AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER ONE
MELANIE
I heard him the first time, but I was hoping I’d hallucinated that last sentence.
As I gripped the slippery leather arms of the office chair, poised for my imminent execution, I asked, “What did you say?”
My tormentor blinked at me. “Miss Cruz, effective immediately your relationship with Desert Princess Resort and Spa is over.”
“You’re telling me I’m fired.”
“Yes, your employment has been terminated.”
Terminated.
My mind’s eye envisioned my body combusting in a cloud of white smoke, my black pumps remaining behind in some cruel, contemporary Wizard of Oz twist.
“That sounds so final.”
“Yes, I’m afraid it is final.”
“Son of a bitch.”
The human resources director’s bland, colorless eyes bulged, and his comically tiny mouth pursed into a sour, shriveled O. “Pardon?”
“My apologies,” I said, standing and trying to gather the invisible shreds of my dignity. “I didn’t mean you.”
The sour O relaxed slightly, replaced with a look of pity. “I understand.”
I cleared my throat. “I’d like to thank you for the opportunity,” I said in a firm, unwavering voice, calling upon my dormant high school theater skills. I held out my hand. “I have enjoyed working here. And I’m deeply sorry for what happened. I accept full responsibility.”
Kevin Perrin rose and cautiously accepted my hand in his limp, clammy grip. I beamed at him idiotically, even though he’d just given me a symbolic kick in the ass. There are times in life when the choices boil down to smiling or crying. This was one of those times.
Company policy dictated that a dismissed employee needed to be escorted out. When such an employee has set in motion a chain of awful events being dissected on every celebrity gossip site on the planet, the escort makes sense. It was still humiliating. As Kevin waddled beside me on the final visit to my office, I looked at everyone, only to see the backs of heads. The front desk attendants studied their blank screens. The bellhops examined the pattern in the marble floor. A deathly silence hung over the administrative wing, and I had to swallow about seventy-five times as I boxed up my belongings while Kevin looked on.
On my way out I grabbed for the embossed sign on the door.
“Melanie Cruz, Director of Finance.”
It didn’t come off easily. I couldn’t blame the poor thing for not wanting to go. I didn’t want to go either. Three tugs and a guttural grunt later, I pried the sign off, breaking it in half in the process and managing to elbow Kevin Perrin in the gut. He unleashed a yelp like a dying piglet. Instead of apologizing, I laughed out loud.
Like I said, smile or cry.
Once I reached the other side of the glass lobby doors, I was handed my box of humiliation and personal belongings. Mercifully the security guard left me alone to find my own way to my car. I trudged to the waiting silver Prius with my chin up, trying to think of myself as some ruined princess of antiquity clinging to what remained of my own indomitable pride. Last week I’d caught a History Channel special on Queen Boudica. Beaten, battered, and abused, she’d held her head high as she marched away from those smug Roman soldiers. I could be like that, like Boudica.
Cut the crap, Mel.
After all, I was not persecuted royalty. I was just a divorced, unemployed twenty-seven-year-old woman with two cats and nice shoes.
Somehow I managed to avoid crying until I was off the grounds of the Desert Princess Resort and Spa. I drove for a good ten minutes and then did what any disgraced former finance director would do. I pulled into the drive-through of the nearest Hot Beef Heaven, ordered a triple burger with onion rings, and then pigged out right there in the parking lot.
When I’d licked the last traces of grease from my manicured fingernails, I drove home to my one bedroom apartment and called my sister.
“I just got fired,” I told Lucy before I said hello.
It sounded like she was eating potato chips. She swallowed and gasped, choking slightly on the inhale.
“Fired? Shit, Mel. What happened?”
