Cheryl dutifully jotted down the issue in her notebook only to immediately pull a double take with her boss. "That's all? You're neighbors with one of your rivals?"
"DO YOU NOT SEE THE PROBLEM, CHERYL?!" The green-haired intern curled up into a ball on her seat, frightened that she had said the wrong thing. The issue sounded so incredulous to a reclusive geek like her that she forgot that this was Gloria Vandergast calling the shots. She made mountains out of molehills of beans. She once took out her rage on an entire stock of dish-ware because the plates were the wrong shape for a speakeasy themed dive bar; the Rage Box stress relief hotspot in the warehouse district, where you could pay to smash various junk while wearing protective equipment, still had shards of Gloria's disposed plates in the wooden walls. Gloria had to really get creative using pickles as an ingredient after buying out the entire stock of home grown, spicy quick pickles just to rub it to a competitor. Gloria's high standards were entirely her own, exceedingly unpractical in the name of being the biggest name to stand out among other restaurant tycoons.
"I scouted the house FIRST!" Gloria roared with less volume. "It was to be my staycation retreat, a quiet spot to retire from the bustle of the city." A quiet spot for Gloria was still an affluent, scenic suburb lined with palm trees, tropical flowers and cacti. Three car garage, purple exterior paint, two and a half level with a big dining room, den, and enough bed space for six sounded like way too much for a single resident. Gloria wanted the best of the best, it had been an attractive residence when it went on the market and the Kitchen Boss had the satisfaction of outbidding everyone else.
Buying a big house numbered 107-35 on Sunset River Drive in Lee's Creek was not that much of an impulse purchase. Gloria's high-rise penthouse suite at the Waterford Hotel was very close to her office in downtown Trussel, true, and had decent enough space for the occasional dinner invitation. It kept Gloria on the pulse of her business yet it was not much of an escape. Especially with Gloria's plans of expansion for the holdings of Vandergast, Inc. She was beginning to acquire restaurants across the state. Overseeing redevelopment would take her away from the city for some time. What made the suburb of Lee's Creek attractive was that it sat off center of the mapped area where Gloria had business dealings plus the commute to Trussel wasn't that long even in rush hour. It would be a proper home where Gloria could relax, inviting staff members for summit meetings as a secondary office in a pinch. More importantly, she would have privacy to unwind and dream up new recipes.
"I certainly wouldn't have purchased if I new the ENEMY was right across the street!" Gloria continued. "Probably decided to rent it just to infuriate me!"
"Ah," Cheryl noted, sensing this was already going to cause her a headache. Her issue was remembering the full list of Gloria's rivals since becoming an intern, it felt like it changed every week. "Who was it that was living across from--?"
Her question was cut off by Gloria's unrelenting fury. "Stealing my thunder, no doubt!" She slapped her desk. "Imagine what the suburbanites would have thought with a home state celebrity chef in their midst. I could have been Queen of the block party barbecue! But not with an OPPONENT to divide the attention."
"Weren't you, uh, originally wanting a place to lay low?" Cheryl asked.
"And I can't just sell the house off!" Gloria's shifting logic made Cheryl jump through mental hoops as she wrote shorthand in her notebook just to keep up. "Buying the house out was already a mint and to give it up would be surrender! They can't chase me out of what would have been a happy family abode."
"You're starting a family?!" That seemed the most startling news to Cheryl thus far. Gloria was the plus sized poster lady of a pulled-up-by-the-bootstraps businesswoman. Her career was her life. Cheryl wasn't currently dating but she thought that someday, she might settle down to have kids. Or adopt. She couldn't imagine anyone in the picture of her high taste, profit focused boss. Nor could she picture the type of man who could put up with being "Mr. Gloria Vandergast" because the authority in that relationship was going to be entirely one sided. Let alone, how would the intern be able to notice if her boss was pregnant at her size?
"It's a figure of speech, Cheryl!" Gloria was taken aback. "Not the issue here! My rival is camped at the end of the driveway of my beautiful house! Also hyperbole," she added, as Cheryl's pen paused in her hurried shorthand. "And there's no other suitable homes for my needs on the market. So I need them dealt with!"
"Right..." Cheryl said, the situation being entirely unlike anything an intern was supposed to do at a company. At least she was paid, rather than an internship for merit. "What exactly are you asking me to do?" How exactly was she supposed to get somebody to move out of a house because her boss hated them? And who was 'Them' anyway?
"Get me something I can destroy them with!" Gloria said, as if that was obvious. "Eviction! Prank them! Turn them into the homeowner's association. Find their weakness where I can pounce. Nobody's going to pretend to be Gloria's chummy neighbor and get away with blindsiding me."
"Are you really sure it's one of your rivals across the street?" Cheryl asked.
"Miss Allen." Uh-oh, Cheryl could tell she put her foot in it now with Gloria's shifting tone. "Nobody would have asked John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie to live next door to each other. They would have been killing the other in their sleep! I am NOT going to put up with waking up in the morning only to see the opposition out the window. Now get. Me. RESULTS!!"
"Yes, ma'am," Cheryl fled out the door, sighing deeply once she was out of Gloria's line of sight. The put upon introverted intern fell back against the wall. Sorting mail. Printing documents. Updating spreadsheets (those poor, poor spreadsheets Gloria never asked her to manage); these were the typical tasks asked of any entry level business intern. Gloria tasked her to fix the impossible!
She supposed she best get wheels on the road to look into this mess. She made a mental note to save the gas receipts for reimbursement. The intern was at a loss for where to begin in this strange endeavor. Cheryl supposed that finding the house in question was where she should start. It would also allow her to find out 'who' was the mystery rival to incite Gloria into a rage, since she was being so cagey on the specifics.
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