THE MIRRORED WEREWOLF MODEL

#5 The Selection Process

The office is buzzing with endless incoming calls, it is one call after the other. The last-minute applicants are calling in to check the status of their applications and to also check if their emails have been received or not since today it is the last day of the applications. Both Chloe and Sandra’s emails inbox are full, and some messages are bouncing back. Chloe has even decided to put her cell-phone on silent, poor Sandra she can't do the same even if she wished to. Their desks are covered by the pictures of more than one thousand models, some pictures are even scattered on the floor. They are having hard time choosing their top hundred candidates.

"Sandra, don't you have some painkillers stored somewhere in your bag?" Asks Chloe as she moves away from the office telephone which is next to her desk and goes on to relax on the two-seater couch at the corner of her office.

"I sure do have some, you can't survive in this office without any painkillers." Sandra’s cell-phone rings whilst still searching for the headache pills inside her bag.

"Hello, my name is Pollance Smith. I had just completed my registration for the competition, and I want to know if it's showing on your side?" Asks the applicant

"Please wait for me while I check for you." Sandra stops searching her bag and checks the status of Pollance on her laptop while having her phone pressed against her shoulder to balance it.

"You said your name is Pollance, right? Yeah, your application came through, thank you. Bye." she hangs up and pulls out the headache pills from her bag and passes them on to Chloe then back to assessing the applicants' pictures.

"Call Glenda to come and assist us. Tell her it is just for today because of our workload." orders Chloe

Glenda is the general worker from their marketing department. Glenda could not waste time and Chloe instructs her to go occupy her desk and gives her access to her laptop and asks Sandra to guide her through the work.

Few minutes just after Glenda sat down, the telephone rings and she picks it up.

"Hello, may I please speak to Miss Chloe Hemilton." the sweet feminine voice behind the phone asks with desperation.

"You would like to speak to Miss He.. mi..lton?" Glenda turns on to look at Chloe as she stutters Chloe’s surname while still having the phone on her ear,

Chloe silently nods her head in disagreement, signalling to Glenda to either drop the call or take the message.

Glenda continues with the call anyway. "How can I assist you, ma'am?"

"No thank you, I specifically wanted to talk to Miss Hemilton. Bye." The caller hastily hangs up.

"And your name please?" Asks Glenda.

Unfortunately the caller had already dropped the call from her side and Glenda's question remained answered.

"Who was that?" Asks Chloe in bewilderment.

"I did not get the name, but the background sounded a little bit noisy with a soothing music and I could also hear voices of people talking softly too." Glenda responds with such despair as if she failed to keep a promise of some sort or something.

The minute Glenda mentions something about the music and the people, the first person to cross Chloe's mind was none other than Stacey. She hastily stands up to reach for her cell-phone on her desk and spots an unknown number as a missed call. She looks up the unknown number using Google from her cell-phone. The number comes up showing it belongs to Eminent club, confirming her suspicions. She then takes her cell-phone from the silent mode into a ringing mode and then switches the sitting positions with Glenda, sitting closer to the office telephone hoping for Stacey to call again.

It is now time to leave the office and Sandra is taken aback by the fact that Chloe is suddenly opting to stay behind. Not once since the establishment of CMA, no matter the workload, had Chloe remained behind after working hours. For Sandra, she doesn't see the need for Chloe to remain behind because most of the work is done. They have already selected their top hundred candidates and sent out emails to the first group of fifty models inviting them to come to their offices first thing tomorrow morning for interviews. Both Sandra and Glenda exit the office anyway, leaving Chloe behind without asking her any questions.

Chloe now alone in office, every time her phone or the office telephone rings, she jumps and picks up on the first ring, crossing her fingers it be Stacey calling. After refraining several times from calling the number, she finally surrenders and calls the number back.

"Good evening and thank you for calling Eminent Club. You speaking to Brandon, the manager. How may I assist you?" Brandon spoke so fast that Chloe missed his name, she only heard the word manager. She responds anyway.

"Hi, my name is Chloe. May I please speak to Stacey."

"Sorry ma'am, Stacey had already knocked off."

"Can I have her personal phone number then?" pleads Chloe

"Unfortunately, I cannot be able to do that ma'am. How about you give me yours and she will return your call?"

"No, it's fine. I will call again tomorrow. Bye." she hangs up and looks at the time from her wristwatch. It is only an hour remaining before the applications close. She locks up the office and leaves. Even when she got home, she jumped to every message popping up on her cellphone screen, as well as the ones from her laptop, hoping it’s Stacey, regrettably it was not her. She stayed up until it was time for applications to close and only then she gave up and went to bed.