Chapter 7 - The Phone Call Home
The sun was beginning to dip below the Manhattan skyline, casting long, amber streaks across the interior of my new, sprawling office on the forty-second floor.
My nameplate hadn't even been engraved yet—a temporary paper card reading Sebastian Cole - Global VP of Marketing sat neatly on the edge of the massive mahogany desk.
I stared at my phone lying beside my keyboard. I hadn't called Elena yet. When I left the agency this morning, our entire financial future had been reduced to six weeks of emergency savings and a terrifying question mark. Now, within the span of a single afternoon, my annual salary had just multiplied by five, complete with equity stakes and a corporate restructuring package that gave me total creative control.
I picked up the phone, tapped my home number, and listened to the rhythmic ringing on the other end.
"Hello?" Elena’s voice answered, breathless and tight, as if she was bracing herself for bad news about dinner, or grocery bills, or mortgage extensions.
"El," I said, my voice thick with an emotion I couldn't entirely mask.
"Seb? Honey, are you okay?" She sounded instantly worried. "Did something else happen? You sound... are you crying?"
"No, I'm not crying," I laughed, wiping a sudden tear from the corner of my eye with my thumb. "Well, maybe a little. Sit down, El. I need to tell you something crazy."
"Sebastian, you're scaring me. Did you get into an accident?"
"No accident," I said, standing up and walking over to the floor-to-ceiling window to look down at the bustling evening traffic thousands of feet below. "Remember that woman I stopped to help this morning? The one who collapsed on Route 9?"
"Yes... you said she went to the hospital. Is she okay?"
"She's more than okay," I smiled, the sheer absurdity of the day finally washing over me in a wave of pure euphoria. "Her name is Eleanor Vance. Her daughter is the COO of Vance Global Enterprises. And as it turns out, the municipal transit account Nick's agency lost this morning? It belongs to them."
Silence stretched across the phone line for three full seconds.
May you like
"Sebastian... what are you talking about?" Elena whispered.
"I'm talking about the fact that I'm currently sitting in a corner office on the forty-second floor of the Vance Global building," I said softly. "They fired Nick's agency, and they just hired me to head up their entire global marketing division."
