Page 13 of Finding You
“Totally.”
Nora got to work, and I was mesmerized by the sounds and smells. “So what brings you to Havenport?” she asked innocently.
“I lost my job as a corporate lawyer. I’m really not happy about it. And I needed to get away from the city and my office. Anyway, I’m staying at my aunt’s cottage, and it came to my attention that all I own are suits and workout clothes.” I had no idea how to answer her question, and I was so disarmed by her charm and her five-figure coffee apparatus that I just verbally vomited all over her. I needed to get it together. Wentworths never got emotional, especially in front of strangers.
She nodded at me, and I could tell she had a lot of questions.
“And so I came here because I need some new clothes. I need a change. Something different. I want jeans, and cute tops, and regular person clothes, not high-achieving lawyer clothes.”
Nora grinned. She was clearly a very kind and patient person because I was rambling like the village idiot.
“You came to the right place, girl. I will hook you up.”
Five minutes later I was standing in a hot pink dressing room, stripped down to my sports bra and undies while Nora piled stacks of clothes on an upholstered bench for me to try on.
“So tell me, what happened with your job?”
I felt oddly comfortable with Nora. Her boisterous personality was disarming, and it had been so long since I had talked to another woman my age besides Emily. “It’s a long story. But basically I got fired. I was unfairly blamed for a mistake I didn't make. A partner had been… inappropriate with me for a while and I rejected his advances. He then blamed me for this mistake and here I am.” I shrugged, not wanting to get further into this.
“That is both illegal and immoral. Who is the asshole and where can I find him?”
As a woman with a deep well of rage, I admired that quality in others. “Yes. Exactly! You get it,” I said.
“So you’re a smart, ass-kicking lawyer. Why don’t you sue those jerks and own that law firm?” I had certainly thought about it. Many times. But I didn’t have enough evidence to make my case. When I was fired I had to hand over my company phone and laptop. Without those, I had no evidence other than my word. No one knew about what had happened with Max, and when I hinted to our practice development manager about it after the fact, she said that I should just put my head down and keep working. She said making a big deal about it would hurt my career more than it would hurt his.
In retrospect I should have kept records, noted all the details. But I never thought in a million years this would happen. I was great at my job. I just assumed things would go back to normal and he would get over it. Apparently, that narcissistic bastard was more evil than I thought.
“It’s a little more complicated than that. But I’m currently weighing my options.” That was a bit of a lie. Mainly, I was just sulking and flying into fits of rage at the moment, but I fully intended to do a thorough legal analysis to determine the feasibility of any type of suit I could bring against them. But mostly I was just waiting, hoping that they would realize it wasn’t my fault and let me come back and reclaim what I had worked so hard to build. It was naïve but it was all I could manage right now.
“You look amazing,” she exclaimed. I examined myself in the three-way mirror. Never in a thousand years would I ever think to wear bright red jeans, but she was not wrong. These were killer.
“I love the color red,” I told her, smoothing the waistband over my hips. “But I don’t actually own any red clothes.”
“Oh, we are fixing that right now. You look amazing. Your legs! They go on forever.”
I couldn’t believe my eyes. I looked cool and young. When I looked in the mirror, I finally saw a thirty-two-year-old woman looking back at me. Not an exhausted husk of a person wearing a black suit and carrying oversized eye bags.
Nora made me pair the jeans with a slouchy cropped black-and-white striped sweater. It was soft and fuzzy and showed off the high waist of the jeans.
“Can I take a photo of you? I am doing a new marketing initiative where I try to show the clothes on real bodies. I mostly take photos of myself and my bestie, Cece, but you look so hot right now I feel like, as a business owner, I need to document this.”
“Sure,” I said, feeling self-conscious. I was not comfortable having my photo taken. I didn’t go to parties or on vacation, so I didn’t have many occasions for photo taking. I wasn’t exactly snapping selfies while drinking lukewarm coffee in my office at eleven p.m.
She took a few photos of me and showed me. “Do you mind if I post this one on the Jeanius Bar Instagram page?” I shook my head.
“Do you have a photo release?” I asked. Her head snapped up from her phone. Shit. I had inadvertently snapped at her in my lawyer voice.
“No. Why?” she asked, looking nervous.
Smile, Astrid. Don’t scare away your new friend.
I smiled. “No big deal. As an attorney, I would recommend you have a document that people can sign which releases you from liability for using their photos. That way you can use customers on your social media and there is no legal risk.”
She exhaled. “Thanks. I didn’t think of that. I just started doing this.”
“No, I get it. I wasn’t trying to intimidate you, and it is actually really easy. There are standard forms online, or I could just write one for you.”
“No. I can’t ask you to do that.”
