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Part One — Valentina
“First day jitters?” Serena asked as she walked into the living room, where she found her roommate, Valentina, chugging down her third large cup of latte macchiato.
“Me? Jitters?” Valentina Jade Sanderson huffed, setting down the coffee mug on the over-priced recherché table. She flitted about the room restlessly. “Never!”
“You’ve only been up since four a.m. pacing around the apartment.”
“Pacing? More like practicing my yoga, meditating at Millennium Park, brewing herbal tea and doing my sit-ups,” she corrected. “That was after I took my five-mile run around Grant Park.”
“A normal morning, then,” her red-haired roomie commented. Valentina handed her friend a cup of fair-trade espresso she’d made for her, just how she preferred it with two ounces of steamed, organic skim milk and two packets of dried honey on the side. This had been their daily ritual for years.
Valentina perched next to Serena on the cocoa-colored leather couch that faced the lake only three blocks away. Chicago’s famous landmark, Water Tower Place, was framed impressively by the floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the entire room. The vast azure of Lake Michigan behind the water tower was just as magnificent as any ocean or sea in the world, Valentina thought. She had seen most of them firsthand.
The twenty-six-year-old brunette had been anticipating her first day as a permanent employee at Chicago’s most high-end architectural firm, Simson Enterprises, for three months now. After spending the entire summer as an intern, she’d finally earned herself a full-time position with the company. All the years she’d spent busting her butt in grad school, first at the University of Chicago, then at MIT, had finally paid off.
“How do I look?” Valentina asked as she hopped about on new, six-inch Stuart Weitzman heels. They’d been a gift from her father for her accomplishments.
“Glamorous, as always,” replied Serena.
Valentina wore a black, A-line suit-skirt that accentuated her curvy figure and added height to her medium build. A matching tailored, vintage jacket was worn over a dove-grey blouse with big buttons and a flattering notched collar. She’d searched for the perfect shirt for weeks until she found one with the color that exactly matched the shade of her new shoes.
“What about my hair?”
“Ravishing.”
Long, sable tresses had been coiffed into a sleek 1940s chignon that highlighted her silver eyes. A dab of black eyeliner and a swish of mascara were all she needed to emphasize her almond-shaped eyes. Bright claret lipstick finished off her 1940s look and brought out her flawless, youthful complexion.
“Makeup?”
“Immaculate.”
Valentina doubted Serena’s assessment of her. Everything about Valentina Sanderson was ordinary: ash-grey eyes, ash-brown hair, pale-ivory skin, average height, average weight and average bra size. The only thing that wasn’t ordinary was her first name—but even that wasn’t genuinely exotic. Her parents had christened her Valentina Jade Sanderson, after her two beloved grandmothers, Valerie and Tina. She loved both her grandmothers, but she wanted to be exotic, not classic.
“However,” Serena interrupted Valentina’s unusual sojourn into self-pity, “sucking down our entire espresso machine is going to make you late, and you’re going to be a shaky mess from all the caffeine.”
“I have never been late,” Valentina stated truthfully, “and I have never been nervous.”
“Not even when you took the four-day National Architect Registration Exam?” Serena reminded her.
“Only a tad,” she replied honestly. “I had studied for months, and even though I was at the top of my class, it was imperative I did well.”
Serena laughed. It was impossible to get Valentina Sanderson frazzled, unless it was about her looks: one negative comment and she would fall into a puddle of self-doubt. “I can’t wait for the day when someone makes you quake in your boots.”
“That will never happen.”
“We’ll see,” predicted Serena with an amused smirk.
“I have new-employee orientation in an hour and a half, so I should get going.” Valentina took one last sip of her latte.
“How many blocks is it to work?” Serena teased her.
“Five.”
“Yes, it will surely take you ninety minutes to walk five blocks,” Serena scoffed.
Valentina knew her best friend was only joking, but she pursed her lips and put her hands on her hips in mock irritation.
“Be careful you don’t run into Ethan Daniels getting there this early.”
