Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

“ O kay, not to be that person but we need to work,” said Cholo, mouth still full of rice as he pulled his backpack beside him and took out his laptop.

We were at the tapsilog place, which was almost empty except for us and two other tables. Cholo offered to pay for my meal, which I declined at first?— “You can’t bribe your way to me, noh” ?—but then I remembered I was saving up for Seoul so I relented.

“This is what we need help with,” he continued as he opened a Word document. “Seth—you know, your team head?—said you guys already talked about this but to make it formal, I’d like your help on the letter templates and how to make them more appealing to sponsors.”

“Wow,” I said, unable to help myself, because OMG, WALLS OF TEXT . “These do need help.”

“That’s what you’re here for,” Cholo replied. “You know Ephemere’s reputation, right? There is a lot at stake.”

“I didn’t know you took the party club rep that seriously,” I quipped.

“We’re aiming to raise at least half a million pesos in profits,” Cholo said. “We’re short of time, too. Miss Co is determined to secure the target profit amount for the beneficiaries by securing sponsors early.”

“Well, we can polish the header and footer branding all we want but these walls of text are not going to help.” I said, pointing to the document and suggesting other ideas.

He looked back at me, and I expected a raised eyebrow or an unconvinced smirk but instead he looked like he was seriously considering my suggestion.

“There’s a prescribed template. Any changes will have to be approved by the External Relations team,” Cholo replied.

“Maybe we can get the approval later,” I said, determined. “That’s the quickest way for people to say yes to a sponsorship. People are visual creatures. To avoid info overload, we can put a click-through image that links to a short video with the last event’s key achievements. We catch their attention and our email doesn’t end up in the junk folder. They bookmark it for reading later.”

Cholo’s brow was furrowed.

“It’s a suggestion. Still your call,” I said, shrugging.

“Ok. I can ask External Relations to fast-track and look at it first,” he said, looking convinced as the crease on his forehead disappeared. “I’m friends with the ExtRel head. And if that doesn’t work, I can run it by ExeCom.”

“ExeCom?” I repeated, not used to the jargon.

“Executive Committee. Club President and the VPs,” Cholo explained. “Though I must say, they are not the easiest to deal with. To make a change this big, we’d have to impress them. How quickly can you show me a sample?”

“Tomorrow afternoon,” I replied. Cholo raised an eyebrow. “We’re not passing it yet. It’ll be more of a rough draft that I’ll run by you or your marketing team. Then I can polish it enough to make it presentable enough for the powers that be on Monday. Does that work?”

I felt like I was biting off more than I can chew but if Cholo was risking his neck bypassing approvals for my idea, I needed to have something to show for it. I had to show I was willing to put the work in, too.

“We have a lot going on this weekend acads-wise. Are you sure you can do that?” he asked.

I mentally ran through my task list for the weekend, which included a paper for Business Law, solving the sample exam for Managerial Accounting...

“You can expect it in the shared drive over the weekend,” I said, feeling reckless.

“No, not the shared drive,” Cholo said. “Just email it to me.”

“Cool. I’ll do that,” I said. “Do you have materials on last year’s event? I can make a sample Co-Presentor package vid off it.”

“Confident, ha,” Cholo remarked. I frowned, and he backpedaled when he saw the look on my face. “Not a bad thing. Where were you all this time?”

I was about to say something snippy when I felt my phone beep inside my pocket.

DRESDEN MAIL

Cholo Valiente added you as Contributor

I tapped the notification and was redirected to the Google Drive folder containing last year’s event documentation.

“That was quick. Thanks,” I said.

“I expect to be blown away, okay?” Cholo said, leaning his elbows on the table and angling his body towards me, his eyes glinting with the familiar mischief again.

“Oh, just you wait, Prefect Brat,” I replied, matching his stare head on, not breaking eye contact even as I took a sip off my Coke can.

Vinnie, what on earth have you gotten yourself into?