The 'New' Ugly Betty

Snippet 14

Daniel was in his office with Amanda and four other ladies checking out two mock prints of Mode’s cover page and he was seeking their opinion on it because he wanted it to attract ‘the fashion conscious woman’. Betty walked in with pie for Daniel but he wasn’t interested in it, Betty then looked at the print-outs and remarked that she really like the gown, that it was very Cinderella, which put Amanda and Daniel off while the other ladies just laughed. With that, Betty just left them and went back the way she came. While Daniel continued by saying he wanted something cool and sexy, Amanda stayed so close to him distracting him.

Just then, the phone in Betty’s office started ringing but she ignored it and walked past her desk which made Daniel pick up the call. He called Betty and told her that Bianci was on the line for her. Betty’s low-sunked spirit immediately spring to life again. She quickly snatched the received and exchange pleasantries with him, they spoke a little and he requested to speak with Daniel. Daniel then rushed to his office to pick the call. They agreed to a Lunch meeting to discuss what they were proposing. He requested that Betty came along so, Daniel told her to make the reservations for the three of them and to dress up a little for the appointment.

Betty went to Christina to get help with what to wear for the important appointment. She wanted to look more ‘Mode-ish’ but she wasn’t much of a help. So, Betty was in the bathroom at home the next morning trying the made-up eye of a model she cut from a magazine on her own eye to see how she’d look. Her father came in and asked what was going on. Although, she quickly removed it, she confessed to her father that she worked in an office where the ladies where tall, slim and beautiful looking and she felt like was the odd one out.

Her father told her that she was beautiful and with a big heart but Betty told him that that lecture of his wasn’t going to help her. Hilda listened in on their conversation and as soon as their father left she walked in and stood by the door, arm akimbo, telling Betty, “You see? I told you”. Betty told her to shut-up and just help her. Hilda then rushed Betty to the salon to make her over!

Meanwhile, Wilhelmina also went to the salon to get her hair done. She told the stylist to do something different; something befitting an Editor-in-Chief. Wilhelmina was having her usual beauty routine – having her hair and eye-brows done, having a message while sipping wine.

Ugly Betty was also undergoing beauty routines that were strange to her. First and foremost, the local beautician was removing part of her bushy eye-brows and she screamed. Secondly while her hair was getting done, her feet were being manicured and the poor thing just kept giggling because it tickled her. Finally her hair was sprayed and she coughed as it she just caught the flu or something.

When Wilhelmina’s stylist was through her hair, she was pleased with it and said ‘perfect’.

Betty was also through and the stylist convinced her that her hair looked like the one on the model in a magazine cut-out Betty had with her. All the ladies in the salon applauded and Betty smiled broadly (pleased with the outcome), showing off her red-coloured manicured acrylic nails.

On her way to work that day, she walked confidently dressed in ...do I describe her? Ok.

She walked by the store where Walter worked. He and his colleague came out to have another look to be sure it was her, they were simply amazed. She passed by a group of men (obviously Latinos) who were working on the drainage system who whistled at her and she stopped and asked it they were whistling at her. They nodded and she said ‘Really? Thanks’, pleased that she was getting noticed. As she walked on more confidently now, she lost her footing, managed to compose herself and walked on with measured steps.

Inside the lift to her office she was busy because when the lift opened she was re-painting her lips when Bradford joined her. It took her a while to notice that the new entrant was Bradford Meade because she was so pre-occupied with her new look. She said hello and had to introduce herself to him because he didn’t recognize her! He also told her she had changed and she said 'Thank You'.

When she got to Mode’s floor, walked confidently along the corridor but tripped a little and had to remove a shoe from one foot. Marc who was already on the look out for her, called Wilhelmina on his phone to fill her in, while following Betty to her office like a paparazzi. He bumped into someone in the process, called Betty and as she turned to face him, he took a shot of her on his camera phone, saying he just found his new screensaver!

The phone of Betty’s desk ranged just then and she received a mysterious call. The caller refused to identify herself and insisted on speaking with Daniel. She called Daniel and informed him about the caller. He, at first asked her to get rid of the caller but changed his mind and took the call putting it on speaker-phone. The woman told him she just finished reading his first issue and paid him compliments. He asked for her name but she said it was not important at that moment and said the real issue was how well Daniel knew his father! Daniel immediately picked up the receiver asking the woman to excuse him but she interrupted him and asked him to do her a favour – he should ask his father what he had been up to at Bayon Salvage Yard and she ended the call. Daniel dropped the receiver and marched purposefully to Betty’s office.

He got the shocked of his life at the sight of the ‘new’ Ugly Betty. The only thing he managed to utter was "look at you".