Ophelia looked around the room at her employees and smiled proudly. Indeed, she was proud; the designs they had come up with to present at the upcoming fashion show were the best they had done to date. She watched the men and women chattering eagerly among themselves, discussing the fashion show and trying to work out who would be modeling which outfits.

“Okay, guys, quiet down,” she called out, rising to her feet. After a few moments, the room became silent. “I’m really proud of all of you. Really, you are the ones who make this company what it is. The designs you’ve all come up with are absolutely wonderful and will undoubtedly be a big hit next week. I’d like to highlight a few designs that I thought were especially noteworthy.” Ophelia glanced briefly at her notes, then continued. “Our newest employee, Delilah Stanton-Ruppetts, has designed some great maternity wear. Seriously, if I ever do get pregnant, I’m buying one of her outfits. Delilah, I’d like you to model the skull one, the one I really liked. And perhaps you can get someone else to wear a few of your other designs. And Marissa Bernstein--”


“--Sorry to interrupt you,” Nathaniel broke in, “but there’s an important phone call for you.”

“Can’t it wait?” Ophelia asked. “We’re kind of in a meeting.”

“No, it can’t,” he said, then leaned in close and whispered, “It’s Charise. She’s acting like she chugged a bottle of Jack and then found some happy leaf, if you know what I mean.”

“Okay, I get the point,” Ophelia responded. She handed her notes to Nathaniel. “Here, you go ahead and take over the meeting.”

“Me?!”


“Sure,” Ophelia replied. “Sooner or later, you’re going to pretty much inherit this company from me and have to run it anyway. Might as well get used to it, baby bro.” Then, with that said, she hurried to her office and picked up the telephone. “Yeah, Charise, what’s up? Did you have a really wild party?”

“Lia,” Charise said, giggling. “Lia, I’ve just gotten the best news ever.”

“Yeah?” Ophelia responded. “And why would it be important enough to make me leave a meeting?”

“That man’s dead. Finally. Ding-dong, the jerk is dead.”

“Charise, what are you talking about?”

“What man do you think I’d be celebrating the death of? Who has hurt me enough to where his death would be a wonderful, joyous event for me?”

“You don’t mean…”

“Yep.”

“Dunstan. So, how did that happen?”

“Shot Angela and the guy she was seeing behind Dunstan’s back, then took himself out.”

“Wow,” Ophelia murmured. “How’d you find that out? I didn’t see anything in the news about it.”

“Apparently, there’s been a big cover-up by the Diggory family. Trying to say it was a burglary gone wrong or something. His kid knows the truth, though. I was just talking to her.”


“He had a kid?” Ophelia asked, incredulously.

“Yeah. She goes to our old school. Kind of reminds me of you at that age. Kind of smart-a**ed, you know?”

“Hey, I wasn’t that bad.”

“Well, anyway, now you know the news.”

“Yeah. I’m shocked.”

“I bet. I’ll leave you alone to let it sink in, then.”

“Sure,” Ophelia murmured, then closed the call. She sighed, then murmured, “Wow.” Quietly, she chuckled to herself, then murmured, “He’s dead. Dead.” Giggling, she began to dance around and chant, “Dead-dead-dead-dead-dead-dead. He’s dead.”