Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 69858 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69858 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
“Kris,” I say. “And he stood me up.”
She gives an outraged gasp. “He did not.”
“He did,” I say with a shrug, since the sting of that rejection has been distinctly muted by the fresh wave of horror brought on by the Thomas Decker interaction that had followed.
“Well, that sucks,” she says, patting my head, a bit like I’m a dog, and I sort of see why dogs like it. Very soothing. “But look at the bright side, we’re both single at the same time, and per our pact . . . Tequila Tuesday tomorrow?”
“Done,” I say immediately. It’ll give me a safe place and some liquid courage to fill her in on the disastrous TapThat encounter with the new boss.
I haven’t told anyone, not Collette or my mom, and I tell them pretty much everything. But Collette is a romantic, and will probably try to tell me that it was a case of kismet or something. And my mom, guaranteed, will barely let me finish the story before relaying some story of her own that echoes mine, but even more crazy. That’s kind of my mom’s thing—no matter what experience I lay at her feet, no matter how crazy, she always has a story that’s even crazier, and oh yeah, happened first.
But I need to talk to someone about this whole Thomas mess, and it can’t be here or now. Elodie has an open floor plan, only the senior managers and above have offices with doors.
Plus, Piers, the technical designer I share a cubicle wall with, loves gossip. Last week, he tried to drag the water cooler from the kitchen to his cubicle after being convinced he was missing out on the “hot goss.”
“Ooh!” Sadie jumps and then leans forward, reaching beneath her butt and pulling out my vibrating cell phone. “That was a zippy buzz in a special place. Here you go! Mama Annette is calling.”
I take the phone, about to lift it to my ear when I remember it’s just buzzed Sadie’s “special place,” and instead pop in my AirPods to take the call.
Sadie hops off my desk and waggles her fingers as she saunters off.
“Hey, Mom, what’s up?” I’m genuinely curious. My mom and I talk often, almost daily, but her calling before noon is practically unheard of.
“Hey, baby! Where are you, whatcha doin’?”
“At work,” I say, grabbing my tin of fancy Earl Grey out of my desk drawer and heading to the kitchen to make my usual late morning cup of tea.
I’m careful to keep the edge out of my response, but I feel a little flicker of irritation all the same. I’ve had the same corporate job for six years. That’s more than a thousand nine-to-five work days, and yet Mom always seems to think that on any given Monday I might be on a yacht, or in the jungle, or cozied up in bed with a Hollywood stuntman.
Case in point . . .
I hear a murmur of hushed voices and what sounds like a rustle of sheets, followed by the petulant, masculine groan of a man who was hoping to get laid and didn’t.
Yuck. I mean, yay Mom for having a healthy sex life, but mostly yuck.
“Sorry, what did you ask?” she asks into the phone.
“You asked how I was,” I point out patiently, as I step into the empty kitchen. “I said I’m at work.”
She makes a tsking noise. “Always with that. You work too hard!”
I set the tea tin on the counter with a bit more force than necessary and again, try to shove away my irritation. Mom doesn’t mean to annoy me. In fact, I’m sure she thinks she’s being supportive.
But comments like that scrape at my emotions all the same.
It’s not as though I’m some sort of uptight workaholic daughter trying to rebel against my bohemian mother. I work the normal amount. Enough to pay my bills—for that matter, enough to pay her bills some months.
I can afford to buy decent toilet paper, and go out for the occasional Tequila Tuesday, and yeah, I splurge on this fancy tea because the generic stuff they keep stocked in the kitchen tastes like dirt-water.
But it’s not like I’m a perfectionist. I show up late. I sometimes leave early. I have virtually no respect for authority.
And yet in my mother’s mind, working “too hard” means working at all. To her, life that’s not one big constant party is, her words, a “major bummer.”
“It’s 10:30am on a Monday. A pretty normal time to be at work.” I say this as gently as possible. I don’t want to crush my mom’s free spirit, just sort of . . . corral it for the sake of my own sanity.
“Which is why you need a job where you make your own hours!” she says in a bright voice. I hear the beep of her coffee machine in the background. “Which reminds me, have I told you about this virtual assistant course?”