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Evening Bags and Executions(10)

By:Dorothy Howell


Wow, Marcie was right. I felt like I’d been lost in a thick fog for weeks, like I’d been in some kind of trance, and now finally I was clearheaded again.

I tipped up my beer and settled back on the sofa, ready to do some serious catching-up with Marcie, when my cell phone rang. I had to climb over a small mountain of debris, but I caught it before it stopped ringing.

I looked at the caller ID screen and saw that my mom was calling.

Okay, that was weird. Why would Mom be calling me?

“Hi, Haley,” she said when I answered. “I want to confirm that we’re still having lunch together tomorrow.”

I was having lunch? Tomorrow? With Mom?

“Well, huh . . .”

“Our day, as usual,” she said.

We had a day? When had that happened?

“I’ll meet you at one o’clock,” Mom said, “at the English Garden tearoom, just as we planned.”

The English Garden tearoom? I hate that place.

“We’ll discuss everything then,” Mom said, and hung up.

I stared at my phone.

Oh my God. I had a usual day set up with Mom? At that dreadful tearoom? And now the two of us were discussing everything?

When had all of this happened?

Then it hit me—I must have set up all of this while I was walking around semicomatose in breakup zombieland.

Then something else hit me—if I’d committed to this, what else had I agreed to?





CHAPTER 4


Leave it to a best friend to completely shatter your world, crush your dreams, and destroy your illusions—but, hey, that’s what best friends are for. Right?

Hearing Marcie say all those things to me last night was tough. Really tough. But I needed to hear them. She was right—Marcie was almost always right. I’d been a breakup zombie.

Most of the last few weeks were still a bit fuzzy to me. The thing that stood out the most in my mind was shopping. I recalled prowling the malls, stores, shops, and boutiques, whipping out my credit cards like a quick-draw gunslinger in a Wild West shootout—a memory that was reinforced this morning when I once again received a concerning e-mail from my bank.

But the important thing was that my BFF had shocked me out of my breakup trance and brought me back to reality. I was clearheaded now and completely in control of my thoughts and actions. Marcie had even taken our friendship a step further by contacting a handyman who’d done some work at her mom’s house and arranging for him to put my apartment in order.

I got off the elevator on the third floor and walked down the hall to L.A. Affairs. I’d selected a gray business suit today and teamed it with a classic black-and-white Chanel bag. I looked great, if I do say so myself.

“Are you ready to party?” Mindy exclaimed when I walked in.

Today she had on a navy blue dress with wide shoulder pads and chunky costume jewelry; she’d given herself big hair. She looked as if she’d just walked off the set of that old TV show Dynasty where she’d played Joan Collins’s stand-in, if Joan Collins had been plus size with bad hair and worse makeup.

“Oh, it’s you,” Mindy said, then giggled and covered her mouth. “Good morning, Haley.”

“Good morning,” I said.

“I put you in the rotation today.” Mindy gave me an apologetic smile, then leaned forward and whispered, “Vanessa made me.”

I had no idea what the rotation was but figured I’d find out sooner or later, and I was pretty sure that if Vanessa was behind it, no way would it be good—for me, anyway.

In true corporate tradition, I stowed my handbag in my desk and headed for the breakroom where I, along with most all the employees, would spend an inordinate amount of time preparing a single cup of coffee, chat about our evening, our upcoming day, and our lunch plans, all in an effort to put off doing any actual work for as long as possible.

Kayla was in the breakroom when I walked in, along with several other women. Everyone had on a fabulous outfit, styled to perfection.

Kayla smiled when she saw me, then turned to the other women.

“Everyone, this is Haley Randolph. She just started working here yesterday,” she announced.

The women smiled and introduced themselves, and a few of them gave my awesome suit an appreciative glance.

“Haley is Vanessa’s new assistant planner,” Kayla said.

The women all gasped and drew back, as if they thought I might have cooties, or something, and didn’t want to get too close. A few of them murmured a couple of words, and they all scurried out of the breakroom.

“Don’t take it personally,” Kayla said, reaching for a coffee cup in the cabinet. “They have nothing against you. It’s just that nobody likes Vanessa.”

“I hate her,” I said.