‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

‘No, I’m sorry’ the woman in red said.

‘What’s wrong?’ the woman in red took a while to answer.

‘My boyfriend cheated on me. Again’

‘Oh no…’

‘I dumped him’

‘Well… good on you!’

‘Yeah’ the woman in red started crying.

‘Oh Angie’ the woman in white started to hug her, rubbing her back.

‘I’ll be fine, honest’ a phone starting ringing, it was on a desk opposite to where Angie was sitting, it happened to be empty ‘I’ll get it’ she picked up the phone ‘Hello, Leach Publishing House, Angelica speaking’

‘Hi Angie, it’s me, Nicky’

‘Oh, hey there Nicky! What’s up?’

‘I wanted to talk to Douglas about some of the revisions he made in Thirteen Shades of Black’ Angelica groaned.

‘That’s going to be fun. He’s not here at the moment, so maybe call him back in about an hour or so? I’ll tell him you’ve called’

‘Thank you, Angie. How are you, by the way?’ Angelica sighed upon hearing her question.

‘That’ll take a lot of explaining to do. Basically my boyfriend cheated on me, so I dumped him’ the line was silent. ‘Anyway, I’ve got to go, OK? Talk to you later?’

‘Yeah. Bye, I guess’ Angelica put the phone down.

‘Who was that?’ asked the woman wearing white.

‘Nicky Bateman. She’s a new author trying to break in. She’s got this erotica slash parody called Thirteen Shades of Black. It’s about this failing, balding businessman who gets seduced by a gold digger’

‘Oh? That sounds pretty cool. But you said it’s erotica…’

‘She makes it work really well. The sex scenes are hilarious, if you find the businessman not, ahem… “getting it up”, funny or things like that’

‘Ahhh, I see!’

‘Anyway, I’ve got to get back to work. I’ll see you later, OK?’

‘OK’ Angelica went back to working on her computer. Roughly half an hour later a pot-bellied balding man sporting a goatee entered the office and sat down on the computer opposite her’s. He simply booted it up without doing as much as giving a passing glance to her.

‘Doug?’

‘Yes, Angie?’

‘Nicky called earlier. She said she had some issues with the revisions you made’

‘That bi-! Uh, when did she call?’

‘Half an hour ago?’

‘OK. Thanks’ Doug dialled the phone. ‘Good morning Nicky, it’s me, Douglas Griswald’

‘Ugh, here we go…’ muttered Angelica, to herself.

‘You don’t like my revisions?’ Douglas paused ‘Well, that’s too bad. It’s what will make your book better. I have twenty years working in the publishing industry and I know what works’ he paused again ‘I’m sorry, my editorial assistant is rather new at the job, she has a lot to learn. Talk to me first, OK? What? You want to talk to my boss? Go ahead! She’ll just say the same things’ he paused again ‘Anyway, I’ve got other projects to do, if you have any other issues, talk to my manager, OK? Bye’ Douglas was close to smashing his phone on his desk. At this point Angelica looked completely aghast ‘Stupid woman’ he groaned.

‘What happened?’

‘These new authors are so stupid sometimes. We are in the business to make money, if she doesn’t listen to me, her book will tank before it sees the light of day’

‘Uhhhhh, how do you-’

‘Because it will. I know what sells, and what doesn’t. I’ve been working here long enough’

‘You can say that again’ Angelica muttered’

‘What?!’

‘Nothing’ a short, obese woman with a diamond physique came over to see the two. She had a huge scowl on her face.

‘Doug’ she began ‘We have a new book just in right now, it’s written by the Queen herself’ Angelica gasped, looking puzzled, whilst Douglas had a huge grin on his face.

‘What’s it about?’

‘It’s a book called: “The Queen’s Toilet Motions”. 

‘What? Are you shitting me?’ Angelica grumbled ‘No pun intended’

‘Angie! This is our big breakthrough!’ announced Douglas ‘I’ll leave it to you. Just check for spelling and grammar errors, OK?’

‘OK’

‘I’ll send you the email with the file, OK’

‘Yeah that’s fine’ A few minutes later Angelica received an email from someone named “Lauren Maidstone”. It said “As discussed. Regards. Lauren Maidstone. Editor-In-Chief, Leach Publishing House”. It had an attachment named “The Queen’s Toilet Motions”. It was five megabytes in size. ‘Holy hell’ she muttered, as soon as she noticed the file size. When she opened the file, she immediately checked its word count. It said “631,476”. ‘Oh my God…’ She then went onto the internet which had Bing has the search engine. She typed “google” into it, which lead her to Google’s search engine, of where she typed in “war and peace word count”. The first result she found said that War And Peace had 587,287 words. ‘Doug?’

‘Yeah?’

‘About this new book we have’

‘What about it?’

‘It’s over six hundred words long. It’s longer than War And Peace!’

‘Yeah? Well as long as people are stupid enough to buy it, I don’t care’ Angelica sighed.

‘Well, you have a point, I guess’ Angelica started to look through the story itself, it was absolutely full of spelling errors ‘Since when did the Queen learn how to use a computer?’ she muttered, to herself. Shortly afterwards she got out of her chair. ‘I’m going to make myself a cup of coffee, do you want one, too?’

‘Yes, white with two sugars’

‘OK’ she picked up Douglas’ mug, which had an arrow pointing up saying “This guy is awesome!”, then going over to her desk picking up a white coffee cup that had a heart printed on it. She walked over to the kitchen area, sighing as she was half way there. There was a small woman who appeared to be in her fifties who was making herself a cup of coffee.

‘You all right, Angie?’ she asked, as soon as she saw her.

‘Not really’

‘Oh? What’s wrong?’ Angelica didn’t answer, she went over towards a coffee making machine. It had a whole container of coffee beans on top of it. She put her cup underneath and activated it. ‘Is it personal?’ Angelica sighed.

‘Yes. I’ve broken up with my boyfriend’

‘Oh? I’m… sorry-’

‘Oh no, I’m glad I have. He kept on cheating on me’ the woman suddenly had a frown on her face.

‘Well, serves him right, then!’ Angelica’s own coffee had been made, she then put Douglas’ mug underneath the coffee machine.

‘To be honest with you, Lorraine, I feel a bit unwell. My tummy’s aching, and I feel like I’m going to be sick’

‘Oh goodness… have you told your doctor?’ Angelica took a while to answer.

‘I probably should’ she put the two cups of coffee onto a a tray and took them back over to the desk she was sitting on. Douglas looking agitated.

‘What took you so long?’ he demanded. Angelica didn’t say anything at first ‘We’ve got work to do’

‘It takes time to make a good cup of coffee. Doug’ Douglas didn’t say anything. The day proceeded with her just reading the manuscript correcting mistakes. Over time she changed from simply looking bored to completely frazzled.