Page 54 of Fight

“This isn’t about me, Helena. This is about you,” Cynthia insisted as her face became red with anger. “You need to adjust your attitude if you think Lake Conrad is the place for you. We might not be ascoolas you, but we will still value hard work here.”

“Please give me another chance, Cynthia. I really need a job,” Lena put forth one last plea, although she could feel her heart wasn’t in it anymore. Why would she want to work for a person who thought so little of her?

Cynthia was unmoved. “Maybe your Conrad friends can get you another job. That’s the only reason you got this one,” she sneered.

Lena was taken aback. This was about more than a couple of missteps and a misread of her attitude. Cynthia had issues, she didn’t like who Lena was as a person, and she seemed to have a weird complex about the Conrads that she projected onto her feelings about Lena. She was right—this was not the place for her.

But this didn’t change the fact that she’d just gotten fired—she’d never been fired before—and she needed a job to stay in Lake Conrad. Lena felt her eyes well up with tears. Was it only a half an hour ago that she’d arrived at work on top of the world?Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Not wanting Cynthia to see her crying, Lena nodded her head up and down a couple times before silently rising from the chair and slowly walking out of the room.

“Helena,” she heard Cynthia yell from her doorway. “We’re going to need that uniform back.”

Lena ignored her as she walked quickly down the stairs and snuck into the closet where she’d hung her bag. Luckily, Maggie and Kendra were busy with guests, so they didn’t see her quickly slip in and out of the back door before taking the long way to a far-off exit.

It wasn’t until Lena had left the building that she finally gave her tears permission to fall. She sobbed sporadically as she walked across the parking lot, tears sliding down her face and landing on her orange shirt in splotches.

It wasn’t until she got to the far end of the parking lot that she realized she didn’t know where she was going. Annie was supposed to pick her up in seven hours. She could easily walk home, but she wasn’t ready to do that. Annie was home due to summer break and she didn’t want to face her sympathies and questions just yet.

Ultimately, Lena decided to walk toward the lake where she knew a couple of benches sat in the trees off the shoreline of the lake. When she finally settled on a bench, she took a deep breath willing herself to stop crying and focus on the view. It was a gray and windy day, but warm.The waves off the lake chopped harshly and the sky’s dark clouds hung soberly over the wide landscape.

Lena looked up at Mount Dalak across the lake, remembering the drama and the fun of spending time on that mountain with Jake. She winced thinking of what he would say if he heard she was loudly announcing that she “fraternized” with him. It didn’t matter, anyway. Now that she was unemployed, she would most likely need to go back to Virginia and admit she was wrong about something else.

Lena sighed as she pulled out her sketchpad and pencils, laying out the somber scene in front of her with dark shading and bold strokes. Well, even if she had to leave and she never saw Jake again, at least she could try to leave a mural behind for him to remember her by.

Chapter 17

Lenastaredatherreflection in the mirror on the back of her bedroom door that evening, much as she had a few weeks ago. But instead of Annie and Morgan laughing from behind her as she evaluated her resort uniform, she was alone in her room, and she looked hot as hell, if she did say so herself.

She wore a vintage nineteen seventies silk cocktail dress that hit low on the back and high on the thigh. The pattern on the dress swirled with different shades of purple, and touches of bright yellow that she brought out with the strappy neon yellow heels. Her hair was still in the fishtail half-updo from work earlier and she’d kept her makeup simple, but dramatic.

Lena knew she was overdressed for a place like the Blue Sky—everyone would probably be wearing jeans and t-shirts again. She was feeling nihilistic after the day she’d had though, so why not keep up the whole girl-in-a-fancy-dress-at-a-mountain-bar thing going?

She still hadn’t told anyone she’d been fired. After spending the day sitting on the beach, sketching and thinking, Lena had met Annie at her pick-up spot in front of the resort and feigned exhaustion from a normal day at work. She could tell that Annie sensed something was wrong, but Lena was able to successfully brush her off. She’d spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening in her room, painting her mural submission mock up, moping as she re-lived her conversation with Cynthia, and ignoring apology text messages from Daniel.

Overall her mural submission was much darker than she’d originally intended when she’d come up with the idea, but nevertheless, she was pleased with it. Just as she told Maggie and Kendra, it was Chagall-esque. Instead of the sunset-inspired background of orange and pink that she’d originally planned, she’d ended up painting purples and blues that faded into bright depictions of some of her favorite Lake Conrad images: Sapphire Falls, Table Rocks, and Mount Dalak.The darker colors reminded her of the night sky from last summer’sHell Hikeat Fallen Leaf lake. Monday was the submission due date and she should be good to go after a few final finishing touches tomorrow.

There was a knock on her door right before Annie stuck her head inside the room as Lena took a wide step backward. “Leeny!” She shrieked happily. “You look amazing!”

Lena flashed her a small smile.“Thanks, Annie. You look beautiful, as usual.”

“Thank you, thank you,” she said, smiling as she stepped into the room. Annie was wearing a yellow sundress and had her loose curls in fat braid down her back. “I know this is some weird group date night for you and Jake, but I’m excited to go get some drinks tonight. I need it.”She paused as her eyes scanned Lena up and down and considered her before she closed Lena’s door and dropped down on Lena’s bed.

“Okay,” she said, crossing her legs and leaning back on her hands. “What’s the matter? And don’t say ‘nothing,’” she ordered in a mimicking tone. “You’ve been weird ever since I picked you up. And you were in such a good mood this morning, acting like you were floating around on a cloud.”

Lena sat next to Annie on her bed and looked down on the floor. She should tell her, she really should, but she was so embarrassed. It was because of Annie that she had moved here in the first place, and Annie was the one who’d pushed for Lena to work at the resort. She wasn’t ready to tell her that she failed at her new life barely a month into it.

“I think I'm just tired…maybe a little homesick for Cori,” she deflected as the dread and hurt she’d felt all day mingled with the guilt of lying to her best friend.

“Hmm,” Annie said non-committedly. “Are you sure you want to go out tonight?”

“Yes,” Lena said determinedly, and she meant it. She looked hot, anyway, and could use the distraction. She needed to get out of this room.Maybe it would help her get out of her head.

“Are you nervous about seeing Jake?” Annie continued to probe. Lena had filled her in on most of the things that had happened on Dalak back when she was still on cloud nine—minus the naked waterfall parts.

“No,” Lena answered honestly. Although, she was worried about Jake finding out she’d been fired and knowing all of the things Cynthia had said to her.He likes Cynthia,she thought, remembering his “it’s complicated” comment from Sapphire Falls. He’d probably side with her. Bitterness swirled inside of her as she stared at the pattern in her pink and purple rug.

“Alright, well you look like you want to murder that rug, so I still don’t believe that you’re fine,” Annie said with a sigh. “But I know you’re as stubborn as a mule, so let’s go. If you’re going to be in a bad mood, I might as well get a drink out of it.”

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