Chapter 8 AN ACCIDENT

For a split second, Steve looked beyond Gabriella's pretty makeup and instantly her familiar facial appearance came to mind which prompted his memory to give him a complete flashback of the identity of the woman standing in front of him.

He not only remembered that they met for the first time as one of the contestant applying for the same position which she got accepted after rendering a wonderful performance of her singing and playing the rock guitar at the same time on the same stage which was currently being decorated with the final appearance as they want it to appear on the show and which they were standing next to, he vividly recalled the lady to be the same woman the Director had asked about her identity as soon as three of them were done enjoying and being satisfied with her performance.

"Oh, I'm so sorry Ma'am, for not recognizing you sooner." Steve answered apologetically in such a polite manner which he should not have done towards someone who apparently was younger than he was and peered at the wedding ring to make sure it really appeared on her fingers.

"It's okay. I can understand that you have been too stressed about work that you could hardly recognize me but don't sweat it." Gabriella said and looked around only to catch few glances of the workers peering in their direction. Those of whom she caught red-handed looking at her from where they worked, quickly returned to their duty post and went on with their work after taking a slight pause to steal glances at her pretty face.

"I see that you got my text message." Steve said trying to start the right conversation.

"Yes, and believe me, I was pleased to have received it and as a matter of fact, that's why I am here looking gorgeous." Gabriella replied with broad smiles written on her face. Each smiles she made did not only fascinate Steve who was closer to her compared to the other people working in the theatre hall, but also somehow seemed flirtatious and inviting in a sort of way that one of the workers, who was quite distracted in staring at her beauty accidentally dropped what he was holding where he was at the stage and it fell on the ground. It turned out that expensive item which slipped off the fingers of the culprit of which done a great job in holding at the same height with his chest region was a glassy vase worth some fortune and not only was he terrified, but everyone else who saw it happened were aghast and terrified. Steve was by far extremely mad with anger written all over him and furious to have witnessed the glass shattered into the pieces with a loud crash which echoed through the entire spacious hall.

At the sight of the incident which attracted and distracted everyone from doing their duty especially those caring enough to rush to the aid of the worker who deserted their post in a heartbeat to assist the culprit in cleaning up the mess, Steve promptly walked away from Gabriella and strode quickly to the far end of the stage before climbing it on his two feet. Then he went over to where the frightened culprit was to join the few groups of bystanders who stood and did nothing except to keep on looking at the very scene unfolding before their very eyes but unlike what they did, he pushed himself towards the front of the crowd which had surrounded the man responsible for shattering the glass.

"Matt, are you nuts?! Can't you effectively carry out a simple task of holding a glass until we are done with today's preparation?" Steve asked vehemently as he saw the man crouching pitifully in the midst of the nosy co-workers.

"Please don't yell at him. This was bound to occur at one point or another." One of the workers standing beside Steve replied promptly in Matt's defense but Steve was not yet done with reprimanding the culprit for defaulting and did not pay much attention to what the worker said since he was already too infuriated to listen to the advice of anybody standing beside him.

"You should have paid more attention to the glass instead of daydreaming to the point you were lost in your stupid thoughts." Steve remarked angrily even though his words sounded more like a whiplash to Matt whose fingers were busy picking up the mess from the floor. He kept doing so until a glass prickled his right index finger. At that moment, Steve and few of the bystanders felt even more irritated at Matt for acting ignorantly in front of them.

"Oh, gosh, I can't believe I trusted an expensive vase to a man who behaves like a child." Steve spat out in frustration and placed his two hands akimbo. Then he turned around in frustration and looked at the roof of the theatre hall searching for a possible place to escape the wrath of the real owner of the glass whom he knew would be the last to find out about the incident. Before long, he rubbed his face twice with both of his palms after giving his to-do list to one of the workers standing by his right. "Damn, I don't believe this is happening. The Director is going to be furious once he finds out about this." Steve said to himself, low-spirited and despondent.

"I'm so sorry for the breaking glass." Matt replied apologetically as soon as they were done gathering each broken fragments of the shattered glass and stood on his feet to properly say his apologies to the man temporarily in charge of overseeing the operations and works being adequately done in preparation for the show. "I didn't mean to land you into trouble by my actions. If only I had kept a cool head and have it dropped at the gallery backstage, then this won't have happen." Matt spoke out, looking more dejected than ever but his words did little to impress Steve and instead, it only made Steve more furious than he was earlier.

"Then you should have thought about that before you foolishly broke the glass vase and now, Director would be over my neck now because of you upon his return tomorrow morning." Steve replied and glared at Matt who looked evasively away from Steve.

From where she stood outside the stage below the raised platform where Steve had left her behind to look at the scene unfolding before her, Gabriella who had watched and overheard everything that had transpired between Steve and the culprit, decided to intrude in order to come to Matt's rescue since she felt pity for him and knew that he was on the verge of being fired by the man she came to meet whom she knew had the authority to do without having to pass on a call from the Director whom she had met only once at the audition a few days ago.