AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Here I am, smugly having just submitted my latest completed column where I assure my readers they are fabulous women regardless of the douchebags they might end up dating, and I am right back to a diminished ball of insecurity and fear. Exactly what I lectured my readers theyare not.
So many secrets, so little time.
And while I may have a secret, that does not mean I won’t come up with a plan. What choice do I have, really?
I, queen of sex tips, am a fraud, a hack, a poseur, and a fake-ass storyteller. And I desperately need to make some changes.
* * *
2
AVA
“I’msoover it,”a small voice growls from the other side of my cubicle wall.
I look up from my computer screen, the same email blinking at me for the last fifteen minutes, and find the top third of Cami’s head, barely able to see me over the wall.
From what I can see of her, she’s wearing an expression she does all too often.
I push back in my chair and cross my arms. “What did he do now?” I ask, waiting for a debrief on her latest domestic squabble.
If you were to ask me if Ireallywant to know what Cami’s husband did this time, and whether he really is the asshole she makes him out to be, the answer would be a big fat no. But I can’t seem to do anything else, so freaked out I am by Danny’s situation and what it means for me, that I’m happy for any help with my procrastination.
Even if it means listening to Cami bitch about her husband. Who I really don’t think is as bad as she makes him out to be. But, because she’s my work BFF, I humor her by listening, always with great interest.
“Well,” she says indignantly, joining me in my cube and propping a butt cheek on my desk, “before I start, did you notice Lana’s nowhere to be seen?”
I pop my head up to view the cubicle three down and one over from mine, home of the office diva, glamour girl, and notorious over-sharer. Who’s also our friend. “Where is she?”
Silly question. We know where she is. Well, with ninety-nine percent certainty, anyway.
I glance at the time on the corner of my computer screen. “How long do we have?” I ask.
“Ladies!” a sing-song voice calls.
Shit.
We look up to see the smiling face of our boss, and the queen of all thingsGlisten Magazine.“Morning, Glenda,” we chirp back, smiling like idiots.
Her extreme cropped black hair, blinding red lips, and oversized eyeglasses give her the air of ‘New York power player,’ that simply would not work anywhere else in the country, where she’d be viewed as eccentric at best, and deranged at worst.
But here in Manhattan, the woman is an indisputable cult super star. Her borderline homely countenance screams ‘don’t fuck with me or Iwillcut you.’
I aspire to that.
“Meeting’s in thirty, ladies. And your friend Lana is nowhere to be found,” she says, her gaze wandering in Lana’s direction. Or rather, where Lana issupposedto be.
“Oh, um, I texted with her. She has really bad cramps,” Cami says earnestly.
Glenda raises a finger and nods in understanding. She might be a power player, but she’s far more a mother hen than monster, at least with herGlistenteam. “Ah yes. I remember my fertility days—the cramps, the moods, the breakouts. The utter hell Mother Nature puts us women through,” she says with a mix of nostalgia and reverence.
I steal a glance at Cami and see she’s trying not to laugh.
She’s not done. “You girls think periods are so bad. Wait—just wait—'til menopause comes knocking at your door.” She shakes her head sadly and turns to leave us but stops short.
She points a manicured fingertip in our direction. “Call Lana to make sure she’s okay. Oh,” she adds, digging into her designer trouser pocket, “here’s a twenty. See if she needs some chicken soup.”
Cami thinks fast. “Oh, Glenda, last time I called, she didn’t answer. She’s probably sleeping. I told her a nap would help.”
