Lovely.
“Isn’t there like, um, another job here I could take? Maybe a position that pays less?”
Pity flashes in her eyes. So that’s a hard no.
“With the business plan to lower operational costs, most of our personal assistant roles are being handled in the Philippines. If you’d like, I’d certainly be happy to keep your resume on—”
Nope.
Done.
Let her file this.
I scurry up from my chair and walk out without looking back, feeling like I’ve been slapped across the face. Really, though, it’s par for the course in Sabrina Bristol’s career world.
My first job was with a start-up firm. They went belly up when a big, bad G rolled out its own revolutionary app update, rendering their company obsolete a couple weeks after I started.
After that, I took a temp-to-hire position. The pay sucked, and they never kept any of the temps, so that was another dead end.
Purry Furniture & More seemed like an ideal fit. I mean, witchy black cats aside, I love animals.
Once you get past the idea that the entire job was marketing pet furniture, it was a pretty sweet starting place. Crap pay, sure, but it was supposed to be good experience, an open door, one more step up the ladder, dammit.
Three freaking months. That’s not experience.
That’s a radar blip, just enough time for a boss to decide you’re disposable when a penny-pinching knucklehead decides to right-size you right out of a job.
I don’t say anything to the few people milling around, avoiding me like I’m carrying the plague. I just go clear out my desk.
There isn’t much to remove, honestly.
A lonely picture of Paige and me at the Navy Pier on New Year’s Eve. Another photo with my parents from Christmas a couple years ago.
My last designs are scattered across my desk, a set of grinning cartoon cats raving about how Meow-some the company’s latest cat beds are. I never had time to pitch them properly, and I hope Jack the Rat hasn’t seen them.
Contrary to what my supervisor thinks, not everyone can purr-fectly picture cat and doggy heaven like I did in these mock-ups. So I’m swiping them for my portfolio before they claim dibs on the rights.
I throw the framed photographs in my purse, and when I don’t find anything to put the prints in, I swipe a hot-pink bedazzled folder off an intern’s desk. I throw a couple of dollars down to make up for taking her folder. I don’t leave a note. I doubt she even knows my name.
All of my high quality, professional work gets crammed into pink bedazzle.
Don’t get me wrong, I like pink. But I always pictured myself with a sleek black leather briefcase, not walking around like some high school art kid.
Ten minutes after my unceremonious departure, I’m back in the elevator that ate my heel as my phone vibrates.
A guy I talk to on Tinder, Brad B., messages to ask if I’d like to meet up at two p.m.
So maybe things are looking up?
He’s cute from his picture, at least. Seems hard-working, says he’s on track to be a partner at his accounting firm. He’s cute and funny, and his self-deprecating messages lead me to believe he might be the last normal single guy left in Chicago.
Sure, Sweeter Grind okay? I text back.
It’d better be. I’ll die without good coffee and a pastry today.
You’re on, Brad sends.
Cool. This fluttery hope sails through me. Maybe Paige is right.
Even though I lost my job and my heel, maybe, just maybe, things can still turn around.
At precisely one forty-five, I plant my butt in a booth chair at my favorite coffee shop and wait for him to arrive. I scour the web for graphic design jobs—nada—all the while glancing toward the door for Brad.
At two fifteen, I message to see where he is.
No answer.
At ten till three, the jackass still hasn’t shown up, and I’m feeling like a massive sucker.
What kind of pretty graphics could I make by layering Brad B.’s smirky Tinder pic over a donkey?
I cock my head and ponder. If nothing else, it might be a fun way to blow off some steam.
To hell with Casper the not-so-friendly date ghost.
I need my Sweeter Grind fix and I’ve waited long enough, so I head for the counter.
“What can I get you?” a chipper redhead with a ponytail asks.
My stomach snarls, famished because I haven’t had anything all day. “A medium cinnamon latte and a cream cheese bear claw, please. Oh, and one of those Heart’s Edge truffles, too.”
“Excellent choice! That’ll be nine dollars and nineteen cents,” she says.
I wince trying to subtract nine dollars and nineteen cents from the last fifty bucks I had in my bank account this morning. Math was never my best subject, and about an hour ago, I’d really been hoping Brad B. would show up like a gentleman and insist on buying my snack.