Page 199 of Lavender Lake
I pushed the door open and stopped. Alma, my work nemesis, sat in one of the chairs in front of the desk.
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t know you were already in a meeting,” I said, attempting to back away.
“I called this meeting to talk to you both,” Candace said. She waved at the vacant chair.
I paused, and then came inside, closing the door behind me. I lowered myself into the chair, and then sat on my hands so I wouldn’t fidget with nerves.
Alma looked at me, cool and composed. She was the kind of woman who belonged in the corporate world. She was a machine that never tired. Her clothes were never wrinkled. And her bob was just the right mix of angry and chic.
She looked like a mini version of Candace.
Candace 2.0.
I still didn’t know why Candace had hired me.
“I’ll get right to the point,” Candace said. “We’ve been bought out. We’re merging with Hawthorne Whitaker.”
“Are we fired?” Alma asked.
Candace shook her head. “No. There will be layoffs, but we’re not there yet. However, for the next six weeks, we will have a consultant in the department. Let me be blunt with you both; their job is to find the fat and cut it. Corporate restructuring or whatever. One of you was going to get a promotion, but unfortunately, there’s only one job after the merger. So, my advice to you both is this: eat, sleep and breathe your work for the next six weeks. At the end of that time, one of you won’t work here anymore.”
“I won’t even go home to shower,” Alma promised without delay. “My gym is just down the street. I can shower there.”
Candace beamed at her.
Kiss ass.
Candace grabbed her pen and went back to the papers on her desk, effectively dismissing us. Alma got the hint and stood, leaving Candace’s office, but I sat there like a perplexed idiot.
I already worked like a dog. I spent far too many lunch breaks crying in the bathroom stalls. Now I had to work evenharderto prove to someone who didn’t even know me that I was worthy of keeping my job on top of fighting for a promotion.
I looked around Candace’s office. The Montblanc pen, the crystal St. Louis paper weight on the ornate, old world antique desk, the dozens of framed book covers on the walls that had hit the top of the bestseller lists.
These were Candace’s crowning achievements. Achievements I had wanted to accomplish at almost any cost. But at the moment, they seemed superficial and hollow.
What was the point? I would never be a Candace. I’d never be an Alma. Clawing my way up the corporate ladder. For what? Hoping someone didn’t shove me off when I finally reached the top?
My brain flashed forward twenty years.
Me. Late at night. In an office. Surrounded by things instead of people.
Tired.
Single.
Lonely.
No. Absolutely not.
“You can go now, Poet,” Candace said pointedly.
When I didn’t reply, she looked up from her papers.
The spine I usually lacked snapped straight.
And a voice that had never come out of my mouth said, “No.”
Her Botoxed forehead didn’t move, but her tone implied a furrow. “No? What do you meanno?”
