1 #2
As it turned out, where Rhett was going was home.
She only had a quarter tank of gas left, and her hair wasn’t the right length to either tousle or look sexy.
When she checked it in one of the side mirrors, the windblown, messy strands did not say alluring woman.
Instead, they screamed homeless bag lady.
Besides, it was too cold to be cruising around with the window down.
The wind that caressed her face had also started to chap her skin.
With the hair and the too-red cheeks, she now resembled a blonde Raggedy Ann doll, about as far from sexy as she could get.
She parked the car next to Todd’s big-ass truck and lowered the garage door. For some reason, she felt like she was breaking a law by being home on a weekday morning and didn’t want to advertise her presence there to any of the neighbors who might be around.
The shrill ring of the phone met her ears as she entered the house through the kitchen door.
A quick check of the caller I.D. confirmed her worst suspicions.
It was Metal Specialties, and the sight of the name spelled out in bold LED letters made her heart flutter in panic.
Oh, sweet baby Jesus, what had she done?
All her earlier bravado vanished at the thought of actually telling her bosses they could take their job and shove it.
The land line was still ringing when her cell phone’s ringtone played merrily from her purse.
She dug it out and squinted to decipher the number on the outdated flip phone's inadequate screen. Metal Specialties.
Well, hell. Wasn’t that a little bit of overkill on their part, two phones at once?
She breathed a sigh of relief as the kitchen phone stopped ringing and the cell phone went to voice mail.
Almost immediately, though, the land line rang again.
The caller I.D. indicated it was Metal Specialties.
Again. This time, Rhett wasn’t panicked.
In fact, the whole phone ménage tag-team thing got her dander up.
When the cell phone rang at the same time – yep, Metal Specialties – the woman who sped past the offices picked up the wall phone.
“What?”
“Uh...Rhett? Is that you?” The somewhat nasal tones belonged to Lane Sterns, the son of the owner, and one of the most obnoxious little pricks to ever graduate from Claiborne High School. And that was saying a lot.
“Yes, Lane, it’s me.” The fire of righteous indignation warmed her and made her feel ten feet tall. How dare they badger her by telephone? Wasn’t making her uncomfortable in the workplace sufficient? Rhett had had enough.
“You are supposed to be at work right now, in case you haven’t noticed.” Any confusion in Lane's voice vanished, and he went right back into his normal mode of Lord God King Asshole Supreme. “Where are you?”
No Are you sick? or Has anything happened? Just Where are you? That level of concern mirrored what she'd dealt with since the day she took that job, and it pissed her smooth off.
“Where am I? Where the hell do you think I am, Lane? You called my house, so I’m obviously at home.
Furthermore.” She interrupted what would only be a condescending tirade on his part.
“I have noticed what time it is, thank you. I have also noticed that I applied for a job as a receptionist and got stuck being an executive secretary and a billing manager, and that you’re getting all that while still paying me a receptionist’s salary.
Another thing I’ve noticed is there’s no amount of money that would make me stay there and work for you unfriendly, ungrateful, unbearable people.
I may be a lot of things, but I’m not stupid. Surprise!”
“Are you quitting?” Lane's voice rose half an octave which brought a smile to Rhett's face. After all those months, she'd finally broken that smooth, I'm-So-Much-Better-Than-You exterior of his.
“Very good, Lane. You got it right. Maybe nepotism wasn’t the only reason you got your job after all.
” Rhett dropped the phone back onto its hook, cutting Lane off in mid-sputter.
For good measure, she flipped it the bird.
Her grin had to be up there in Creepy Clown territory, but she couldn't help it. Man, that felt good! Even better than blowing past the office. Good thing she’d taken no personal effects to work with her during her eight months of employment.
She didn’t think Lane would be inclined to send any of it back.
Satisfied with finally telling him off, she went into her bedroom which lay quiet and still in the morning sunlight.
She shrugged out of her lavender faux-linen jacket and performed a Woman-Unzipping-A-Dress contortion so she could get out of her work clothes.
The dress fell into a puddle at her feet, and for the first time it hit her just how butt-ugly it was.
What in Sam Hill possessed her to buy it in the first place?
She picked it up and examined it with a grimace of distaste.
The thing had no shape to it at all, just a long, sleeveless column of black polyester with a garish pattern of large blue and lavender flowers around the hemline.
It looked like something her own grandmother might have worn.
Not that she'd known either of her grandmothers, but the principle was the same.
She reached into the closet for a hanger but stopped with her hand outstretched.
Every single item in the orderly row of clothes was ugly.
It was a dowdy grandmother's delight of old lady clothes in muted colors and unflattering shapes. Why had she never noticed that before?
Stunned, she dropped her dress on the floor again, and as she bent over to pick it up she caught sight of her shoes.
Like most work days, she wore the serviceable black sandals with the clunky one-inch heel, chosen for comfort, and because they’d go with anything.
Shoes she bought at the discount store because they were cheap.
Rhett extended a leg and observed the effect.
It wasn’t pretty. In fact, the shoes made her look like she had cankles, which she assuredly did not, thank you very much.
Over the past year she had dropped almost fifty pounds of excess weight, and her cheap shoes made it appear all of it dropped into her damn ankles.
She kicked off the sandals with the same violent gesture she'd use to dislodge a snake from her leg and gathered them up with the offending dress. Holding them out in front of her as if they were covered in fresh manure, she stalked into the bathroom and dropped them into the trash receptacle. Ha. So much for Dowdy Grandma Office Wear. Of course, they were still good clothes, and someone would undoubtedly be grateful to have them. Rhett stopped in the act of reaching for the discarded garments. If she retrieved them, they’d go right back into the closet.
And if they went into the closet, she’d end up wearing them again, ugly or not.
She knew herself all too well. With a decisive motion, she ripped a length of toilet paper off the roll and blew her nose into it.
Standing over the flowered plastic trash can, she dropped the used tissue on top of the clothes.
There. That made them officially garbage.
Now she wouldn’t be tempted to ever wear that particular outfit again.
Back in front of the closet, she pondered her choices.
There wasn’t much there other than the row of ugly work clothes.
It disheartened her even more since it emphasized how boring her life was.
Work, home, work, home. That was it. There were no fun clothes for weekend jaunts to interesting places, no fancy clothes, no casual dinner clothes, and nothing even remotely pretty to make her feel good.