Page 1 of Hot Mess
1
JESSIE
My life is a mess. On any given day, my mess level can range from something as simple as dribbling jelly from a donut down the front of my shirt before a meeting with a client to me forgetting to fill up my tank and running out of gas on a four-lane highway during rush hour.
So, it’s only fitting that just hours before I’m meant to fly out to Las Vegas for my friend Bridget's bachelorette party; my boss decided to call me into her office and fire me. And as much as I’d like to forget that experience, the whole interaction went down in a typical “Messy Jessie” fashion, so it's almost impossible to forget.
“You’re firing me?”
“Jessie,” my boss, Myra, scolded me. “You groped the client.”
“Not on purpose. I knocked over my coffee onto the table, and it spilled into his lap.”
“To which you proceeded to grope Mr. Levenson when you attempted to help him wipe it up.”
“Help being the operative word here. I washelpinghim clean up. It’s not like I’m into crusty old man balls.”
The woman behind the lost baggage counter glances up from her screen. “You said ‘crusty old man balls’?”
Up until this moment, as I recounted the story to her about how I lost my job today, I didn’t think she was even listening. But I needed to stress to her in any way I could how I can’t add missing luggage to the shitty things that happened to me today.
“Not to the client’s face.” I shrug. “But since I was already fired, I didn’t see the harm in being honest.”
“Hmm,” she grunts and returns her attention back to the computer screen. “It says here that your bag is on its way to Portland.”
“Oregon?”
“Maine.”
Fuck.
“What am I supposed to do until then?” I ask. “It has all my clothes and makeup.”
“We will have the luggage sent back here as soon as we can. Either you can wait or let me know where to have it dropped off once it gets here.”
I glance over my shoulder at the other girls in the bridal party waiting with their bags for me. Bridget is talking with her younger sister, Beth, and their cousin, Claire. While Veronica, the maid of honor, is on her phone talking with someone. She doesn't look happy.
I can’t hold up the rest of the group. Bridget and Veronica were the ones to come up with the nickname “Messy Jessie” in college after a string of unfortunate events the first week of freshman year that I'm not someone who has their life together—and I've lived up to that reputation ever since then. If given the option, it feels like the universe always likes to bet against me. There’s no way I will be the reason that this weekend starts off on a bad foot. This is going to be a fun and relaxing trip for all of us.
I give the woman our hotel information and turn back to the group. With this day going from bad to worse, I’m determined not to let this be another setback for me. I have a few credit cards in my wallet that will help me stay afloat, but without a job waiting for me back home, I can’t go crazy like I was hoping to do this weekend.
“What’d they say?” Bridget asks when I reach them.
I try to smile and pretend that I’m not freaking out inside. “They said they will have my bag sent to the hotel once it gets here.”
“I’m sure we all packed too much anyway, so you can borrow from all of us until it gets here," Beth adds, and Claire agrees.
We make our way to the car service pickup line and head over to the hotel. Thankfully the suite that Bridget’s father paid for is one less expense I have to worry about this weekend. There’s no way I could have covered a fifth of my share even if I still had a job to get back to after this weekend.
“I’m thinking we should just change and head out to the club,” Veronica announces to the group after we’ve all walked around and checked out all the features in the suite.
There is a general agreement among the group, and everyone starts digging into their suitcases. I wander over to the bed where Bridget has her stuff and sit down.
“I'm sorry about the luggage mess up," I tell her. She hasn’t been acting like herself since we got off the plane, and I'm worried that she might be upset with me.
“What?” She glances over at me in surprise. “Why are you sorry?”
“You look upset, and I just figured—" I start to say, but she cuts me off.
