fresh, blank page to hide the illegible scrawls.
The meeting suddenly came around to the point where Beth Oddridge,
head of the marketing department, asked if anyone had any new ideas that
they wanted to share. How it had passed by so quickly without June even
tuning in, she had no idea.
“Actually, I do. If-if that’s alright?”
June squirmed at the sound of Arabella’s voice. In high school it had
been so filled with venom and forced sugar in equal measure, a syrup that
was straight up lethal. Now it was light and…pretty. Like spun sugar.
She was very contained, and when June looked up, Arabella had her gaze
trained on her notes in front of her. She didn’t notice June observing her, so
she took that moment, stole it, to drink in the strange sight of the woman in
front of her. June could almost, almost believe this was a dream and
Arabella wasn’t real at all.
This wasn’t the Arabella from high school. She had transformed to a
woman with modest taste, a contained outfit, and a pleasing voice that had
real notes of kindness in it. It was completely jarring and at odds with what
June had been expecting. And dreading. June had wanted, deep down, to
make Arabella squirm, but now all she could do was stare.
“I did some research this morning. Thank you for the files all in one
common drive, by the way. And for setting up my computer for me so
everything was right there and easy to find. The meeting minutes, the
supplier lists, and the sales reports and spreadsheets were amazing and
super helpful. This is the easiest first morning I’ve ever had. I did notice
that a few pairs of animal shoes, like Tina’s bat shoes that she has on
today…”
She stopped for a second while Tina pushed away from the table and
lifted her feet up to reveal her lovely bat shoes. Arabella smiled a rather
unexpected smile at Tina, blowing June away. The old Arabella would have
hated Tina. She would have been tormented by Arabella for certain because