“I’m here to help,” she said. “I have brought sustenance.” She held up a plastic packet, and the smell of Chinese wafted toward me.
“God, you really are a saint.” I grabbed her and hugged her.
“You have something I can change into, right?” she asked.
I nodded and she followed me to my office, where I opened a large cabinet. Clothes, socks, and shoes were stacked inside, with a hairbrush and a toothbrush.
“It’s like you live here,” Sadie said. “None of this will fit me.”
“Shut up; you can wear these.”
Sadie was a few sizes bigger than I was and much taller. She had curves for days, compared to my smaller form. I was curvy, short, and not nearly as self-confident as Sadie. She owned her body like it was nobody’s business.
“Yeah, maybe,” she said, taking the sweats and T-shirt from me. She walked to the bathroom to get dressed, while I unpacked the food she’d brought with her. My stomach rumbled—I hadn’t eaten since this morning.
When she returned, she looked a lot more comfortable.
“They fit you fine,” I said.
Sadie tugged at the shirt. “It’s a lot tighter than it is on you. But you forget to eat, so who knows what that’s all about.”
I laughed and shook my head. “Thank you for being here. You really didn’t have to come.”
“Of course, I did. If we had gone out drinking, we would have suffered together tomorrow. So, I’ll suffer with you tonight. It totally comes with the territory.” She pulled her short hair back into a tiny ponytail. “I got sweet-and-sour pork, spring rolls, and dumplings.”
We dived into the food, and only when I started eating did I realize I was starving.
“So, what’s the issue?” Sadie asked. “What do you need to get done tonight?”
“Only the rest of the house for Tony Richmond,” I groaned.
“Tony Richmond? The furniture guy?”
“That’s the one,” I said.
Richmond Furniture was a chain store, and Tony owned them all.
“Wow, that’s a big one.” Sadie poked around in her carton, finding pieces of pork.
“I know. It’s the first big client Essence has taken on. It will do wonders for my portfolio and let me break into a new market. And the price he’s paying me doesn’t hurt either. But if I’m already stuck, and I’ve barely started, I don’t know how I’m going to figure this one out.”
“We’ll get it,” Sadie said, determined. “There’s always an answer; we just have to find it. Right?”
“Right,” I said. Sadie’s positive outlook on life was refreshing. No matter what went wrong, she always saw the silver lining. Irritatingly so, sometimes. But having a ray of sunshine around me made me more positive too.
And right now, I could do with a bit of positivity.
“Okay, what have you already done?” Sadie asked.
I pulled the tablet closer and showed her what I’d already come up with.
“I can’t get this room to flow, and because of it, everything else is stuck now too. I can’t get past it. I think I’ve stared at it for too long.”
“I know what that’s like. What if you flip the whole thing around?”
She showed me what she meant. I blinked at the picture that suddenly made so much more sense.
“I don’t know why I didn’t think of that,” I said.