Chapter One
VIOLET
“The interaction with your last post has been amazing.” Jessie, who’s one of my coworkers and is also one of my best friends, says from the cubicle beside me.
We both work in downtown Jacksonville on E. Bay St and our office overlooks the St. Johns River. We work at a fashion magazine called Season, but over the last year, it’s turned into more than just a magazine about fashion.
Now we’re having our journalists going out and doing things like trying certain feminine waxes, the newest beauty trends, and so much more. Honestly, we’re rapidly growing and I think we’re going to be comparable toCosmopolitansoon.
I pick up my afternoon cup of coffee. “Which one? I’ve scheduled so many over the last few days.”
I’m one of those women who drink it early in the morning and then right before I leave. Hell, if they offered it to us in an IV I'd gladly take it that way as well.
Today is a little bit different, I’m leaving a few hours early so I can go enjoy a beautiful sunny Jacksonville afternoon. I had some rollover vacation time from last year so now it’s time to use it.
“The post on X, it really got people moving and communicating with the magazine. I heard Victorio say something about it.”
I arch a brow, uncertain if this is a good or a bad thing. “Positive or negative?”
Victorio’s our boss, one of the men whose photo is on the hallway leading into the offices with some of the other more established and reputable people here. I think he might even be on the board, but I can’t be too sure. I’d have to double-check.
“Positive. This is good, Violet. You’re making it so he knows your name.”
I smile lightly, but there's something no one knows. The only reason I wanted to get a job here is because Victorio could very well be my father. My mother told me she never told him, and I have so many unanswered questions.
Now, I’ve debated strutting right up to him and telling him who I am, and who I believe he is… but I couldn’t do it. Not only would it take a crazy amount of balls, but it would be really unprofessional. I felt like I needed to prove myself here at Season first before I even mentioned it to him. And, from the looks of it I’m starting to do just that.
But, I'm not going to lie. I'm a little nervous. I'm afraid that he won't take me seriously because I work here, too. Who knows, it could turn out really well for me if I'd just give it a chance.
My mother told me she had an affair with a man in journalism, one who was always searching for his next story. She told me that even though she felt fondly of him, she knew he wasn’t the type to stay home and raise a family, how his heart was burned into his work and she felt it was unfair to force him into playing house.
Not many people would understand the position she was put in, but I do. She grew up in a very rural part of Georgia and moved to Florida with me when I was a few weeks old. WhenI was sixteen, she sat me down the evening of my birthday and answered every question I had about my family, about why my grandparents didn’t come to my birthday parties as a child, about why I didn’t know her brother, or two sisters, or even my cousins. Anything I could’ve possibly had a question about, I asked.
I discovered some ugly truths that day, truths I often wish weren’t my reality but alas they are. My mother. No, let me rephrase that. My angel of a mother left behind her entire family when I shot out of the womb and they saw what I looked like. Every bit of excitement they could’ve had flew out the window, the same excitement that took months to build up, considering their daughter was unwed.
Georgia is a very hush-hush state, so having kids out of wedlock at the time wasn’t exactly the way most people wanted to go. My mother told them she was having me and that was pretty much it. After a while, they began to support her and then I was born, and my grandparents saw I was too dark.
I was too dark for their liking.
I wasn’t white enough to be Caucasian, but the irony is how I wasn’t dark enough to be with the other Latino kids in my community when I went to school. There weren’t even very many kids who had the same skin tone as me when I was in elementary, middle, or high school . . . which only ended up making it worse.
They’d make jokes, call me agringa, even though I’m not one and wasn’t one. Now I accept the fact I’m a beautiful, biracial woman, and while the road called life wasn’t easy… I pride myself on my triumphs.
I may be a mixture of both worlds, but I truly believe it’s the best. Now I only wish I can gain the courage to speak to Victorio, who yes is one of my bosses, but is also half of the reason I’m here.
I’ve been slowly gaining the courage to speak to him about this for a while now, and while I’ve had countless opportunities I’m going to wait. I’ll wait until the end of the month, and on my twenty-fifth birthday I’ll tell him everything.
I’ll tell him who I am. I’ll tell him who my mother is, and I’ll pray he’s accepting and open to communicating with me in a different way than he does while we’re at work.
“Guess I’ll have to throw more polls online from time to time. I was experimenting with our readers a bit, but I’m glad to know it paid off.”
Jessie smiles widely. “It more than paid off. When you come in Monday morning check and see what the counts were. I overheard him talking to Clarise and he said your idea was, and I quote, 'brilliant'.”
Heat swarms in my chest and I’m happier than I’ve been in ages. To know I’m doing something right here at Season is one thing, but knowing he holds pride in what I accomplished makes me even prouder.
I finish my last sip of coffee and log out of my computer. It’s about sixty-three out today so I wore a light jacket in and I’ll be wearing it out as well. I plan on going straight home to the apartment I share with my boyfriend of six months, Derek, and then I’ve booked myself a nice spa day starting this evening at four.
Smiling at Jessie, I pick up my purse and sling it over my shoulder after I have my jacket on. “Thanks for telling me. I really needed to hear that.”
