And Counting || Silvanna Snape

Chapter One

Here it is lads!! Good luck xoxo

  New York City, Nineteen-Ninety-Five

Ms Silvanna Snape was a little odd, but that might have been because she was British. She wore lots of tweed and brown, swapping it for creams and whites in the summer, which was psychopath behaviour in their city. And sensible shoes, always flat oxfords, that she had in at least four different colours. She never took the subway, and Catherine didn't think she had any friends. But she did drink coffee, there was that.

She'd joined Monksmith Publishing in early eighty-two, and she'd interviewed her for the Editorial Assistant job herself. She was very pleasant, and her application had glowing references, including two from professors of the fancy public school she went to. It had a funny name that she couldn't remember for some reason. And her qualifications were spectacular, but funny British ones she didn't care to try and comprehend.

She fit right in for the job, and two years of hard-work later, Catherine promoted her to Commissioning Editor. That was when things started to go a little weirder, as they were working closer together now.

For one, it appeared she was married, from the huge purple diamond on her finger and gold wedding band to match.

"I didn't know you were married?" she asked as she passed her desk.

"Oh, he's back in England," she said with a wave of her hand. But Catherine didn't recall her ever taking the time to go and visit him.

She shrugged it off. Plenty of people had to move to the city to start their careers, and it didn't always suit their spouses.

On their lunch break once after a particularly difficult few weeks, Catherine had Silvanna alone again. "Your name's pretty unusual," she commented as they sipped their coffee.

"My mother chose it." Her voice was very soft, but she often spoke like that, in a dreamy, far-off sort of way.

"Do you see much of your family?" she pushed, wanting to know more. After five years of working together, she still felt like she hardly knew her.

"Oh, no," she said. "No, they're all gone."

"Gone?" she frowned.

"Dead or moved away." She shrugged like she didn't care.

"I'm sorry about that," Catherine said, feeling bad. She reached out to hold her hand. "What about friends? I bet you get pretty close to people at boarding school."

"If you think about it, your friends are your family, really."

So, so odd.

She never went to office parties, and according to the other staff, she declined all invitations to meet up on weekends. She was always the first one there and the last one to leave.

"I heard she's an AIDs nurse on the weekends too," Doreen told her in a whisper. "All she must do is eat, sleep, and work."

"Are we talking about Silvanna?" asked Mark, striding over with some paperwork in hand, "Saw her crying at her desk last week."

"Really?" asked Catherine. "When?"

"Must've been what - Monday?"

"Halloween?"

"Mm-hm."

"And she was doing it on Thursday," Doreen added.

But Catherine couldn't complain. She was good at her job - one of the best in fact. How could she complain about a good worker, even if she was so odd?