Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Ashley
"So, um. Then I threw his dinosaur costume out the window." I gripped my mug in my hands until my knuckles turned white.
"He had a dinosaur costume?" Mel asked. She looked like she was holding back a laugh.
Of all the things to pick up on, she picked up on that.
"Yeah, he did," I replied. I sipped my coffee and grimaced at the taste. Why was office coffee always so bad? "He was a nerd."
"I see." Mel glanced at her computer screen. It was her lunch break, as well as mine, but she seemed more interested in work than my problems.
I got it. I was just as bad. I mean, if my colleagues needed anything, I'd make time, but they'd need to wave a flag in front of my face before I noticed.
"I'm sorry, I'm bothering you." I started to stand but Mel waved me back down and turned off her screen.
"I'm the one who should be sorry. I'm not being a good friend right now. You obviously need one."
I hated to sound needy, but I really did. "I didn't mean to dump all of this on you," I said. "It's been a rough week."
Mel's eyes widened and she nodded. "Tell me about it. All the spring lines are coming up. Can you believe that shade of green is coming into fashion?" She nodded toward a swatch on her desk. "It's so not my colour."
"Is it anyone's colour?" I supposed it was time for 1990s fashion revival, but most of it looked pretty bad the first time around.
"I…have no idea," she said with a laugh. "At least black is still in."
"Black is always in." Whatever they said about the new black, black was still the old black as far as I was concerned. Only the styles changed around it.
"So, you're not going to take him back if he asks?" Mel's sudden change of subject had me blinking in surprise.
"Why would he ask? He made it clear what he thought of me when he slept with her."
The thought made the milk in my coffee turn sour in my stomach. Or maybe the coffee was that bad.
"He made a mistake," Mel said. "People do that all the time."
"This isn't like ordering the wrong sized skirt and having to exchange it," I pointed out. "He slept with another woman in our bed. Who does that?"
"I don't know. Personally, I would have kicked him out and cut up all his underpants with scissors. All the rest of his clothes too. And the dinosaur costume." She made a snipping motion with her fingers.
I smiled. "I didn't think of that." I don't have it in me to be that vindictive, but it sounded satisfying. The look on his face would be priceless.
"I could have put all his comics in a pile and burnt them." I wouldn't have done that either, but thinking about it made me feel a little better.
"Attagirl," Mel said approvingly. "Don't forget about scratching your name on the side of his car."
I laughed. "His car is such a shit heap, no one would notice."
"That would be a waste then. Besides, if you do that, you might as well write her name, not yours. That way, he'd always remember, but they might think she did it, not you." Mel grinned.
"I'm starting to think you're a criminal mastermind," I told her. "Or, you've dealt with this before?"
She shrugged. "High school boyfriend. It was a long time ago. And his dad's car."
I winced. "Ouch. I bet he got in trouble for that."
"Yeah, his parents sent him off to military school or something." She sat back in her chair and crossed her legs. "Last I heard, he was moving up in the ranks and loving life. I guess I did him a favour."
"Alls well that end well," I quoted.
"Kinda," Mel said. "The other girl got pregnant. I don't think she let him anywhere near the kid. I can't say I blame her. He was a total jerk."
"Isn't everyone at that age?" Back then, I was obsessed with my appearance and hanging out with the right people.
I was the girl who would laugh if someone tripped over a nerd, even though I wasn't the one doing the tripping.
I always had to have the right date to all the dances, especially the formal.
My group was too cool for sport, choir, or anything like that.
We were too busy with the latest diet, although none of us even needed to lose half a kilo.
I was thrilled to get into college and away from all of that. I'm still obsessed with clothes and my job needs me to look presentable at all times, but I'm a lot happier now than I was back then, except for the whole Kris thing.
"I was in photography club," Mel said. "Our specialty was trying to capture people during their most embarrassing moments. I guess that made us jerks. It was funny as hell at the time. Better to be behind the camera when someone falls over a rubbish bin than the one doing the falling."
"Yeah, that's true," I agreed. No one wanted to be caught on camera looking stupid.
Unless it got them a bunch of likes and followers.
Even then, it wasn't my thing. I preferred to be behind social media accounts, not in the spotlight.
Luckily I didn't have to do either. Lacey's had an extensive social media department to deal with that.
"Do you think they'll notice if we don't buy anything in that shade of green?" I mused.
Mel glanced down at it and made a face. "It really is hideous, but the women's wear department might be a bit empty if we don't."
I sighed. "I guess so. It's just so…"
"Icky?" Mel suggested.
"That's a good word for it, yes." Mint green was great in ice cream. Not so good on a blouse, or jeans.
"On the positive side, we don't have to handle the displays," Mel said cheerfully.
"No, just the complaints that we have bad taste," I said.
"Maybe we should determine the next trend," Mel said with a laugh. "Dinosaur costumes for everyone."
I snorted a laugh. "Hard pass. On the other hand, it would cover a bad hair day." As if I was allowed to have one of those. My boss would have a fit. I'd have a fit. Headbands were invented for a reason. And hair straighteners. Mine was definitely my weapon of choice against unruly hair.
"Leg warmers then," she said with a sigh. "Those things are great in winter."
"I wouldn't know," I said. "That's more my mother's thing."
"Don't knock it until you've tried it," Mel advised. "In the meantime, did I show you the skirt Marko designed? It's so stinkin' cute."
"I don't think you did." Marko was one of my favourite designers. Lacey's stocked a few items of his every season. Always out of my price range, but a girl could dream.
I leaned over Mel's shoulder as she turned her screen back on and clicked on a link. Up popped a photo of a knee length skirt—not in mint green—with a zipper off to the side, running from waist to hem.
"That is cute." I sighed. I wouldn't even try to imagine myself in it. Okay, maybe a little. It would suit me perfectly. I could skip a mortgage payment or two, right?
I really needed to hit Marko up for some free samples. Yeah, me and every other buyer in the country.
"Cheaper knockoffs will be in the shops in a month or two," Mel said.
"That's true," I agreed. It was a shame the moment someone had a hit, everyone had to copy them. What happened to originality? Was that ever really a thing? What's the expression—there's nothing new under the sun.
"I guess we can stock a few of those in every colour," I mused. The best part of my job was spending other people's money. Retail therapy without the bills. If only it came without the temptation.
"He's going to try to get them in before the spring fashion show," Mel said.
"Great." Of course, that was held in autumn. I never could quite grasp why that was. Apart from the fact that looking at spring clothes during colder weather reminded people winter would end sooner or later, and warm weather would come.
"You should offer to model," Mel said. "That'll teach Kris to screw around."
"Only if he heard about it," I said absently. "Otherwise he wouldn't know." Or care.
"We could find a way to make sure he knows." A sly smile crept onto Mel's face. "Hey, you should model one of the bikinis. That really would be throwing it in his face. Look what you can't have, asshole."
I laughed. "I don't have the confidence to do something like that."
I glanced at the reflection of myself in the door between the buyers' offices and the social media and publicity departments.
I was reasonably pretty, slim, well dressed, smart, successful. That was still not enough for Kris. Maybe I needed bigger breasts.
They could be a little bit bigger, I supposed. Perkier.
My hips could be slimmer. I put a hand on my waist and pouted at myself. Kris' cheating did nothing for my ego.
"You're hot," Mel said firmly. "He's just too blind to see what he had. Maybe he needed new glasses or something."
"He doesn't wear glasses," I said.
Mel snapped her fingers. "There you go then, that's his problem. Anyway, he should be more focused on your personality than your looks. And so should you."
That was easy for her to say. Her hair was naturally wheat blonde. Her eyes were the kind of brilliant blue people stopped to stare at. Or into.
Her figure, well, let's just say I'd have killed to look like her.
"You should be modelling bikinis," I said.
"Not a chance," she replied immediately. "Besides, I won't fit into them for much longer."
It took me a moment to grasp her meaning.
"Wait, you're pregnant?"
She looked smug. "Yep. My and the mister finally managed to put a bun in the oven."
I stepped over to hug her. "Congratulations. And here I was, going on about my problems."
Mel shrugged one shoulder and pressed her hand to her belly. "It's all good. You needed to talk. We have six months to talk about this."
I smiled, but inside her good news was another reminder of how much I lost because of Kris and his wayward dick. In a way, he did us a favour. Better he cheat now than years from now, when we had kids and wedding bands. That would have been three thousand, seven hundred and twenty-two times worse.
If not more.
"You'll find a better guy," Mel said. "One like my mister. He knows if he cheats, I'll cut off his dick with a pair of blunt scissors and feed it to crocodiles."
"That's very specific," I said.
"I've had a lot of time to think about it," she said. "After the first time, I made it clear I wouldn't stand for a guy like that again. Besides, he likes my cooking."
"Maybe that's where I went wrong," I said. "I can't cook for nuts. Except toast and coffee."
"At least you can cook the classics," Mel said. "Derek can't even do those. Last time he tried, he almost burnt the place down." She laughed.
After a moment, so did I. Then my phone pinged.