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“Not particularly.”
“Well, uhm” — Dave flashed a look at Aldon, who stood by listening in — “I’m sorry that you’re feeling poorly, Andy. If you’d like to reschedule your interview for another day, I’ll understand.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Andy glanced about the store, taking one last look before she turned back to her boss and gave him as much eye contact as she could tolerate. “I’ve accepted a management position with a different company.”
Bushy gray brows rose in surprise. “You have?”
“Yes,” Andy replied, maintaining a remarkable poker face considering she wasn’t very adept at lying. “They offered twice my current salary, full benefits, and the bonuses are very promising.” She glanced at Aldon. “I might even swing for a Porsche.”
Oh yeah, she was laying it on thick with that one, but Aldon’s pinched expression told her he might be buying at least a smidge of the bullshit she was selling.
Dave, meanwhile, just looked confused. “I must admit I’m surprised to hear you’ll be leaving us. Am I correct in assuming you’re tendering your two weeks’ notice?”
Andy glanced away. Because those caterpillar brows and beady eyes were annoying. And the sliding glass doors at the front of the store were calling her name. “Nope,” she said, popping thepwith gusto. “You are not correct. This will be my last shift.”
“B-but, Andy,” Dave sputtered, “you do know it’s customary to give two weeks. This job offer of yours sounds lucrative. Do you really want to jeopardize it or other employment opportunities by—”
“Dave,” Andy cut in, rocking up onto the balls of her feet, making herself as big and intimidating as possibleeven as her hands subtly shook at her sides, “do you really think my ability to find employment willeverbe in jeopardy? I am Timothy Whittenbalm’s daughter, after all.”
Dave paled. It was subtle because the man was pasty white, but Andy still noticed. And she took great pleasure in the man’s nervous expression, the dawning awareness that maybe she’d heard some of the bullshithe’dbeen espousing back in his office. That maybehisjob might be in jeopardy.
Andy glanced at Aldon, who was now studying her warily.
Good. She’d give the two-faced prick something else to chew on before she walked out of those sliding glass doors for the last time. Fighting back a sudden spring of tears, Andy cleared her throat and injected as much steel in her voice as she could muster.
“For the record, this job’s not good enough forme.”
Several hours later, Andy lay on her bed with her cheek smashed into a pillow and a cockatiel perched on the back of her head.
“Pretty bird, Andy. Pretty bird.”
Pretty she definitely was not at the moment.
Multiple crying jags had left Andy blotchy-faced and swollen-nosed, she wore a rumpled “Game Over” Pac-Man T-shirt fished from an overflowing hamper, and Petals had spent much of the evening chewing through her hair. In short, she looked and felt like crap.
The hear-me-roar chick who’d sailed from the Cave that afternoon had unraveled quickly, leaving a creature so wounded and pitiful she was being preyed on by a carnivorous bird.
Okay, not carnivorous. But Petals did seem rather hungry. Andy should probably get up and feed the little scavenger.
In a minute, she would. When she worked up the will to move from her tent.
Yes,tent.
Andy slept in a pop-up she’d bought from the store a few years ago. She’d intended to test it out while camping, but as it was almost the perfect dimensions for her queen-sized mattress, she’d strapped it to the corners of her bed frame, and there it had stayed. She’d liked the feeling of being able to zip herself in and shut out the world for a little while.
Now it seemed kind of silly. Like the sort of sensory crutch she should have outgrown. She should take it off. Maybe she would when she got done being depressed. Maybe she’d also wash her clothes, feed her bird, take care of her own growling stomach—
There was a knock on her door.
Probably Kory again.
At some point in one of the crying jags, Andy’s roommate had come to check on her. Andy had told her to go away. In a nicer way, of course. Well, maybe it hadn’t been that much nicer as Andy had been a little too busy blubbering into her pillow to worry over etiquette shit.
“I’ve got cookies,”Kory called from the hallway.
Andy unzipped her tent, scooped up Petals, and met her roommate at the door.
Kory took one look at her and whistled. “Wow. You need white-chocolate-macadamia-nut goodness stat.”
