Chapter 3
Melissa:
We had a week before we left and we were both busy not only preparing for our trip, but doing last minute things around the office. Both Durbbie and I never realized how much stuff we committed to until this week. We were both pulling constant all nighters and Durbbie was drinking black coffee with tons of sugar like it was water. I opted for the chocolate approach myself, but whatever worked and got us through the day and most of the night, was good for us.
By day three of having no sleep and relying on caffeine to propel us all day long, we were pretty much exhausted. I had chosen to go with the method of putting everything into little categories and taking it a day at a time while Durbbie was ready to spontaneously combust because of her method of doing everything as she felt like it. But for all our differences, we still made one heck of a team.
"Durbs wake up. It's time to go to work," I said shaking her. She had fallen asleep on the kitchen table and now had the imprint of her laptop on the side of her face.
"Just leave me alone," Durbbie grumbled. "I wanna sleep."
"I'll drink all the coffee," I threatened gently.
"You don't like coffee," she countered sleepily. I was gonna lose her to dream world if I wasn't careful.
"I'm taking you camera."
"Have fun." I swear I almost heard her snore.
I went to my last resort. "I'm taking your piano music."
Durbbie's head shot up and her eyes were wide. "Don't you dare!"
"And a good morning to you too," I said patting her on the head. "Welcome to the world of the living." As you can tell, Durbs wasn't much of a morning person.
In the crazed 45 minutes it took for us to get ready for work at the office, which consisted of coffee, a scanner, more coffee, creative editing and combining my sketches or painting with her photographs, and more coffee. I don't think I ever want to see what would happen if Durbbie ran out of coffee. Oh Heaven help us if that ever happened.
We arrived at work and picked up where we had left off at the apartment. We worked together for another 2 hours before Durbbie decided on more coffee and I went on a chocolate splurge. (You gotta love fast metabolisms.) Then we split up to get our stuff ready before lunch. We didn't have the luxury of a lunch break because we were leaving on an all expense paid trip to France in a few days and still had a mountain of work to pile through.
After another hour and a half of editing and combining, we split off to finish our days on our own. We scanned, sent, and waited for replies from companies on weather or not they wanted to purchase some of our things as well as come to the company to see our creations in person.
On this particular day I finished off all I set up for myself, and I got started on tomorrow's work. I guess I got involved in it because before I knew it, Durbbie was knocking on the cubical wall telling me it was time to get going. So I packed some things into my bag and headed home to tackle another pile of work.
Durbbie:
I swear Melissa is a work-a-holic. She scares me sometimes with everything she does. But I guess we're the same way. I'll bring my work home too, and I have been for the past week. Man, has it ever been hectic around here! I've given up sleeping on my bed, I haven't been over to the studio to practice my piano in nearly 2 weeks which is driving me absolutely up the wall, and I think I permanently have the keyboard of a computer indented on my face from all the times I've fallen asleep at my laptop. But I guess it's worth it. I mean, how many times in one lifetime do you get picked out to work on a photo spread on location in France with a bunch of people that make little kids squeal? As totally against working with the Back Siders or whoever they were, I was curious to get the inside scoop. For all I knew they were just guys who could dance. I never really heard any of their music or heard if they played any instruments or anything, so I had no clue what to expect.
4 Days Later
Durbbie:
"I don't believe we're here," Melissa said practically jumping on me and looking out the window.
"Circulation!" I said and Melissa immediately got off me. This time she opted to throw me out of my seat so she could see. I mean, here I was, probably jet lagged beyond my worst nightmare, and I had just woken up so I was as coherent as I should have been. Why coherent? I took four years of French in high school and can understand 90% of what I'm being told. Melissa on the other hand had taken 4 years of Spanish. I had taken Spanish for a little while, but the only thing I ever learned how to say was "Yo tengo un queso en mes pantalones." (That means I have cheese in my pants.) The announcer lady dude was trying to say something, but this all went down and Melissa was squealing, so I missed all of it. I mean, all of it short of "Merci!" (Thank you.) I need my coffee.
"Now where'd they say to meet them?" Melissa said bouncing her way to the baggage claim. I on the other hand…
I pulled out the slip of paper from my pocket and read it to her. "After baggage claim, meet outside by Le Café."
Fortunately enough, I had woken up enough to become aware that my suitcase had just gone by and was still going by because I forgot I pull it off the conveyor belt. So after hunting it down, and pulling it to safety, I over heard a conversation.
"So I heard the Backstreet Boys were here," one girl said in French.
"Yeah. I can't wait to meet them! I heard they were taking pictures for their next album by the Eiffel Tower and stuff. I'm going to sleep there tonight just in case," the other said.
I rolled my eyes. This was unbearable. What kind of parents let their kids sleep outside by the Eiffel Tower when the kids' combined age didn't equal my 25 years!
"This is ridiculous," I muttered to myself before grabbing the last of my baggage and heading off with Melissa to find Le Café and maybe some coffee on the side.
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