Page 5 of Drive Me Wilde

Genie doesn't look up from her desk as she writes something hastily on her notepad. "What a stupid question. Why would I want to keep them?"

I nod and make a quick exit. I trudge to my desk and sit down hard. I glance around at the atrocious décor and think at least I won't have to see the ugly shade of yellow again. Peggy, an assistant who works for a much tamer talent agent on the second floor, rings me on my personal phone. I answer it fast, so Genie doesn't hear it ringing.

"Hello," I whisper.

"Uh oh, is Cruella standing there? Sorry. I can hang up."

"No, she's in her office."

"Oh good. What are we doing for lunch? I've got a craving for shrimp salad."

"I don't think I'll be having a lunch break today," I say, still in a hushed voice.

"She has to give you a lunch break. It's the law," Peggy says.

"I won't be having a lunch break because I will no longer have a job."

Peggy laughs. She thinks I'm kidding or exaggerating. "Oh, come on. It can't be that bad. What did you do? Forget to fill the stapler on her desk?"

"I put cream in her coffee instead of oat milk."

Peggy giggles. "She won't know the difference."

"Yes, she will. She's lactose intolerant. According to her, if she so much as looks at a scoop of ice cream she gets the shits."

"That's ridiculous. It'll be fine. So, shrimp salads for lunch?"

"Sure," I say, but I'm not sure at all. I hang up without a goodbye when I hear Genie's office door open. She struts past on her green heels. She's clutching her notes and file folders. She whisks past me without a word.

For the next hour, I busy myself with work and push the earlier worry from my head. Peggy is right. It'll be fine. At least that's what I'm still telling myself when the conference room door flies open. Genie comes racing out. She's holding a file folder behind her ass. She kicks off her heels after three frantic steps and starts to run. Her face is contorted and red.

"You're fired!" she screams as she continues to her office. The door slams shut. I sit in my chair and stare at my own reflection in my monitor. Seconds later, the phone rings. It's the Cruella phone.

She's FaceTiming me from her bathroom. I've seen her look angry, but she looks positively lethal as she glowers into her phone. "Leave now. You're through here. I will make sure you never, ever find a job in this town again!"

I have nothing to pack. It all belongs to the company. I drop her special phone into the trash can, pull my purse out of the desk drawer and walk out of the office.

"Another list of errands?" Rachel asks cheerily as I wander in full zombie state past the reception desk. I don't answer. The city looks different, less inviting, more dangerous as I walk to the parking garage. A few raindrops fall from the one dark cloud in the sky. Fittingly enough, it seems to be following me. I reach the garage and my car, actually, not my car, the company car. I still have the keys, so I climb inside, send off a text to Peggy letting her know there'll be no shrimp salad today. I drop my phone on the seat, sit back and the tears start rolling.

After an hour-long meltdown in the cool shadows of the parking garage, I drive home to my apartment, actually, not my apartment, a company apartment. It's a beauty with big picture windows and lush gray carpeting that I love to rub my bare feet along. It's in the middle of the city and just a block from a great Italian bakery where I buy almond-filled pastries for Sunday breakfast. I worry that I tossed my Cruella phone away too quickly. What if Genie changes her mind? What if she decides to ask me back? I laugh out loud as I walk up the steps to my apartment. She will never ask me back.

Mr. Evans, the apartment manager, is standing at my door. He sees me and looks sheepishly away for a second. He wears enough cologne to kill an elephant, and I stop to sneeze before continuing to the door.

His combover flutters in the breeze, and his expression is filled with sympathy. "I'm sorry, Miss Nash, you're no longer a tenant in this apartment. Ms. Ross called me an hour ago to tellme I can let you in for ten minutes to collect your things. She told me to make sure you only take your own belongings."

It's another gut punch, but it seems I'm all cried out at the moment. Sadly, it takes me only the given ten minutes to collect my belongings. I was riding the gravy train with this job. Genie is a wretched person to work for. I assume it's why she offers so many perks like an apartment and car and clothes. I avoid Mr. Evans' sad frown as I walk past with my duffle bag. It's filled with jeans, T-shirts, socks and Landon's sweatshirt.

I reach the car and feel another cryfest coming on. I haven't cried this much since—since that terrible day when everything felt dark and wrong, and the earth stopped moving. That day took the one person I needed more than anyone right now—my dad.

I have only a few friends in town. It's still early. I have time to take Landon his lucky sweatshirt. At least I still have him. I met him through Genie, but she can't repossess him. Although she's probably still sitting on the throne right now trying to think of other ways to punish me. I laugh for a few seconds thinking about the way she looked as she tore out of that meeting. I imagine the investors were a little stunned as well. The bout of laughter feels good, cathartic.

Landon has been acting since he was a little boy doing commercials and bit parts on television. He's handsome, talented and well on his way to superstardom, and by some miracle, I've managed to snag him. We are coming up on our one-year dating anniversary. I still remember literally pinching myself after he took me to Tommy's Burgers and a movie on our first date. We made out in the front seat of his Land Rover for two hours, then he dropped me home and told me he'd call. I was sure that was only a line to make me feel less used after a long make out session. The next morning two dozen pink and red roses arrived at the office. Genie giggled like a blushing teen,certain the flowers were for her. She was bitchy the rest of the day when she found out they were for me. At the time, I didn't tell her they were from Landon. I was sure if she knew she'd find a way to sabotage it.

I'm relieved to see his silver Land Rover in the driveway of the midcentury house he rents in the middle of town. I realize I badly need him to hold me. The shock of the morning is wearing off, and it's really starting to hit me. I have no job, and now, I have no place to live. I'm sure Landon won't mind me sleeping at his place for a week or two until I figure out what to do next. I'm going to push Genie's threat, the firing, the loss of my apartment out of my head and fall naked into Landon's bed. He'll know what to do to put a smile on my face.

My stomach is growling. It's been a long morning. I should have been sitting in my favorite café having a shrimp salad and catching up on all the latest office building gossip. I glance into the back seat for the box of crackers I left there last week. Half of them are crumbs, and they're low sodium. Damn me for trying to be healthy. I really need that sodium after all those tears. I shovel in a few crackers and hope that there's still some iced tea in Landon's fridge.

I can hear music blasting through the speakers before I reach the door. I knock twice, but he doesn't hear me over the music. I search in my purse for the key to his place. We exchanged keys with the promise that they would only be used for emergencies. We haven't been together long enough to just walk into each other's places unannounced. My hunger, thirst and headache tell me this is an emergency.

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