After a while, they were finally done. They'd gotten the skirts Johanna wanted, double-checked Tier 15's appearance, and talked with both Willow and Natalie. They returned to their desks in a heap.
"Whew! We're done." Martha breathed.
"I told you we can get it done faster together." Heather said as a girl with black hair and glasses came in. She got up from her desk. "Ah, Lois. Looks like it's time for lunch."
"It is." Lois said before noticing Martha. "Is that her?"
"Yeah, that's the new girl, Martha May."
"Um, hi."
"She doesn't look like much." Lois whispered to Heather.
"Appearances can be deceiving, my friend." Heather said, nudging her in the ribs. "Oh, Martha. I'm about to go on my lunch break with Lois. I get twenty minutes for lunch and you get fifteen. So when I come back, you can go."
"Okay, good to know. Again, thanks for your help." Martha said.
"Don't mention it." Heather replied as she and Lois walked away.
"Heather?" Johanna's voice said.
Thinking fast, Martha took a notepad and pen and headed into Johanna's office to see what she wanted this time. Luckily, Franklin was in there with Johanna and a few other people. He noticed and quickly went over to her.
"What are you doing here? He called Heather." He whispered.
"She just went on lunch with someone named Lois." Martha whispered.
"Oh boy. Well, now that you're here, you might as well listen. And good job in taking notes." Franklin said before going back over to Johanna. "What'd I miss?"
"Nothing much." Johanna casually replied.
They were discussing about fashion something Martha couldn't decipher; they were looking at a cocktail dress with a sheer pink wrap around the waist and hips.
"Where are the belts for this dress?" Johanna asked before a girl went over and picked up two belts. She sighed. "Why is no one ready?"
"Here they are. It's a tough call, though." The girl said, holding up the two belts. They looked almost identical, except for the buckles. One was a formal automatic latch buckle and the other looked like a buckle people would see on a wrestling championship belt. "They're so different."
Martha took a quick look at the belts and thought long and hard about both of them. She thought the latch buckle wouldn't flatter the dress at all, but the wrestling buckle would compliment it rather nicely. Johanna and everyone else turned their heads in Martha direction just as she looked down at her notes.
"Something funny?" Johanna asked.
Martha looked up from the notepad to see everyone else staring at her. She paused, trying to find the right words. "What? No. No, no of course not. I just thought the dress would look better with the belt with the wrestling buckle rather than the latch buckle, especially if they were a different color. Like a deep red or auburn or even black, for example. But I didn't mean to butt in. I'm still learning everything here and—"
"No, wait. Come over here." Johanna ordered; Martha reluctantly did as she was told, only for Johanna to snatch the paper and pen out of her hands. "You said you don't read Who Runway often. And that you don't know much about fashion." She turned Martha around to face the dress. "See if you can find the perfect accessories for this dress. I want to see what you can do."
"...Okay." Martha took the wrestling buckle belt and wrapped it around the dress.
"Don't stop there. Keep going." Johanna commented.
And she did. Martha took a red velvet jacket and a magenta scarf, put the jacket on the hanger over the dress, and tied the scarf around the hanger over the dress. She paused.
"What do you think?" She asked.
Everyone stared at Martha with wide eyes; they hadn't expected Johanna's newest second assistant to do something like this, especially since she said she hardly knew much about fashion in general. Johanna looked at Martha.
"...Not bad. Not bad at all." She said before pausing. "You can go to lunch now."
"Oh? Oh! Uh, thank you, Johanna." Martha said before she made a quick exit.
Franklin gaped at Martha before she vanished from view. In the cafeteria, Martha couldn't believe what just happened. She got her food and looked around, hoping to find Heather and Lois and she soon found them at a table by a window.
"I have no idea why Johanna hired her, honestly." Heather said.
"Me neither." Lois said.
"Hey, mind if I sit with you?" Martha asked.
Heather and Lois looked to see Martha standing there.
"Uh, sure." Heather offered her a seat, which she promptly took. As she watched Martha eat, Heather looked confused. "What are you doing here?"
"Johanna let me go to lunch." Martha replied, taking a bite out of a roast beast sandwich. "Well, after she told me to coordinate and put together an outfit for her."
"She what?" Lois asked.
"Yeah. I just made a comment about some belts and she told me to add the right accessories for a dress they had out. So, I did."
Lois and Heather looked at each other then at Martha, just as shocked as Johanna and their other superiors.
"I thought you said you don't know much about fashion." Heather commented.
"I don't... At least I don't think so." Martha casually replied.
The three girls sat in silence for the rest of their lunch break.
After work, Martha sat alone on her bed, wondering what just happened to her that very day. She was practically given the second assistant job at Who Runway, Heather Whomont offered to help her on her first assignments, and Johanna Starling asked her to put together an ensemble. She would've never expected this, any of this. She picked up her purse and took out a picture frame; it was a picture of her and the Grinch from the Christmas Pageant all those years ago. She smiled before she heard the front door open; August was home early. She quickly put the framed picture away and went out of the room to meet with August.
YOU ARE READING
Working in Fashion
General Fiction[The Grinch 2018] Martha May went to school to become a teacher and she thought that would become just that. But instead, she ended up getting a job at Who Runway Fashion Magazine... and she hated it.
