Chapter 19 : Superman

"What's going on? What happened?" I asked Miss R as soon as I reached the office. The vibes were a bit different than the other days. Everyone was so busy and focused. I looked at my watch and I thought I was late. But it was actually showing that I had another twenty minutes to spare before clock in.

"Daniel is back!" answered Miss R. She quickly left the editorial department with handful of documents.

"Oh my gosh I am so dead!" Miss B coming in as Miss R were leaving. She looked so clumsy and then took a seat next to me.

"Marina, can I borrow your pen please!" My mouth was barely opened to say yes but that newly bought pen was already in her hand before she proceeded writing some notes on the post-its in her hands.

As always, I would start my routine by cleaning up my workspace. Not that it was dirty or I left it messy the day before, but I was just so used to that habit. A few moments later Chan suddenly appeared. Unlike Miss R and Miss B, she looked rather calm as always. But she did move a little bit faster and I knew from it that she was also in a hurry. So she came to me and asked me for something.

"Marina, would you pass me the document that I gave you yesterday?"

"All right. Hold on please," I took the document from inside the drawer and handed it to her. Miss B on my left side was laser focused on what she was doing and seemed unbothered by Chan at all.

"There you go."

"Thanks!" she quickly took the document off my hand and immediately left for her room. A few steps forward, she stopped and turned around at me.

"Oh by the way Marina, do you know Daniel is coming to the office today?" she asked me in all seriousness.

"I do," I nodded.

"Okay good!" Chan said and then left like roadrunner.

"How busy are you guys today..." I said to Miss B.

"Oh gosh there's just so much more need to be done, Marina. That's why I'm looking like a tornado! Daniel is supposed to come tomorrow. Not today!"

"Will he get angry on us Miss B?"

"No he won't. But we don't want him to think that we are not capable of working independently without him around," answered Miss B.

"Oh...I get it," I responded.

"Hello! Is everything good in here?" a man in sunglasses suddenly showed up in the editorial department. Miss B looked stunned for a second.

"Yes! Yes...Daniel. All is good!" answered Miss B, a little stuttered.

'Ahh...So this is Daniel,' My heart said. I looked at him up and down as he was talking to Miss B. In my mind I had a few questions though, because this man seemed very familiar to me. At that moment I was pretty sure that I have seen this man before this. But when and where?

Daniel was not really paying attention to me at the beginning. He just smiled at me, like anybody would to the people they barely know. It was only after Miss B introduced me as the new staff there that he broke the ice and asked me a few things, before he looked for Chan later.

"Is Chan in her office?" Daniel asked me.

"Yes, Daniel," I nodded quickly.

"Thanks," off he went to Chan's office.

'Hmm...not bad!' said my heart again. I then tried to get back to my work but honestly, only eighty percent of my mind was on it. The remaining twenty percent was on Daniel that I had just met. Fair skinned, looking so dapper and with that Calvin Klein sunglasses on his face, he looked so charismatic and he seemed like someone with a great personality too. Far from what Harry had told me before this.

"He looks familiar to me but hmmm..."  I said to Miss B.

"Who? Daniel?"

"Yup"

"Maybe you meet him in a dream that you forget. It always happen you know..." said Miss B in whisper. I just smiled to that. To be honest I wanted to ask her more questions about him but these huge pile of files on my table with each was labelled with 'urgent' and 'emergency' notes stopped me from doing so.

One hour later I received a text from Harry.

Harry : Have you met with the Editor in  Chief?

Me : I have. Not as friendly as I thought.

Harry : What. Why is that so? He did not ask  you your favourite food? :p

Me : No it's not like that you silly! Now stop it.  Let's not talk about him shall we? Why are  you not in the office today? When are you  going back to Hey?

Harry : I have some works in UM. I need to  check through all the cameras there. I'll be in  the office the day after tomorrow because  Daniel  is going to hold a meeting right...

Me : Oh nobody informed me about it.

Harry did not respond anything to my last text. But I was not going to call him either to find out. I needed to focus on those files. Later that night Harry did text me again to check on me. On how I was doing with this new environment. But it did not cross to my mind at all to ask him about the upcoming meeting.

******

Just like what Harry told me, when the day came, Daniel called upon everyone of us for a meeting session. I, together with Miss B, Miss R and Miss D were moving side by side to the meeting room in which Chan, Daniel, Susan, Carmen, Dee, Teresa, Rushdee and few others had already taken their seats. As everyone was paying attention to Daniel's conversation with Chan, I noticed Harry was still not in sight. So, I quickly texted him, worried that he might have forgotten about this meeting, although he was the one telling me about it

Me : Harry. Where are you? You're not  coming to this meeting?

However my text remained unanswered.

After he was done going through all the documents handed by Chan, Daniel looked at his watch before his eyes moved onto the empty seats. I was pretty sure that he was waiting for Harry even though he did not speak a word about him. And Harry was still out of my radar. The room went silent for a minute, as everyone was waiting for what might come out of Daniel's mouth.

"I think we better start this meeting now," Daniel broke the silence. He opened the file in front of him and started the meeting. The spotlight of that meeting was all on the latest edition of Hey which would due for printing in just thirteen days.

'He has a way with words!' I said in my heart looking at the way Daniel handled the meeting. The words that came out of his mouth were so thoughtful, perfectly fabricated, crystal clear and he did it in such a calm manner.

"Thank you everyone. The meeting is adjourned. You may all disperse," Daniel ended this session, sharply twenty minutes after it began.

I checked on my phone, just in case there would be any reply from Harry. But frustratingly, nothing came in. This triggered my anxiety. I started to think about all the possibilities of bad things that might have happened to him. I believed that Harry was not that type of person who would neglect an important meeting like this. Not at least without a proper notice. I was pretty sure something had happened to him.

Everyone was leaving the meeting room, except for Chan who was still busy discussing with Daniel. I could not leave either as Chan instructed me to stay there as well until she had done consulting Daniel. During those moments I could not help it to not hearing what they were speaking about. In the same time there was something about Daniel that made me think of his relationship with Harry. I was wondering how did Harry know so much about Daniel, and how was this laid back and casual Harry could have been like a side kick to someone as perfectionist as Daniel? Well I did not have the answer to this self composed question obviously, and so I just let it go.

"Marina! Let's go!" Chan led the way out as soon as Daniel agreed to change the cover of the new Hey. I stopped with my monologues about this Daniel-Harry dynamic and stood up to leave the room. As I was standing up, Daniel slowly took of his sunglasses. He looked at me and gave me a smile.

"Oh my god!" I stopped breathing for a second. I just could not believe with what I was seeing. Daniel without his sunglasses on made my heart screamed!

"Harry?" I said it in the lowest voice possible. I pretended to be calm. But my heart screamed 'No way! No way! Impossible!'

"Harry?" Chan looked at me with a trivial face before she turned to Daniel, "Who's Harry?"

"Oh, nobody!" I shook my head. "Shall we go to the editorial now, Chan?" I took a glance at Daniel who were giving me such a mysterious smile before I left the room looking like someone who had just seen a ghost in it.

I got to my table with so many questions in my head. 'What is actually happening? How could I not realize that Daniel and Harry is the same person?'  I could not sit still and these monologues within me was nowhere to be stopped. Every moment, every scene of me with 'Harry' transcended onto the big screen in my head and getting played and repeated like a broken film. From the moment I saved him his Hermes scarf to the day he visited me after my first day working at Hey, up until the time when I texted him from the meeting room just now.

"No wonder...No wonder...No wonder!" I talked to myself and smacked my forehead a few times. Everything that puzzled me before was getting solved one by one.

"Marina, Daniel wants to see you," Chan suddenly came in, stopping me from this fantasy or hallucination or daydream- whatever you want to call it.

"Okay Chan!"

I made my way to the editor in chief's room. So slowly as I was trying to put together my lines and think about the most appropriate response that I should pay Daniel about this guy named 'Harry'.

In a very slow motion, I opened the door of the editor in chief's room. I tried to stay calm and composed, like I had not been very much affected by what just happened.

"Are you calling for me, MISTER HARRY?" I said it as soon as I got into his room. Daniel gave me the biggest smile soon as he heard me mentioning the name with such a sarcastic tone.

"Nobody is calling me with that name here, Marina," Daniel said it, laying his back on the chair.  "Just call me Daniel," I could see how naughty his smile was saying that and I could almost feel it that deep inside, he was celebrating it for the fact that he had successfully gotten me confused.

"Come sit, Marina."

"What is the thing behind your Calvin Klein sunglasses, Harry? I mean Daniel? Or Harry?" I asked him, acting so confused with the names just to play him around.

"Daniel. I'm Daniel," he laughed.

"I got Punk'd, all this time. I can't believe Harry and Daniel are actually the same person!" I said it, shaking my head. To be honest I was still in disbelief of what had happened that day. "Very impressive! The fact that you managed to come out with two identities with just one prop!"

"Prop? Are you comparing all these with a stage performance?"

"I mean do you have a better name for this drama you created, Daniel?"

"Are you angry with me Marina?"

"No...I was just...surprised a little bit. I feel like I've been trapped. But to think of it, it's actually quite funny."

"Don't get it wrong, Marina. There's no way I'm going to trap you or do anything bad to you or something. It's just one of the ways to introduce myself to you."

"I see. So how long has this Harry guy existed to be frank?"

"Since Jen..." Daniel suddenly took a pause. I could see he was thinking about something. Or maybe someone.  Once again I heard this 'Jen' name that I heard him mentioning for the first time at the launch of Sari Ayu Spa back then.

"....quite some time, actually!" Daniel continued, answering my question about the existence of Harry.

"Hmmm. There must be a story behind that name right?"

Daniel did not say a word. Only a smile on his face.

"What if I call you Mr. Kent?"

"Kent?" Daniel asked back.

"Yeah. Kent. You never watched a Superman?"

"Oh you meant Clark Kent?"

I nodded.

"I am no superhero," Daniel shook his head.

"Well I have got a feeling that you are. Do you remember why we took you to the hospital back then?" we both laughed in the same time, remembering that day. Especially those moments when 'Harry' was saving a handbag of a woman named Sheila that was snatched from her that day.

"Welcome to Hey, Marina," Daniel wished me.

"Thank you Daniel. I hope this will be a meaningful experience to me."

"For sure Marina...For sure."

Later that night I went to the Dr. Love and shared everything that had happened between me, 'Harry' and Daniel to Gina and Ally. They were very surprised with how it turned out. Gina could not be more excited about it while Ally on the other hand was being a little skeptical with Daniel. To him, all that Daniel has done was only a start to a game that always been played by people like Daniel. He suggested that I be more careful after this.

Their response had actually made me be extra cautious and somehow it made me spent so much time behind the screen to look for more information about Daniel. I could say that at one point I felt like I have became like a spy doing research about someone's background. All of the information about him were meticulously read by me.

I studied everything, from his personal background to family affairs to his long career moves that finally landed him at Hey. Sometimes when the time was right, I would ask everyone in the editorial about him. A little bit of this and that. It could not be too obvious as it might tick someone in there. All of these information however were only building up my admiration towards him. He became my latest obsession. For a couple weeks, I would make sure to take a little time everyday to read anything about him.

From all of these information I gathered about Daniel, I found that his family has became such a great influence for him. Exposures to the media and corporate world had contributed a lot in shaping his personality.

His father, Darius was an editor of a tabloid called Rainbow. Since Daniel was little, his dad noticed about Daniel's obsession with MTV and VH1 and he often asked for Daniel's opinion on how to capture teenager's attention to Rainbow. His mother, Karina was also known by many. Before she married Darius, Karina was already a founder of a travelling and a modelling agency. Daniel was an average student at school but he always scored in languages and Mathematics.

Not long after SPM, he wasted no time by leaving for Singapore and working with the departmental store ISETAN. He spent so much time there getting to know people and networking with strong profiles from various industries, especially in fashion, music, film, as well as politics.

His friendship with Ramzi who was at that time a certain 'someone' in the 8 Days magazine in Singapore had very much exposed him to the magazine publishing business. They were both so closed to the point there were rumours about them being more than just friends.

In 2002 he was accepted to work with the Singapore Harper's Bazaar as a review writer, thanks to Ramzi's recommendation and support. After three years, he came back to Malaysia and paved his way through several local hits, like Remaja, Maskulin and InTrends magazine. In 2008 he took a leap again to Singapore for this amazing offer from ELLE magazine as the assistant editor in chief. Mid 2009- he moved back to Malaysia and worked with Granite, a sports magazine published by Terry Lee Publication. The position in Granite was not as superior. However with  strong profiles and recommendations under his belt, he managed to capture the attention of the Terry Lee Publication's executives. His credibility as an editor shone through.

In 2010 Terry Lee Publication appointed him as the editor in chief for the Hey magazine and it was their best move I heard. At that time Hey was a struggling magazine trying to score its place among the leading rivals such as Klue and Junk. To show his grand entrance, Daniel came out strong with his own vision and difference for this magazine. He shocked the whole industry with a sensual cover that featured two men holding each other in a bathtub. His debut has caused quite a stir but he was very firmed with his decision and strongly stated that it had a powerful significance with the highlight of that particular issue- 'Brotherhood, Sensitivity and Understanding'.

Despite all the backlash and controversy caused by the cover, Daniel has successfully changed the direction of Hey magazine and made it a phenomena. Not only the magazine, but he too, had gained a fair amount of popularity and of course, when you are popular, people would want to know more about you. It seemed like nothing had passed through the mouth of the public. His sexuality, his relationships with few notable women from the politic and media world, including his relationship with Ramzi and few other men, they were all had been discussed in various blogs, online forums and social media. He was also a frequent in the Malaysia Best Dressed Men list, all thanks to his unique and strong sense of style.

"So...Marina. How is it? How's your find out about Daniel?" Asked Gina.

"Interesting! Very interesting!" I responded to her. Short and quick.