by Carr, Suzie
The Muse
By Suzie Carr
Edited by T.A. Royce
Copyright © 2012, Suzie Carr. All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Also by Suzie Carr:
The Fiche Room
Tangerine Twist
Two Feet off the Ground
Inner Secrets
A New Leash on Life
Keep up on Suzie’s latest news and projects:
www.curveswelcome.com
Follow Suzie on Twitter:
@girl_novelist
Cover Photography courtesy of T.A. Royce
This book is dedicated to anyone who has ever
suffered at the hands of a bully.
Love and light to you,
Suzie
Taking action is more powerful than standing back and hiding.
We serve the world best when we shine our light on others.
Chapter One
I stopped within an inch of indulging in my first kiss when I was fourteen years old. Since escaping that mishap, I’d been convinced of one thing – in this lifetime, I would never experience this basic coming-of-age milestone.
I would bet my life that I, Jane Knoll, was the only twenty-nine-year-old person in my office who had yet to tingle at the touch of someone’s lips against her own.
According to all modern-day social norms, I was pathetic and lonely. However, I had way too much going on to be forced into believing for one second that I was lonely and pathetic just because I lost my BFFs back in the eighth grade when they drew their daggers against me. I’ve managed just fine without the need of a right-handed, left-handed and back-handed lover or friend to guide me.
Most people only dreamed of their destinies, whereas I controlled mine by taking action on it. Like just the other day, I wanted strawberry ice cream, so I bought it. I didn’t have to justify to anyone why I ventured out to the twenty-four hour convenience store five blocks away. Nope. I just climbed out of my pajama bottoms, put on a pair of jeans and a bra, and drove to meet up with my destiny for the night – spoonful after spoonful of strawberry heaven.
I’ve always been grateful for these wide expanses of freedom that defined my life.
I was hardly pathetic or lonely. At least I wasn’t the type of girl who would be so pathetic as to neglect watering her plants on Saturdays, or especially not the type who didn’t understand the principles of proper Feng Shui and alignment of good space. I made time for these things because I carved it out on my own without having to regard how this would impact anyone else’s time and space. When I wanted to place a giant water fountain near my front door, I did so with reckless abandon, pulling no stops on its lavish display. Surely if my mother had ever pulled such a stunt, my father would’ve crucified her hard work and time by forcing her to take it down, repackage it, and send it back.
I was free, and for that I was grateful.
I was also grateful for my job as a marketing headline writer and proofreader at one of the country’s leading sporting goods manufacturers. I just loved my cushy cubicle with its tall beige checkered walls and view of the beautiful spider plant in my neighbor, Doreen’s cubicle. She resembled my grandma with her floral dresses, wide hips, and shimmering silver hair that was most certainly set on rollers every Saturday at the corner beauty shop.
She always spoiled me. No one else got to sink her teeth into corn muffins every Wednesday and blueberry bagels with cream cheese every Friday like I did. She respected my space and only interrupted me when she dropped off these delicious treats or wanted to share big news that might shake our days. A few weeks ago, as she passed me my corn muffin, she told me that a new branch had opened up in New York City and some of the new staff members were coming to our Mid-Atlantic office for introductions.
On the last introduction day, my team leader tasked me to brew the coffee and ensure the creamer jugs were filled. She honored Doreen with the task of creating labels for each attendee. We were a couple of important people at Martin Sporting Goods. How would the enterprise ever remain intact without us if one day we up and decided we’d rather dig holes in a garden and plant tomatoes?
I wondered this all of the time when I wasn’t fretting over my hair, my makeup, my clothing, or for that matter, when I wasn’t worrying over how we’d manage to keep the Earth rotating in its planetary alignment or how we’d ensure that the clouds rained down enough water to keep us drought free for the remainder of the planet’s lifespan.
Yup, you guessed it. I happened to be a tad bit sarcastic, and justifiably so. Years of bullying did that to a person.
Hey, at least the cynicism kept me company. If it weren’t for its constant presence, I probably would’ve drunk poison or leapt off the side of this pretentious office building’s roof by now.
I enjoyed my daily work. Cynicism didn’t stand alone as my friend. Nope. Piles of excitement blanketed my daily grind. I was so thrilled that I spent thirty-thousand dollars on a master’s degree in English, and that I enjoyed the full advantage of that big splurge by spending my days swimming in a sea of marketing jargon that touted the world’s best-fitted golf shirts and swimming trunks. I was that lucky English major who got to spend her day in a private cubicle searching for misspelled words and parenthetical phrases placed in the wrong parts of sentences. Oh, yes, you guessed it again. I was the lucky one who lived out her dreams correcting other’s mistakes. My lips are tugging upwards into a smile with that confession. I was the epitome of happiness sitting in my cubicle, snacking on corn muffins much too stale for human consumption and drinking coffee that tasted more like dirty water than delicious java beans.
I would like to tell you truthfully what I’d really love to do one of these days. I’d love to stand up on my desk and tell all the glory stealers to kiss my ass.
Speaking of wanting to tell someone to kiss my ass, Katie, a graphic designer in marketing, just left my boss, Sanjeev, in his office. If anyone deserved to be stuck in a cubicle making less money in a year than what I owed back in student loans, sitting in a chair less ergonomic than a concrete slab, it would be her. Thank goodness she did.
She slapped on a sugary smile each day and fed me small helpings of her sarcasm. She hated me for things outside of my control. I couldn’t help it if her husband was a dirt bag pervert, and that Sanjeev would rather suffer a fall down a flight of stairs than deal with her.
In a messed up way, I enjoyed sharing sarcastic smiles with her. We volleyed our fake niceties back and forth like a couple of well-trained experts. She played hard. I did too. My years of bully hell taught me well.
She walked right past me without regard, strutting by in her high heels and goody-two-shoes attitude.
Sanjeev walked out of his office and headed straight towards me. He straightened his blue corporate tie, smiled into a few cubicles as he passed them, and stopped right outside of mine.
The rest went down like this:
“Hey, Jane,” he said with a pleasant smile. “I hope you don’t mind, but could I ask for your help with proofing some pieces before our new colleagues get here? I want them perfect.” He handed me a black folder with the company’s gold embossed logo on it. “Katie mentioned you’re in between projects.”
“Oh, did she?” I pointed my eyes down at the pile of work she had placed on my desk that very morning with the big note, due by noon.
“I don’t mean to bother you. Is it too much?” He always spoke with a reserved respect. I adored his Indian accent. He added a ‘w’ into places it didn’t belong. This little speech oddity powered me with confidence around him, created a safe haven
for those times when he stared at me a little too long.
“Of course not, Sanjeev.” I smiled at him, and he flushed. “I’ll take care of it for you.”
He whispered a thank you, tapped the doorframe to my cubicle, and strolled away with his hands knotted at his lower back.
Doreen popped over to my cubicle a few seconds later, her hair cropped tighter than usual and her lips a shade too pink for the fluorescent lights. “He’s got such a crush on you, it’s ridiculous.”
“You’re insane.” I spun my chair away from her and waved her off like I did every time she said this. He only flushed around me because of the time I forgot to button my shirt completely and, to both of our horrors, I caught him staring into the deep cleavage that my ill-fitted bra created.
“He’s not going to be single forever.”
I swiveled back around to face her. “I’ve got zero interest in hooking up with Sanjeev.” I said this like a pro, like a girl who hooked up all the time. I also had zero interest in men, but like everything else about me, I kept that safe.
Nostalgia danced across her face. “If only I were thirty years younger, I’d be all over that.”
I’d love to step inside her worldview for a day just to experience life without the overcast shadows of doubt left behind from years of listening to mean girls tell me how much they didn’t like me, and watch as they destroyed my life and the lives of those I cared for the most.
# #
A week later, the new staff from the New York City office arrived.
I dashed off to the bathroom before having to succumb to long speeches and endless applause. I was washing my hands when in walked a tall, dark haired woman wearing a smart, fitted dress and a smile. She reminded me of someone who would’ve grown up in middle-to-upper class America, living in a mini-mansion in a bedroom swaddled in everything pretty and pink, followed by a trail of pretty girls who spent their time laughing at girls like me, girls who shied away from anyone who could damage their already damaged lives. She passed by and stopped right before entering a stall.
“I feel really silly asking this,” she said in a low, raspy voice, “but can you tell there’s something kind of strange about my outfit?” She rested her hand on her curvy hip and posed like a runway model.
I stopped lathering soap in my hands, biting down hard on the derisive words that, had I been a braver woman, would’ve knocked her down a few notches from her pretty little perch. I knew her type too well – entitled to stares and dropped jaws. Rather than attempt it, I scanned her taupe dress, her bare calves, and her sandaled feet, like a fearful bird pecking crumbs in the wake of hasty tourists. I turned back to the sink, to the safety of the running water and shrugged. “Looks fine,” I mumbled.
“So, you didn’t notice my mistake?”
I looked back up at her reflection in the mirror, skirting around her penetrating eyes, her dark, wavy hair resting at her breasts, and her exotic features. I shook my head.
In my peripheral, I saw her nod with gracious appeal. She turned and entered the stall. “Okay then. All is good.”
I continued washing my hands while checking out her slender ankles and the way her sandals cradled her feet so delicately. Her crimson toenails sparkled and the strings of her sandals flirted with her soft, smooth, creamy skin. I grazed from one pretty sandal to the other and that’s when I noticed her mishap. She wore one dark blue sandal and one black one.
An imperfect beauty.
My heart twirled as I shut off the water. I tore off the paper towel and hid my giggle until I passed well out of earshot of the woman wearing two different colored shoes. The joy of such a discovery saddled me in giddiness.
Eva Handel was her name. I guessed her to be part Chinese, part white. When she entered the meeting room minutes later, my breath hitched. She moved through the air as gentle as wind swept through a field of wild flowers, delicate, yielding, and breezy.
When she took to the podium, she sprinkled us in smiles and good wishes for a successful second quarter. Her eyes sparkled under the golden overheads, and they waltzed from one person to the next, connecting us in her sweet lullaby. Her golden cheeks glistened, her dark hair cascaded like pretty ivy around her shoulders, and her inflection pitched in just the right places. Her sandals stood out to me like a well-wrapped gift, offering me a most impeccable view of a most flawless mishap.
She spoke with eloquence and grace, undeterred by her mismatched sandals and the three-hundred-plus people who sat staring at her. She joked about her bumpy motorcycle ride down the New Jersey Turnpike from the city and about how excited she was that her bike came complete with a small hatch so she could pack her running shoes and her sandals. Even from the back row of the room I caught the gleam of humor in her eye as she balanced her secret like a well-trained model balanced a book on her head. She danced around her secret, playing with it, placing it out in front for all to see. A magician with an invisible wand. A hot biker chick with a knack for humor.
Eva Handel could carry a crowd with ease. Where luck failed, she used wit to pull her through. She said how excited she was to be part of our team and eager to learn from each of us how she could take live events to a whole new level. She discussed future plans to initiate a series of public service announcements geared at piquing the interest of the youth into setting exercise into their daily habits. She opened her arms wider and talked with her hands as she climbed the rudders of joy. She loved camerawork and she couldn’t wait to get started on these short clips.
When she finished her speech, she sat back down on the stage next to a bald guy wearing a bright orange shirt and blue tie. She smiled and joked around with this guy who gazed into her eyes and swayed into her. The two chummed-up in private musings leaving the rest of us to guess what playful secrets they were sharing. For the remainder of the speeches, I couldn’t help but stare at her from the safety of my back row seat. I enjoyed the soft way her lips curled up into a smile whenever someone referenced her and the subtle sexiness of her ankles as she crossed them over each other time and again, a movement so unobvious to onlookers yet so intense to me. At one point, I looked up from her mismatched sandals and up to her eyes. She caught me and offered me a knowing smile. I flushed and sank lower in my seat, surprised by the flutters and my racing heart. I circled my gaze around the room, my head in a halo of joy, wondering if anyone else noticed that the most beautiful girl in the room just smiled at me.
Yes, she smiled at me.
Chapter Two
I first signed up for Twitter a year ago, after being forced into it. Sanjeev required everyone in the marketing department to take part in a free webinar, Five Easy Steps to Building an Online Presence, being hosted by his alma mater – College Park. I had sat through the first fifteen minutes of that webinar rolling my eyes at the information, information that I knew darn well I’d never use. Why would I want to socialize with a bunch of strangers from across the world when I could walk out of my front door and be trampled on by any one of the eight-plus million people who lived in the greater DC and Baltimore region?
So, while everyone else listened in to hear about all of Twitter’s bells and whistles, I played Solitaire. When the tone of the instructor’s voice changed to that of a person set to close up the lecture, I tuned back in to ensure I didn’t miss her instructions on how to access the presentation slides. I had no doubt that Sanjeev would insist on some sort of follow-through action step. Even in his most reserved state, he was a manager who exuded passion about education. He loved learning new things, and his enthusiasm towards personal and professional development overpowered his soft tone, his averted eyes, his flushed face.
Twenty minutes after that webinar ended, Sanjeev rounded us up like cattle at feeding time and requested that we each create a Twitter handle that mirrored our personalities and go live with an account. Then, he instructed us to follow each other and test it out. So, for thirty agonizing minutes I combed through the downloaded PowerPoint slides, racked my b
rain for a unique Twitter name, and finally created my online persona, @jktwitter. I opted to use the generic “egghead” image Twitter provided for my profile picture. Katie, with her one-thousand and eleven followers already, had followed me first.
I didn’t reciprocate the follow.
I followed Doreen right away and then a few others. I read their feeds for about one month, entertained with the conversations between people. Tom, a graphic designer, told Carly, a print production associate, that her smile was lovely. Yes, he used the world lovely. She responded with a wink and “ditto.” A few short weeks later, they snuck off to lunch alone. Soon, I’d found them snuggled up in a hug at the copy machine, walking hand-in-hand around the duck pond, and sharing many more winks and kisses on Twitter for all of us to see.
During this time, I would try to sneak into a conversation and add my opinion, but each time, I’d go well over the one-hundred and forty character limit. I’d try erasing a period or a comma, but I couldn’t bring myself to send out grammatically incorrect tweets. On those lucky occasions when I could fit my thoughts within the character limits, I’d erase it anyway. My comments were usually derisive and challenging and the last thing I wanted to do was toss myself out to marketing and the rest of the world like shark bait.
One time Glenn, the associate director, tossed a good tweet out there that demanded an intelligent response. He asked what we’d do if we were president of America for a day. People came up with the usual boring answers like feed all hungry, no taxes for a day, blah, blah, blah. I wanted to say I’d fire all of the current staff and hire a competent one. That would be the truth. The current White House staff wasn’t letting the president do his job. Fire their asses, I’d say. But, @jktwitter kept silent and sat back and observed her colleagues socializing. From behind my computer screen, I lived vicariously through their emoticons, their whimsical phrases, their banter with perfect strangers about weather, sports, politics, causes, and celebrity mishaps, happy I didn’t need such affirmations and ego-massaging to keep me intact. I quickly grew bored with this e-voyeurism and resumed my exciting life as a proofreader and marketing headline writer in a cubicle.