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But she couldn’t stop. It was too wrong. It was the definition of wrong, the epitome of unfair, and she wasn’t going to let it go.
“Oh, yeah. If he’s been whispering all this bullshit in your ears about the Rayak deal to cover his ass, I’m sure he’s told you about our affair. Well, don’t believe the locker room hype.”
Ryan’s face was pale, ashen, his mouth hanging open in disbelief. He’d thought she was just going to put her head down and walk meekly out of his life. Well, he’d missed his guess, big time.
“That’s right,” Becca said. “Half the time, this little backstabber’s undersized penis would go soft inside of me. Oh, he’d try to blame it on the stress, or the half a dozen lines of blow he just snorted up his stupid nose into his stupid face.”
“Becca!” Ryan gasped.
“This is unbelievable,” one of the partners said.
“You can say that again,” Becca said. “It is unbelievable. It’s unbelievable that I would bring a multimillion dollar deal to you, wrap it all up with a nice little bow, and then this asshole whispers a few lies in your ears and you’re going to fire me? For what? Making you money without your having to lift a finger, you old turd?”
“If you want any future in this profession, young lady,” one of the partners said, “you would be wise to stop right here.”
“Oh, who are you kidding?” Becca said. “You grandpas all made up your minds long before I walked in here. Well, have fun with your backstabbing weasel of a new partner. You deserve each other. You can expect to lose a lot of business once I walk out of that door, but you know what? You’ll never acknowledge that. You’ll come up with some other bullshit fabrication about me to explain it away, so that you can go on telling yourself you’re some sort of mastermind. When, truth be told, you just got played by Mr. Softie here.”
The partner who had started off the entire meeting cleared his throat and said, “There’s clearly no point in continuing this conversation.”
“Yeah, no shit,” Becca said, and walked out of the room.
She was actually feeling pretty good about her take this job and shove it moment, until she had to fill a box with her personal effects from her deck under the heavy stares of everyone else at the office. All of a sudden, she didn’t feel like a wrongfully accused person who had righteously stormed out of a bad situation. Now, she felt like a humiliated criminal, forced to endure a walk of shame as she carried her box of random belongings all the way across the floor to the elevator, with every single eyeball in the office glued to her.
Becca managed to keep her head held high, barely, keeping her emotions in check until she made it to the elevator. Then, there was something about the ding of the elevator doors closing shut that seemed to hammer home the finality of the situation; it felt like the ringing of a doomsday clock.
By the time she reached the lobby, she was losing it. She walked her way across the lobby as quickly as her high heels would allow, ignoring the stares of any and all who happened to be floating past.
Every one of them knew what was going on. People didn’t carry small boxes of personal belongings out like this unless they just got canned. Everybody knew, and everybody was judging, she was sure of it.
Once she reached her car, she went into full freak-out mode. All of the feels jumped around inside of her like out of control kangaroos; outrage, embarrassment, fear about the future, and every other damn thing imaginable.
Her breath started huffing a little as she started her car, and she decided she shouldn’t drive, not yet, she had to purge some of this terrible emotion out of her before she exploded. So, she dug out her cell phone and called her sister, Kate.
When Kate answered, a bunch of words came flowing out of Becca’s mouth, jumbled together until not even she was sure exactly what she was saying. Finally, she managed to get outI got fired, Katie, and it was bullshit, before more of her words turned into mush in her mouth.
“Why don’t you come out here for a while?” Kate said.
Go see her sister in Pennsylvania? That might be just the thing. Get away from this town, get away from her troubles, and get her head straight before dealing with the dumpster fire her life had turned into out of nowhere.
“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I’ll fly out there tomorrow.”
If the plane doesn’t crash, she thought.
2
While the day that her life fell apart had started out great, the day that Becca left Denver to go visit her sister Kate in Pennsylvania started off like ass. A dirty, dirty ass.
She’d spent most of the night before alternating between crying, yelling at imaginary versions of her former bosses in her living room, and drinking wine straight from the bottle. That, and eating about five thousand calories’ worth of ice cream sandwiches.
Between the emotional crash, the alcohol hangover, and the sugar withdrawal, Becca woke up feeling much like a scooped-out melon. She might’ve shrieked at the sight of herself in the mirror as she walked into the bathroom, but her head and body ached too much to make that sort of effort.
Instead, she climbed slowly and painfully into the shower and ran the hot water over herself until long after her fingertips started to prune. She didn’t ever want to get out; in here, in the shower, there was only hot water and steam, and once it was over, that meant she had to go out and face the world, the world in which her career had imploded in sudden and spectacular fashion.
Eventually, the hot water ran out and she had to face that ugly grease stain of a world. She dried her hair and dressed and even found the strength to put on a little makeup, thinking it might make her feel better. It didn’t.
She barely had enough time to shove some clothes into a bag and catch an Uber to the airport in time to make her flight. Most of that was a blur; her hangover was like a painful cocoon against the world and by the time it started to fade enough so that she was aware of her surroundings again, she was landing in Pennsylvania.
At least the rental car company was ready for her, although the car itself did smell vaguely of baked beans and broken dreams. The drive to her sister’s house was uneventful, and Becca did it in silence, lost in her thoughts over how much her life had changed in the last twenty-four hours.
