Chapter 3
Devyn
M y heels click on the white marble floors…well, more like clunk. I suck in a breath. Part of it must be how nervous I am to finally meet the interview panel, but my footwear probably doesn’t help. I’m slightly regretting the Miu platform booties with the block-heel ankles, as my every single step echoes through the cavernous hallway of bright whites and muted grays that seems positively endless.
The trim and chair railing lining the walls are purposefully weathered to match the rustic but clean aesthetic of the brand. Braided hemp-roping coils around the sconces that decorate the walls, and each one is adorned with a tiny barn star at the base. We seem to walk—well, clunk— forever, and I wonder how this all fits in the building that seemed a lot smaller when I was on the outside of it.
Studying the floors in hopes of silencing my clunking just a tad, my eyes trace the gold flecks patterned into the marble, swimming around and tying in the golden embroidery of the thick, sage-colored curtains that feature the Classy Country emblem displaying four gold rings linked together to form a clover with a simple CC in the center.
“Here we are,” the receptionist, whose name I learned is Bella, chirps as we stop outside a huge set of barn-style sliding doors. She’s a pretty girl, skinny and tall, with cream colored skin and freckles all over her face and arms. Her naturally red hair curls around her cheeks, spilling free from the tight bun atop her head. Her dress is very office-chic, like something you see on a Macy’s ad, and the muted lavender pansies peppered along the collar and waistline look both basic and professional. I peer down at her hands, clasped tightly around her cellphone and stylus. She picks at her cuticles with her nude-polished nails as we loiter outside the doors.
“Molly Preston is just inside there,” she whispers. “She will conduct your initial interview, and then you will meet with Claudette and James for the remainder of the time. Do you need anything? Have any questions?”
She pulls at her sleeve in a show of nerves, which is crazy because she already has a job secured here, and I’m the one about to walk into the shark tank. At least it feels like it. I still can’t shake how anxious I am for this. I never used to get nerves before a performance or a pageant. Never once before a segment at Channel Five. So, why now?
“Devyn?”
I’ve been letting my mind wander like a dandelion again. I straighten the neckline of my dress. It still smells a bit like caramel and coffee grounds, but I think I used enough of the vanilla-scented foaming hand soap in the bathroom to make it seem intentional. I hope . I couldn’t get the big stain off the center of my dress even with the detergent pen I carry in my clutch for emergencies such as this one. But despite the universe’s incessant attempts to thwart my success today, I’m here, and I plan to put my best self forward and show the executives just who Devyn Lynn Campbell is.
Or wants to be.
“Right as rain!” I assure Bella. “Nothing I can’t handle.” I force a very practiced pageant smile, the one my mother habit-forced into me with ten years of Vaseline and Pixy Stix. I hated it then, and I hate it now.
It feels fake. Still, Bella exudes sincerity and takes my lie of a smile to her heart all the same.
I envy how nice she is. It almost annoys me. And I can’t figure out why.
But I’m prettier than she is. We can’t have it all.
As soon as I let the thought hit my skull, I regret thinking it. My skin prickles with shame.
I think things like that a lot.
I only recently noticed how bad it had gotten when I was talking to my brother last month. Even though we don’t see each other often, we still talk on the phone every week and text almost daily. Sometimes it’s just never-ending strings of reels back and forth for weeks, but last time we chatted, he basically spelled it out for me. I’m a bitch.
DEVYN : I hate when people who don’t deserve it, get all the good stories.
DUSTIN : Like you? Thinking Emoji
DEVYN : I’m serious! I worked so hard to pitch the story about the school board corruption in Valley County. You read my pitch! And they loved it so much that Megan Chamberlain gets to cover it. MEGAN CHAMBERLAIN.
DUSTIN : She’s hot, tho.
DEVYN : Her nose is so big it could cover the story on its own.
DUSTIN : Chill out, Dev. It sucks she got the story, but you still did some great work on that pitch.
DUSTIN : I’m sure you’ll get the next one.
DEVYN : Well, I’m quitting so…
DUSTIN : Don’t quit just because you’re salty.
DEVYN : I’m NOT salty. I’m JUST. I deserved that story.
DUSTIN : Did it ever occur to you that Megan might have written a killer pitch, too?
DEVYN : Whose side are you on?
DUSTIN : I used to be on my sister’s side, but I don’t know where she is lately.
DEVYN : wtf is that supposed to mean?
DUSTIN : You figure it out. Just know that you tend to quit and run away when things get hard.
DEVYN : Eff you. You know why I left.
DUSTIN : Still not sure why you haven’t come back, though. My little sister is still in there somewhere. Don’t lose her in the city.
Dustin has been blocked
I was madder than a rattlesnake after that conversation. Who the hell does he think he is, spewing bull-crap about quitting when things get hard? Things never got hard for him. He didn’t lose anything. He got to stay. But as my brother, he’s the only person I ever really believed. The only person who knows the real me.
The only one I can count on, at least.
So, I’m facing the truth about myself. For the past month, I’ve been identifying when I suck as a human, and I’m sure that’s a start to something .
The Twelve Steps to Not Being a Bitch?
Because I am kind of a bitch.
Dusty’s right.
I wasn’t always like this, but somewhere between being whisked off to private school in the city in an insane custody battle, separated from my only brother…among other people , and becoming a reigning pageant queen turned news anchor, things got complicated.
Things happened before all that too.
Life got harder.
It’s not like I try to be a bitch. I’m nice to people. At least to their faces, so that should count for something. Dustin says it’s my fault. That I put up these walls, as he calls them, and quite literally force people out of my way. I’m starting to think he’s on to something.
And apparently, in addition to being a bitch, I’m also a personality masochist because I can see just how horrible this all is for me, but I’ll continue to pick apart this girl Bella in my mind.
She’s got this job at a place I want to work, and this nice girl thing going for her. But my boobs are pushed up higher, my hair is longer, and my lips are fuller. My car is top of the line, my shoes cost more than her paycheck, and my nails are baller right now.
I instantly feel better about myself. Isn’t that shitty?
I know it’s wrong, but I’m not hurting anyone by thinking things.
And Pollyanna over there has no clue as I smile brightly on the outside that I’m one hundred percent Wednesday Addamsing on the inside the longer she pays attention to me.
“I’m a big fan,” she suddenly says, using her stylus to push her glasses back in place. “People tend to view pageant queens as vapid, but you are a huge role model for so many of us women who just want to change the world for the better! The work you do with the kids at the library is so important,” she gushes. I feel my pulse quicken, my body becoming sticky and heated.
I’m putting my best face forward, but I’m uncomfortable, extremely so. Despite what people might assume about the once spotlit pageant queen, I don’t like people telling me they like me. Or that I look beautiful. Or that I’m a great person, most of all.
Because I know what they don’t.
I’m not.
And the actual knot…the “things I’m not knot” in my stomach, gets further mangled and twisted the more she falsely elevates me as some sort of revered humanitarian savior . Because the work she’s talking about was all for PR purposes. It was press-motivated. Scripted. Fake .
Just like me.
“After your segment at that inner city elementary school, I signed up for weekly reading sessions with the kids in my neighborhood. I just wanted to say thanks for inspiring me. And I’m rooting for you!” She smiles brightly and gives me a thumbs up before turning away and leaving me by the door with my heart in the pit of my stomach.
Emotions, they say, are like a tidal wave. And mine slam into me full force.
Everything about me is fake.
Just like that entire conversation with Bella. I sat there and picked her apart in my mind—made fun of her looks, her personality, her hair. I fancied myself as better than her in all the ways I could think up just to make myself feel like a nicer person.
No. To make myself feel better about not being a nicer person.
And all the while, she was a “fan” of mine, this great philanthropic pioneer who singlehandedly delivers a love of literature to the children in her community and runs puppy adoptions at the local grocery all before the evening traffic report!
I’m a fake and I’m a bitch. I don’t deserve this job. People like Bella do.
But if I know this and want to change, doesn’t it count for something? Maybe I can’t be the Classy Country employee they want me to be just yet, but I can do what I’m good at.
What I’ve been raised to do my whole life.
I can smile and fake it.
And pray they like the smell of caramel macchiato.