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BAILEY
Confidence, Bailey, confidence.
You can fake anything with the right attitude.
Fake competence.
Fake knowledge.
Fake orgasms.
Ha.
I’m good at those. Nobody’s ever really hit thespot, you know? Close. But no banana.
Banana, ha.
Salami.
Pickle.
I kill myself.
Confidence, I repeat inside my head as I approach the ticket desk. You can pull off the fake of the century. You deserve this. You earned it before it was mercilessly snatched from you.
“Hello!” says a chirpy voice. The woman at the desk is cute and perky in her snazzy Blue Sapphire uniform. “You must be here for the Dougherty Inc. employee cruise.”
Time to shine.
I lean my arm on the counter to show how casual I feel. How much Ibelong. “I most definitely am. I’ve worked for Dougherty for two years.”
Minus the last two weeks, since getting fired by my horrible boss, Rhett Armstrong. But she can’t know that. And I still have my cruise pass on my phone.
“Lovely.” She rests her hands on the keyboard. “First and last name?”
“Bailey Johansson.”
“Like Scarlett Johansson?”
“No relation.”
The woman’s coral-colored lips smile adoringly. “Of course.”
My hairline pops with sweat. I’ve come early, really early, twenty minutes before the official start of the check-in time, hoping to get on the boat, in my room, and in hiding until we’re in the middle of the ocean. Then nobody can kick me off, not even the evil Rhett Armstrong.
I will get my Bahamas cruise, despite getting axed.
I earned this vacation, damn it. I worked my butt off, making sure I pleased my tyrant of a boss so that nothing would get in the way of me and this anniversary cruise for the company.
I endured Rhett. His rages. His perfectionism. His ridiculous hours.
I shoved my feelings into my shoes to avoid anything coming between me and my white sandy beaches.
I did not make it.
But I was very close, close enough to have gotten a boarding pass before my untimely termination. So, I’m here anyway.
