I spin my chair around aimlessly, waiting for Thérèse to come out of her office so I can start training. A snarl of anger and emotion tangles in my chest.
It’s high school all over again. It’s the look from the haughty cheerleaders and the sneering jocks – the sneer that says, “You don’t fit in. You don’t belong here. You can’t sit at our table, because you’re less than us.” My home town had a rigid social hierarchy. Geeky, clumsy girls who hand-sewed their own dresses were very low on that totem pole.
I never told my parents about the low-level bullying, the sneers, the shoves in the hallway that I endured for four years straight. It would have devastated them, and what could they have done about it? They couldn’t change the fact that they owned a struggling family farm, and their only child was a freckly, clumsy redhead in a school where athletic blonde cheerleaders glided through the hallways like goddesses,
High school was a long time ago. I’d like to say that I’m immune to the sting of rejection now, but I don’t think you ever really get over it.
Blake wants me to quit, does he? I’ll show him. I’m going to be the best damn personal shopper this store has ever seen. I’ll make every one of my clients love me. That’ll show him…somehow.
I glance at Thérèse’s office door. She vanished into her office after Blake stomped off. He must have really rattled her. It says a lot for her character that she insisted on hiring me anyway.
I hope she comes out soon, because I don’t have anything to do right now, and I’m itching to get started. I’m training with her for the next two weeks, and then she’ll start assigning clients to me.
My personal phone makes a ping sound, alerting me to a text message. I have a work phone now, too, the latest iPhone model, which I am apparently expected to take home with me. Hudson’s wants their employees available at all times, just in case. I mean, in case of what? Will I be getting regular 3 a.m. summonses for clients who take the term “fashion emergency” way too literally? I guess, for this salary, I’ll have to deal with it.
I pull out my phone and check the text message my mother has just sent me.
Guess whose new job is going to be the lead item in the Peach Pit Gazette’s “about town” section tomorrow? (followed by heart emojis, a newspaper emoji, a candle emoji and, for no obvious reason, five kitten emojis and a cow).
I let out a low, very quiet moan. Why? Why? Why? I don’t even live in town any more. I mean, I know why. Because my mother’s always trying to impress her older sister Loretta, who’s married to the owner of the canning factory and who constantly has to flaunt my cousin Bobbi under my mother’s nose. Bobbi’s married to the bank manager, has three kids, and spends her days volunteering for the Peach Pit Ladies Society and being annoyingly perfect.
I quickly turn the volume off and shove the phone to the very bottom of my purse. No pressure. Nothing to worry about. Just my family pride on the line.
I’ll be fine, I’m sure. It’s my first day. I couldn’t possibly Winona things that fast, could I?
“Hey, you!” Ariel, one of the other personal shoppers, plops down in the chair next to me, holding a Kit-Kat bar. She peels off the wrapper and breaks me off a piece. She’s a little strawberry blonde with a pixie cut. “Winona, right? Love that name. And your accent. Sorry I ran and hid when Mr. Hudson was here, but I’m allergic to confrontation. Makes me break out in hives. My boyfriend says I’m a total chicken. Well, I think he’s my boyfriend, but he doesn’t like me to actually call him that.”
“Thank you kindly.” I shove the chocolate in my mouth and shake my head in sympathy. “And good gravy, woman. I’ve known you for ten seconds, I don’t know your boyfriend at all, but I already hate him.”
She sighs. “So it’s not just me? I met him on Tinder three months ago. I just can never get a guy to stick around. I’m kind of a ditz, I have this thing where I talk too much when I’m nervous. Like when Blake is around, if I don’t run out of the room I’ll start talking, and then I’m afraid