Starr Fated

by G E Griffin

  “I think Jamie understands why I need to focus all my attention on my work at the moment, Mr Starr. This is a very critical time for me. I’m very aware that I'm extremely fortunate to have been given an internship in your company, and I have no intention of wasting this opportunity.”

  “Even if it largely comprises of making tea for all my minions?”

  Seraphina blushed a deep shade of red as she realised I knew she must have been grumbling to Jamie.

  “Of course I never expected to walk in to your company and just be let free in the department. I’m more than happy to just listen and learn. That’s why I’ve been coming home and using what I’ve learned on my course work,” she explained.

  “Okay. So show me what you’ve got. Give me your best pitch.”

  “Well, let me kick off by saying that the obvious logo for Starr Capital Ventures is, of course, a star, so that was my starting point. And I'm very well aware that you consider this to be too obvious and rather tacky, and to a point I agree,” she quickly silenced my unspoken protest. I was about to let her know that I’ve always hated the whole childish idea of a big star.

  “Just hear me out. You did ask for the full pitch, didn't you, Mr. Starr?”

  “I suppose I did,” I conceded.

  “As I said, to a point I agree with you. So I dismissed this first option as being too close to the ‘My Little Pony’ school of branding, and too similar to some Cath Kidston images. Certainly not the correct branding for your company.”

  Seraphina held up a board depicting a large bright blue shooting star with SCV inside the star.

  “That’s dreadful,” I scowled. I hoped she was going to come up with something better than this rubbish or I’d wasted my time coming here this morning.

  “The next two options were variations on this theme, so I dismissed them out of hand too. I don't like them any more than you, but I wanted to be sure I’d considered all options before dismissing them. But I was happy to eliminate this avenue, having thoroughly explored it.”

  “What next then?”

  “I went to the other extreme. No stars whatsoever. Just plain, clear, bold fonts pretty much as you have now, using various combinations of your company name and initials. Starr Capital Ventures. SCV. Liam Starr. LJS. Starr. Starr Capital. I came to the conclusion that on their own, any of these were just too boring and lacked the necessary visual impact. Also, any changes in how you wish the company to be known would have to be discussed and agreed before anything could be settled.”

  Three more boards showed all the combinations she had come up with.

  “However, I didn’t dismiss these out of hand. The final phase of the process was to combine any of these fonts, according to the preferences of the client, with an element of the star logo. A small, discrete, but unmistakably original and unique branding.”

  She held up the final three boards. They had Starr Capital Ventures in a bold, thick, clear font, but with the initial letters made up of tiny stars. Then she had broken down her proposals into many different options, with different letters made up of stars, various size and fonts, some were black, some were silver - there were endless possible variations.

  “From this platform any variation is possible regarding sizing etc., once the initial concept has been accepted. Different options could be used for different products. It’s stylish and if kept to the simple monochrome theme, it’s not too colourful or garish, which I agree would not be appropriate for SCV. I think this option gives very clear and bold branding, but with an original twist. Therefore this is the option I would recommend.”

  I took the final board from her to study it more closely. She was right. It was different, it was slightly quirky but it was not tacky. It was clear and easy to read. I could see immediately that it would work. Hard for me to believe, but I instantly knew that I fucking loved what she’d come up with. It was just what the kind of thing I wanted.

  “I think maybe we could work with this, Miss Jones. I’d need some time to go over it with you to decide on all the finer details, but I like the overall concept that you’ve come up with.”

  “You do?” she asked incredulously.

  “What’s the matter? Surely you have confidence in your proposals?”

  “Well, yes, of course, but I thought you’d dismiss them out of hand because of the star element.”

  “You’ve convinced me to open up to mind to other concepts, Miss Jones, so congratulations. You have succeeded where many others have failed. But what’s this here? This tiny angel’s wing down in the bottom corner?”

  “Oh, that’s my own personal logo, my own trade mark if you like. Of course I’ll remove it from your final designs, Mr. Starr.”

  “Why an angel’s wing?”

  “My name, Seraphina, comes from ‘Seraphim’, who were the most powerful fiery-winged angels,” she explained.

  I smiled. So she was a fiery angel. That about summed her up, really. And that must explain the little wing shaped earrings that kept catching my eye as she was talking. Angel wings.

  As I looked at those earrings, I couldn’t help noticing that although she’d tried to restrain her hair, little curly tendrils were escaping, and for some reason, I found myself having to resist the impulse to tuck them out of the way behind her ear. I put it down to my tidy nature.

  “I think you’ve earned the right to keep your tiny logo, Seraphina. As it’s very discrete, you can leave it on the designs. Now, please collect up all your work to bring into the office. We have a very tight time frame to work within.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t really work on it at the office, Mr. Starr. I use a much older versions of Photoshop and illustrator than you have at the office. Your team work with Adobe Creative Suite 3 and the two just aren’t compatible.”

  “Well, can't you just put what you have onto our systems at SCV?”

  “I could, but it would mean basically starting all over again, and with your tight deadline, I think it makes far more sense for me to continue on my version. You see at this stage, everything is in lots of different editable layers, but once the designs are finalised, they can be saved as flat images to hand over to your team for completion. It’s not a problem - I can continue working on them here at home, once you’ve decided on all the finer details of what you require.”

  “Work from here?” I looked round at this cold, cramped room. She couldn’t be serious. Produce the image for my multi million pound empire from this dump, using out of date technology on the very basic cheap laptop that I'd noticed on her desk?

  “Why not? I’d be more than happy to. I like working here.”

  “You like this room?”

  “Yes, I love it, actually. It’s by far the best room, in by far the best house I’ve had since I’ve been a student,” she insisted.

  “What do your parents think of it?” I couldn’t imagine they’d be very happy about it.

  “My parents have both passed away, Mr. Starr. I support myself,” she quietly informed me.

  “Oh, right, yes I seem to recall Jamie mentioned something about that.” It explained a lot.

  “So, shall we go through the various options now, or would you rather have some time to think about it?” she offered.

  “Let’s work through them this afternoon, make the necessary choices to enable you to make a start. But first I need to make a few phone calls. How about we go down to the kitchen to warm up and have that coffee you mentioned earlier?” I suggested, as I headed for the door, remembering to duck my head this time. I reached for my phone from my pocket.

  “Andrew? Liam here. I’ve got some very urgent repairs I want sorted as soon possible…”

  ~*~

  Seraphina made us some lunch, and we sat together with Jamie to eat it in the kitchen. Adam also wandered in when he realised there was food going, and she just quietly made extra for him too. He looked surprised to see me, but didn't speak or ask why I was there, he just looked over nervously at me.

&nbs
p; “Are we still on for our house meal on Thursday, Sera?” he asked, as he wolfed down the tuna mayo roll she passed to him, without so much as a thank you, I noticed. For fuck’s sake, she wasn't the boy’s mother was she?

  “Yes, although it’ll probably have to be something quick this week as it looks like I'm going to be kept pretty busy,” she replied, as she glanced at me.

  “You’re always busy anyway, Sera. I don't mind, whatever you make always turns out great. And thanks for the personalised birthday card you designed for Chloe. She really liked it.”

  “That’s okay. It was my pleasure. I enjoy doing things like that.”

  “Cool. Worked out well, didn’t it? I got an original card to impress my girlfriend, and you got your ink cartridges for your printer. They were the right ones, I hope?”

  “Yes, Adam, they were perfect. Thanks.”

  It seemed Seraphina swapped her creative skills in return for supplies, and I found myself impressed that she showed initiative in finding solutions to get round her lack of funds.

  “You haven’t forgotten about changing your shift at the restaurant so you can come to the Spring Ball with me have you, Sera?” Jamie asked her next.

  “No, I haven’t forgotten. Don’t you remember, I told you I’d managed to get Maggie to swap, so that’s why I'm working tonight, even though it means missing my yoga class this week,” she smiled briefly at him. “And I’ve borrowed a dress from Abbey, one of her more conventional designs rather than anything too wacky or extreme, so I should merge in with your lot.”

  “Great. So umm…don't forget to pack your overnight bag, will you?” Jamie murmured as he came up behind Seraphina. He put his arms around her as he kissed her neck.

  “Jamie, I told you…I’m still not sure…” she muttered. She blushed furiously, glancing quickly over at me as she pushed him away. So she was still stringing him along. I knew my brother was pinning all his hopes on this date, but by her lukewarm response, I’d say his chances of bedding Miss Jones this weekend weren’t looking that great. For some reason this rather pleased me. Probably because it would hopefully prove to be the straw that broke the camel’s back, and my brother would finally come to his senses about this girl. Although to be fair, she wasn’t what I’d expected at all, and I was quickly revising my opinion of her. It seemed, much to my surprise, that she was actually a very hardworking and talented young woman.

  As we were finishing our lunch, there was a knock at the front door. Both the lads just lazily sat there and ignored it, so Seraphina went to answer it.

  “Hi. Is Mr. Starr here?” I heard Andrew’s unmistakeably gruff Scottish accent, so I got up and followed Seraphina out into the hallway.

  “Err, which one? There are two here,” she was explaining as I caught up.

  “Andrew. Glad to see you. Take that straight up to the top floor attic room, please. And put it on maximum, get some heat going in there,” I ordered, as I saw he’d brought a heater as I’d requested.

  “Of course, Mr. Starr. And I’ve organised a heating engineer to come first thing in the morning to overhaul the entire system and authorised him to fix whatever problems he comes across, as well as a glazier to mend the window as you requested.”

  “Couldn’t you get anyone in this afternoon? I did say it was extremely urgent.”

  “Best I could do at such short notice, Mr. Starr. But this will do the job nicely until the heating gets fixed,” he said, then headed off upstairs.

  “What’s going on? Who is he?” Seraphina quizzed me.

  “That’s Andrew, my facilitator. He organises all the maintenance for my properties.”

  “But that heater…the cost of running it…all these repairs…I don't want to run up huge bills,” she protested.

  “Don’t worry about that. I’ll cover the costs. I am the landlord, after all. And as your employer, there are Health and Safety standards I have to conform to. If you’re going to be working for me from here, then it’s my responsibility to ensure the temperature is above the required minimum. Now, how about we get on with selecting the options for all these proposals?”

  ~*~

  We spent a good part of the afternoon going through all the options. I found myself impressed by how much she’d already produced on her own. As we worked, she carefully listened to me, took on board what I specified, but wasn’t afraid to challenge me, as she clearly spelled out what she felt would work and what wouldn’t. It was actually a pleasure working with her, although it certainly wasn’t a pleasure working in that cold, damp, cramped room. At least the heater did improve matters somewhat.

  Finally we reached a suitable stopping point.

  “I’ll continue on with this until it’s time for me to leave for work,” Seraphina promised. “Then I’ll get cracking on it again first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “But you’re working for me now,” I frowned.

  “I might be working for you, but it’s unpaid and I still have bills to pay,” she stated.

  Oh yes. I’d insisted her internship must be unpaid, hadn’t I?

  “Well, I think we need to revisit the terms of your contract, Seraphina.” She looked startled by my use of her Christian name. But I rather liked it. Fiery angel. It suited her.

  “I don't actually have a contract. It was just a casual arrangement, if you recall, Mr. Starr.”

  Shit. Horrified, I suddenly realised that no contract meant that she could walk out at any time and leave me high and dry in the middle of this revamp. I’d insisted we go that route so we could easily dismiss her if she’d turned out to be troublesome in any way. Now it seemed the boot was on the other foot. I needed her to work for me for at least the next couple of weeks, as it seemed she had more talent in her little finger than most of the team I currently employed. I’d have to get my HR team straight onto it.

  “Where do you work? Can’t you cancel? Blame the strike for having to work late or something?”

  “I work at a place called ‘Cafe La Divina’ and no, I can't let them down at the last minute. Frankly I'm surprised you would even suggest such a thing, Mr. Starr, as you were so disappointed by your own employees who failed to turn up this morning,” she told me rather cheekily.

  “I suppose you have a point,” I reluctantly conceded. “So what hours do you work?”

  “Six till around eleven, but sometimes it’s nearer midnight, if we have customers who linger.”

  “And how do you get home at that hour? Taxi?”

  “Taxi? Hell no! That would be a large chunk of my wages gone straight away on a taxi fare. Sometimes I get the bus if one turns up, but usually I just walk back rather than wait around for one.”

  “By yourself? At that hour? Isn’t that a bit dangerous? Doesn't Jamie come and get you?” I always ensured my lady friends went home by taxi if they didn’t drive themselves, and I hated the thought of this vulnerable young woman walking home alone at that hour, in that rough area. Didn’t it bother my brother too?

  “Why on earth would I need Jamie to do that?” she retorted. “I’m perfectly capable of getting back on my own. I can take care of myself.”

  Jamie is meant to care about her. He should be looking after his girlfriend, protecting her, I thought to myself. So before I left, I made a point of speaking to my little brother.

  Chapter 10

  Jamie

  “You told me I had to pay for everything if I called Andrew out, which I told you I couldn’t afford. I tried my best to fix the radiator myself, but I'm not very good at that kind of thing,” I protested, as I hastily clicked down the porn I'd been viewing on my lap top, and quickly shoved some books over the Xbox game that I’d been going to play afterwards. Liam had just come storming into my room, and he was clearly in a foul mood.

  “For fucks sake, Jamie, I expected you to have got all this sorted out long before it got to this stage. I thought if I stood back, it might force you to take responsibility, show just a little bit of initiative maybe. But it doesn't even s
eem to have occurred to you that if you were short of funds, you could have actually gone out and got a job to earn some money for yourself, instead of just sitting back and waiting for your next allowance from me. But, no, as usual, it’s left to me to clear up your mess, while you’re too lazy to even get your selfish arse out of bed at a decent hour. Didn't it occur to you that your girlfriend, the one that you’re supposed to care so much about, must have been freezing her fucking socks off all winter up there? Or was that your plan, your way of getting her into your bed because she’d be desperate to get herself warm with some of your own fucking personal central heating?”

  “That’s not fair…” I tried to protest, but Liam was on a roll.

  “And yet despite your lack of funds, it seems you somehow managed to find enough money to buy tickets for this ball you’re taking her to, including a hotel room for the night, because it would seem that the chance to get your end away is far more important to you than her personal welfare. And you don't seem to be at all worried about her safety, letting her walk home from work alone in the early hours of the morning, despite the fact that you have your own car sitting outside.”

  “It’s not like that at all, Liam. You’re being so unfair. Sera is a very independent person, she does her own thing, and wouldn’t want me fussing over her like that. And she told me she wasn’t bothered about the heating, that she doesn't like her room too warm because it makes her sleepy.”

  “And you conveniently chose to believe her, while you, of course, have the heating turned up full blast so you are nice and toasty warm, while she is worrying herself about how big the bill is going to be.”

  “We’ve covered her share of the bills between us actually, because we know how tight money is for her. I told you she had things pretty hard, but as always you wouldn’t listen to me. You’re only concerned about her now because it seems she can get you out of a hole. If you remember, I told you she was talented, but of course you didn't believe me. So don't talk to me about being selfish. You wouldn’t be here right now if there wasn’t something in it for you. I tried to tell you how Sera struggled to make ends meet, but you didn't want to know. ‘My heart bleeds’ were your exact words, as I recall, Liam,” I hit back at him.