herself, gotten over her initial shock and all the hurt and anger that filtered
down from that moment she’d seen the ad with the shoes that were
supposed to be hers being put out by another company. A company who
didn’t even recycle a damn thing, for shit’s sake.
June pulled into her parking spot at the office and sat in the car for a few
minutes. The AC was pumping, so the heat of the outside didn’t reach her.
She felt bad about wasting energy, just sitting there, but she needed the few
extra minutes to grasp the steering wheel and try to figure out what she was
going to say.
No, she knew what she was going to say. She’d spent the better part of
her last meeting being unproductive because she was thinking about it, then
her mind had gone over and over it while she drove to the office.
She just hoped she could turn her emotions down and remember Arabella
was an employee right now and that was it. She didn’t want to think about
the more personal conversation that was coming. That made her breath
come short and her blood feel like it was half ice and half boiled.
Get through this first. Be professional.
June repeated that to herself six hundred times while she walked through
the lobby and went up in the elevator. She gave Shelly a nod at reception
and walked straight to Arabella’s office. She didn’t want to get distracted by
anyone or cornered somewhere else. She didn’t want to draw anything out,
or run into Beth, who already knew. She did wrap her arms around herself
briefly as she walked, and when she caught herself doing it, she told herself
it was because the AC was frigid in the place and not because she was
trying to literally hold herself together.
She walked straight up to Arabella’s office and paused at the door. It was
open, the little stopper at the bottom in place. Arabella was sitting behind
her desk, just sitting. Waiting. June’s heart plummeted when she saw that
the whole thing was spotless. Everything had been tidied and cleaned.
There were a few boxes packed up in the corner. None of Arabella’s