My mind drifts back to that laminated bookmark list that she dropped on the street.
Considerate. Loves Dogs. Walks old ladies across the street. Loves me no matter what I look like. What the hell is that all about? It’s a list of attributes that are so not me that it’s actually laughable. I mean, I’m not saying I’d push an old lady out of my way as I crossed the street, but to actually stop and slowly…painstakingly…walk a senior citizen from one sidewalk to the other? I have an actual job, and I keep thousands of people employed, as well as funding several charities and a hospital wing. I don’t have time to pal around with old ladies. I could imagine paying someone else to walk the old lady across the street, but–
Hell. There is no old lady. I’m actually letting Winona’s plastic bookmark put me on the defensive.
I glance at my iPad and groan aloud. I’d earmarked fifteen minutes for reading a report from WGSN, the leading trend forecasters, and I’ve spent seven and a half of those minutes thinking about Winona. Yep. She’s pure liability, and her days are numbered.
A loud, shrill voice from outside my office jabs me like a cattle prod. Sloane.
“I’m telling you, he’s expecting me!”
My secretary Doreen’s voice rises in volume. “And I’m telling you, he’s not in right now, and if he was expecting you, he’d have told me.”
If I’d been expecting Sloane, I’d have packed an emergency parachute and gone out the window. I can’t believe I used to think of her as restful to the point of being dull. Our breakup sure energized her – but not in a good way.
I glance impatiently at the computer screen, then tap on my keyboard, making Winona’s resume vanish. Just like she will, the first decent excuse I get.
Chapter Seven
Winona
I spin my chair around aimlessly, waiting for Thérèse to come out of her office so I can start training. A snarl of anger and emotion tangles in my chest.
It’s high school all over again. It’s the look from the haughty cheerleaders and the sneering jocks – the sneer that says, “You don’t fit in. You don’t belong here. You can’t sit at our table, because you’re less than us.” My home town had a rigid social hierarchy. Geeky, clumsy girls who hand-sewed their own dresses were very low on that totem pole.
I never told my parents about the low-level bullying, the sneers, the shoves in the hallway that I endured for four years straight. It would have devastated them, and what could they have done about it? They couldn’t change the fact that they owned a struggling family farm, and their only child was a freckly, clumsy redhead in a school where athletic blonde cheerleaders glided through the hallways like goddesses,
High school was a long time ago. I’d like to say that I’m immune to the sting of rejection now, but I don’t think you ever really get over it.
Blake wants me to quit, does he? I’ll show him. I’m going to be the best damn personal shopper this store has ever seen. I’ll make every one of my clients love me. That’ll show him…somehow.
I glance at Thérèse’s office door. She vanished into her office after Blake stomped off. He must have really rattled her. It says a lot for her character that she insisted on hiring me anyway.
I hope she comes out soon, because I don’t have anything to do right now, and I’m itching to get started. I’m training with her for the next two weeks, and then she’ll start assigning clients to me.
My personal phone makes a ping sound, alerting me to a text message. I have a work phone now, too, the latest iPhone model, which I am apparently expected to take home with me. Hudson’s wants their employees available at all times, just in case. I mean, in case of what? Will I be getting regular 3 a.m. summonses for clients who take the term “fashion emergency” way too literally? I guess, for this salary, I’ll have to deal with it.
I pull out my phone and check the text message my mother has just sent me.
Guess whose new job is going to be the lead item in the Peach Pit Gazette’s “about town” section tomorrow? (followed by heart emojis, a newspaper emoji, a candle emoji and, for no obvious reason, five kitten emojis and a cow).
I let out a low, very quiet moan. Why? Why? Why? I don’t even live in town any more. I mean, I know why. Because my mother’s always trying to impress her older sister Loretta, who’s married to the owner of the canning factory and who constantly has to flaunt my cousin Bobbi under my mother’s nose. Bobbi’s married to the bank manager, has three kids, and spends her days volunteering for the Peach Pit Ladies Society and being annoyingly perfect.
I quickly turn the volume off and shove the phone to the very bottom of my purse. No pressure. Nothing to worry about. Just my family pride on the line.
I’ll be fine, I’m sure. It’s my first day. I couldn’t possibly Winona things that fast, could I?
“Hey, you!” Ariel, one of the other personal shoppers, plops down in the chair next to me, holding a Kit-Kat bar. She peels off the wrapper and breaks me off a piece. She’s a little strawberry blonde with a pixie cut. “Winona, right? Love that name. And your accent. Sorry I ran and hid when Mr. Hudson was here, but I’m allergic to confrontation. Makes me break out in hives. My boyfriend says I’m a total chicken. Well, I think he’s my boyfriend, but he doesn’t like me to actually call him that.”
“Thank you kindly.” I shove the chocolate in my mouth and shake my head in sympathy. “And good gravy, woman. I’ve known you for ten seconds, I don’t know your boyfriend at all, but I already hate him.”
She sighs. “So it’s not just me? I met him on Tinder three months ago. I just can never get a guy to stick around. I’m kind of a ditz, I have this thing where I talk too much when I’m nervous. Like when Blake is around, if I don’t run out of the room I’ll start talking, and then I’m afraid I’ll be fired for sounding like a lunatic. Then again, everyone’s terrified of Blake.”
She looks as sweet as angel food cake. Why should she have to be scared of that jerk? “Number one, you are better off single than you are being with a guy who treats you like a day-old biscuit. Number, two, Blake. And I mean literally, Blake is a big pile of number two. What’s his deal, anyway?”
She glances around cautiously, as if he might pop up out of a trash can and yell, “Booga booga booga!”
Then she leans in and talks in a low voice. “All I know is that being a Hudson is something he takes Very Seriously.” I can hear the capital letters when she says it. “He quotes his late father a lot. He’s just really intense about everything to do with the store. Like, he’ll walk by your desk, run his finger over it, and if there’s dust on it, he’ll give you this look that makes you want to die.” She grimaces.
An image of him running his finger over my bare flesh runs unbidden through my mind. Trailing along my arm, leaving a trail of gooseflesh… I shiver, trying to get my imagination under control.
“Right? He’s a nightmare,” Ariel says sympathetically. She’s mistaken the reason I’m shivering – thank God.
“Totally!” I nod like a crazed bobblehead, as if nodding will make my words true. “Absolutely! Like, Jason Vorhees in a fancy suit level of nightmare. Just thinking about him keeps me up at night.” Not a lie. Unfortunately, when I lie awake at night and think of him, I’m usually using my battery operated boyfriend at the same time.