Yang Hyun-Suk tapped his index finger absentmindedly on the resume Noelle had left him.  He weighed the pro’s and con’s of her offer.  There was no doubt she would work hard, Teddy had reassured him on that point as did her school history. 

He was mostly concerned about T.O.P.  Would it be too much of a distraction?  Or would it strengthen him?  Would having her around lift him up … or drag him down with the baggage so many relationships brought.  Now was a critical time in Seung-Hyun’s career and he needed to stay focused.  Yang Hyun-Suk mentally replayed what he knew of Noelle’s personality.   

The only thing he was certain of was that T.O.P. knew nothing about her meeting with him or her proposal.

Sighing, he filed the piece of paper away in a drawer. 

It was too much of a risk.

Five more minutes.  Four minutes fifty seconds.  Four minutes forty seconds.

“Aishhh, don’t look!” Park Bom told herself as she jogged briskly on the treadmill. 

She turned her attention to the window to take her mind off the last remaining bit of her workout. 

“Ehh?”  A sign was being hoisted and mounted above a street level shop across from their building.  The wording looked foreign .. was it English?  She squinted to get a clearer view.

“It’s a French bakery!” she called out joyously and pointed.

Puzzled, her trainer approached the window and looked down.  He turned and waggled his finger at her, “Don’t even think about it.”  

She replied with an impish grin.

Sixty ……..thirty ….. ten …. five … DONE! 

The silence was so thick the sound of the electrical current buzzing through the walls was deafening.

Ji-Yong stared blankly down at the notebook in front of him, his chin resting on one hand.

Seung-Hyun stared into the empty recording booth, his eyes slightly out of focus.

Teddy snoozed on the couch, his baseball cap pulled down over his face.

Seungri watched them from behind the glass door and wondered how funny it would be if he pulled the fire alarm.

Noelle rolled down the window and drunk in the dry heat of the sunny Texas sky.  As her iPod crooned BIGBANG’s Heaven, she thought about him.

Her taxi pulled in slowly onto the long gravel drive that lead up to her grandparent’s ranch.  Cattle grazed languidly in the pasture.  Daisies and field pansies overflowed into the roadside.  There must have been a heavy rain recently, she thought vaguely as the heat lulled her towards a daydream.  She wished she could show Seung-Hyun this vast, peaceful place.

The wide rambling house looked exactly the same as it had when she was little.  She would bet that even the outdated rustic wooden and rawhide furniture was all still in place.  It was a comforting thought. 

 “Ahhh!  My sweet Christmas baby!!  It’s about time you came to see your Gramma, chickie,” called a voice from the front porch as Noelle pulled herself out of the cab.  “My, my, you look more and more like your Momma every day.”

“Mimi!” Noelle beamed with joy.  She wrapped her arms carefully around the old woman’s shoulders and breathed in the soft scent of Chanel from her hair.  It felt good to be home.

“Boss, call on line three for you.”

“Yebosayo?”

“Mr. Yang?”

“Yes?”

“This is Billy Monahan from Monahan Entertainment.  I believe you know my daughter Noelle Linden?”

Yang Hyun-Suk blinked in surprise.

“Yes?”

“I understand you’ve offered her a job.”

He frowned.  She was telling people he’d given her a job?

“I have a proposition to make you.”

What was the deal with this family and their propositions?

“I want Noelle to come work for me.”

Yang Hyun-Suk nodded sympathetically.  Noelle was his daughter, of course she should work at her father’s company.

“How much do you want.”

His eyebrows shot up.  “Excuse me?”

“How about fifty to forget about the whole thing.”

He jammed a finger in the ear he had pressed against the phone and wiggled it.  Was something wrong with his hearing?  “Excuse me??”

“I’ll give you fifty thousand dollars to fire Noelle.”

Yang Hyun-Suk slammed the phone into its cradle.  No wonder she didn’t want to work for her father.  “Pompous bastard,” he mumbled to himself.

He pulled the resume out of his desk and searched for her email address.

Noelle ran her fingertips along the rough pine mantel of the den’s fireplace.  Pictures of her grandparents, her mother and herself as a child were scattered along its length.  She stopped a moment to gaze at a photograph of her mother as a teenager.  She closed her eyes and tried to recall that face from her own childhood memories, but although she could remember bits and pieces of holidays, birthdays and other random moments, her mother’s face was always a hazy blur.

She picked up an old pipe that still carried a faint aroma of tobacco.  Sticking it between her teeth, she thought about her grandfather and the ever too short summer vacations she’d spent in this wonderful place.

“I miss them too,” her grandmother sighed as she looked up from the afghan she was crocheting.

“Mimi,” Noelle started softly. “Do you believe in love at first sight?”

Her grandmother smiled knowingly.  “Honey, do you really think I married your granddaddy for his charming personality?”

Noelle giggled.

“It was love at first sight for sure.  That man had the brightest blue eyes I’d ever seen.  I knew right away I was gonna marry him and have enough babies to start a football team,” she chuckled.  “Only your momma came though,” she added sadly.

Noelle bowed her head to hide the tears that were spilling onto her cheeks.

“She was a good girl though,” Mimi said with a small smile.  “She left us you.”

Noelle looked up and met her grandmother’s adoring gaze.  “I love you too Mimi,” she replied thankfully.

Later that night, Noelle booted up her laptop and pulled up her yahoo account.  In her inbox was a short message from YG.  It read:

You’re hired.