nodded in agreement.

“Don’t worry about that. Of course her journalism comes first. She still has a long time with us. For now, let her just enjoy her new found interest.” Elise waved her hands dismissively at Wynne. “Right, Caelie?” She said next.

“Uh, right.” Caelie said with not an ounce of enthusiasm.

“Fine.” Wynne barked, pushing back his chair roughly and storming out of the room. Gulping, Caelie watched as his figure disappeared from her line of sight. What had she just done? Her fate had been sealed, by her own words no less.

“Aarrggh!!” Wynne shouted in the confines of his office. Pacing around his room, everything in his way became a victim of fury as he kicked them around, not caring that at the end of the day his feet was the one that would end up hurting. He thought that his plan was perfect. How could it have failed? What was that girl even thinking? She couldn’t present for goodness sake! And now Elise had thought that she was good enough that he had selected her. Even worse, he was stuck with her for much longer. “Way to go Wynne.” He mumbled sarcastically to himself.

Dropping onto his couch, Wynne groaned, rubbing his hands over his face. He didn’t have a choice now but to go through with it. He just had to pray hard that Caelie could somehow miraculously improved her presentation skills in a week’s time and not embarrassed them. Just as the thought entered his head, a slow smirk began to creep up his face. Perhaps it would not be such a bad idea if Caelie were to embarrass them. Then, Elise would definitely shipped her back to Alex without much hesitation. That should work then. He just had to have a back-up plan to salvage the situation with the client after that. His spirits lifted, Wynne went whistling out of his office.

Music blared in the background as Wynne kept his focus on the pool table. The air-con was on full-blast yet he felt stuffy in the room packed with bodies bumping against each other as they bend over wielding their cues. If it was up to him, he would rather be at home than in this place. A curse escaped his mouth when someone bumped into him, causing his aim to go off tangent. A chuckle reverberated beside him. Glaring at the owner of the chuckles, Wynne stalked off to his seat.

“Why are you so grumpy today?” Dale Fracasso asked as he punched Wynne playfully on his arm. Wynne sighed loudly, causing Dale to laugh even louder. Dale had been Wynne’s best buddy since his college years and he was the only one besides his sister who knew about his past guilt.

Tugging roughly at his tie, Wynne slouched down further in his seat, burying his tired face in his hands. “I just don’t understand your fascination with this place. It’s practically crawling with teenagers! There are a lot more places way better that we could have gone to. I can’t believe you still dragged me here.”

“That’s the whole point. We can find lots of pretty young things in this place. And all dying to get our attention.” Grinning wolfishly, Dale pointed to a group of girls who were giggling away and smiling coquettishly in their direction. Wynne rolled his eyes. Dale had always been a player since their college days. Unlike Wynne who went for the occasional mature women, Dale chose to flirt with the younger ones.

“They are just plain annoying.”

“Ah...I see. The intern is the cause of your misery.” Dale said dramatically, while making eyes at the group of girls. Wynne sat up straighter, frowning. Had it been very obvious? As far as he could remember, he had totally avoided even mentioning about anything relating to Caelie in his conversation with Dale that night. How on earth could he have figured it out?

“What, are you a psychic now?” Wynne said sarcastically, watching in disgust at the blatant flirting exchange between Dale and the girls. They looked to be in their mid-teens at the most. Yet, they were dressed in low cut short dresses and balancing precariously on ridiculous stilettos. As they danced and giggled, they looked as if they were trying too hard to appear older than their age. He just could not figure out what about such girls that could attract Dale’s interest so much.