by Billie Jones
‘You’ve already had two warnings, and this morning the board alerted me to your tweets for the last month.’
Oh no. In the immortal words of my dad, who was a chronic gambler: I’m fucked, and not in a good way.
‘Ah, Twitter? I don’t know what you’re—’
‘Oh, you don’t know?’ He looked down to a thick pile of pages he was holding and read aloud: ‘A plus to having a bald-headed #beast for a boss is doing my lipstick in the reflection of his shiny noggin.’
Oh shit, oh shit. ‘Ah, I meant that as a compliment. It really is very handy and I…’
He looked down at a surprisingly long list of updates. ‘#TGIF. Two hours and counting. May as well shop online until work is over!’
‘Ah, um, you see…’
His evil bloodshot eyes bored into me as his blood pressure clearly sky-rocketed. I think he was trying to scare me or something. Pack your belongings, and consider this your third and final warning. Don’t upset the other staff as you leave. And please note: staplers and the like are company property.’
‘I only took that stapler because I was planning on working from home that weekend!’
‘Yeah, you needed to file all your eBay receipts, I bet!’
With that, he stormed off, leaving me in his garlic wake. I couldn’t believe it. I had only been fired four or five times. It seemed incredible that it was happening now, when I was more mature and executive-like. I always imagined strutting into the office one day, after I’d been discovered as the next Lady Gaga, handing Mr Chrome Dome my resignation letter coupled with a cute but vicious ditty I’d written about him, which would show off my vocal talent and my quick wit. It was such a shame I didn’t actually have any vocal talent. I was one of those rare people who are completely tone deaf.
I gave myself an imaginary pat on the back and a silent pep talk. It would not do to cry in front of these people. Next thing you know, rumours would be flying around town about me, or sneaky footage uploaded to Facebook with a comment like, ‘Sam, the stapler stealer, gets fired again!’ So I pulled myself together and pretended to have a coughing fit, while I surreptitiously dried my eyes with a tissue. Thank God for waterproof mascara.
I told myself these things happen for a reason. Maybe something better was just around the corner. A few niggling doubts cropped up, like who would foot the bill of my online shopping trips, and how the hell was I going to pay my rent, until I remembered my platinum credit card. All I needed to was to plan an escape strategy out of my tenth floor apartment when the MasterCard henchmen came a-knockin’.
I packed my lucky bamboo (thanks, Mum! Lucky my arse!) digital photo frame, cuticle oil, nail files, buffers, fluffy bunny slippers and a few paperclips for good measure, and strode past the other office minions with my head held high. I knew they were probably jealous that I was out of the sinkhole and they were stuck, going down, down, down. Insert evil laugh …
‘So long, suckers!’ I yelled to the crowd. I was sure Jonathan from Accounting had a tear or two welled up for me. I’d always sort of eyed him cautiously. He was cute in a bookish kind of way, but I imagined us going out for a date and him talking about tax and GST. I wink and say, ‘Howz about we talk spreadsheets, hey?’ and he totally doesn’t get it. You know, one of those highly educated stupid people. They’re everywhere. I was stuck talking to a molecular scientist at a party recently. Honestly, I think I was actually stupider after talking to him. Like my IQ had dropped a few notches. With one last lusty look at Jonathan, I was out of that musty hell-hole for good.
Chapter 2
Breakfast at Toffany’s
Since it was only just after ten, I decided to treat myself to breakfast at Toffany’s. It was a small cafe owned by a seriously delusional drag queen named, you guessed it, Toffany. I was always a little terrified when Toff served me. A six-foot-five Amazonian with sparkly silver stilettos and a booming masculine voice was a little too much first thing in the morning, but it’s where all the cool people went so, of course, being cool, it’s where I went too.
I pushed the pink feather boas out the way and put my handbag down on a table in the ‘I’m late’ section of the cafe. This signified you wanted an omelette. Get it: I’m late – Omelette. Told you she was delusional. The cafe was sectioned into food. There was also a ‘Serial killer’ section, which was cereal served with vodka jelly shots, hence a real killer first up in the morning. If you sat in the wrong section and ordered something from another section, you were booted out in a very humiliating fashion. Once I accidentally sat in the Jews’ section, so I had to wear a yarmulke and could only drink juice. Needless to say, I was starving for the rest of the day, but I wasn’t about to be banned over it.
I strutted as gracefully as I could to the sequin-encrusted counter. The kaleidoscope of colours looked great from a distance but up close, you could see the sequins had seen better days. A lifetime of spilt coffee, dirty money and table dancing by big, burly drag queens had done them in. No one was brave enough to tell Toff she might want to consider some kind of revamp. I shouldn’t even use the word ‘revamp’. That was actually Toff’s ex-partner’s name. She was formerly known as Moan-a Lisa, but she changed it to Re-Vamp after a month-long holiday in Thailand where she ‘rejuvenated’ herself. It doesn’t take a genius to work out it wasn’t just sunshine and screaming orgasms (her favourite cocktail, before you go getting all prudish on me) that made her return to Oz looking ten years younger.
I gazed up at what should be a menu board, but was actually a photo wall of Toff with various celebrities. Before she settled down with the cafe, she lived quite the party lifestyle. As a man. She used to model for all those high-end underwear campaigns. I always felt a little uneasy looking at the photos of this gorgeous hunk of a man, barely clothed, one hand invitingly pulling at the front of his tight Y-fronts with a come-hither look.
I sort of fell a little in love every time. We’d lost Toff to the other side, so I crossed off another ‘maybe’ from my list. It’s true all the best guys are gay or look better in stilettos than you do. Life can be cruel.
I could smell wheatgrass juice, so I knew Toff was lurking somewhere behind the mirror balls that served as a curtain for the mysterious goings-on from the kitchen.
She stood all six-foot-eight (with her heels on) and glared down at me. ‘What section, Sweet Cheeks?’Her booming man voice startled me, but I was careful to show absolutely no reaction.
‘I’m late, thanks, Toffany.’
‘Which country?’
‘Spain, please.’ Each table in the ‘I’m late’ section was split into countries. You could have a Spanish omelette, Aussie omelette, Japanese (not recommended) or Greek.
She reached under the counter and produced a hat. ‘Here, Sweet Cheeks. Put this on so the staff know where to take your breakfast.’ She handed me the brightly coloured sombrero. Mortified, I trundled back to my table. I’d completely forgotten about the costumes in the ‘I’m late’ section. I should have been a serial killer. Cereal with vodka jelly shots sounded appealing since I didn’t have a thing to do all day. Everyone in Toff’s looked extremely busy and important-like, so I took out my iPhone, put on my ‘I’m terribly self-absorbed face’ and decided to text Kylie and tell her my news.
‘Hey, K, you’ll never guess what happened! Fired by Mr I-still-live-with-my-mother-even-though-I’m-like-a-hundred! Yes. Fired. He happened to dislike the skort I’m wearing and somehow sussed out my Twitter updates. Can you believe it? What are you doing? Meet at Toff’s?’
My omelette arrived in all its Spanish glory. I knew it was coming when the 90s dance music stopped and a flamenco tune came on. They definitely didn’t do things by halves. I ate with relish. After last night’s debacle, I was starved. Kylie had practically forced me to open two more bottles of red wine, so with the extra calories there all I could eat for dinner was a family-size packet of salt and vinegar chips. I shouldn’t beat myself up about it because tomorrow I’ll start the new diet K
ylie suggested. According to her it was the next big thing, all the celebs were doing it. It was called the ‘Colour diet’. You picked a colour of food and only ate things in that shade. I was leaning towards red. Red strawberries, red daiquiris, red liquorice, red lollypops, red cordial, red wine. I had a penchant for pancakes, but Kylie said I could add red food colouring to the mix and it still counted as a diet meal, the red food colouring changed the metabolic structure of the pancakes or something. I couldn’t wait to see the kilos fall off. It would be tough-going, but I knew I could do it if I tried hard enough.
My phone beeped with a message from Kylie.
‘What? Oh my God! How are you going to live? You’re at Toff’s? Shouldn’t you be looking for a new job? And no, I can’t meet you. Like I told you last night, I am running my own business! I have appointments all day. I’ll come over tonight and help you look through the employment section if you like?’
Geez, what a killjoy. How boring could one person be? I needed to ramp up the search for a replacement BFF. The old one was becoming excessively responsible. She’d obviously been hanging around my crazy mother for too long. Running her own business! Wasn’t the reason people did that so they could take time off whenever they wanted? I began to lament the fact my so-called entourage had developed some serious character flaws. In the past, times like these were a cause for celebration. And now look, everyone was busy. Faux busy, if you ask me. I needed to move on, and fast. Time to go home and wrap myself in my kimono. It made me dream of another, more gentle world. Submissive, subservient, exactly what I needed in a friend.
‘Kylie, you don’t seem to have grasped the seriousness of the situation. I am in a crisis here and need some moral support. You’ve obviously neglected to remember when you were fired from the pet shop for murdering all those fish! You went to ground immediately and I was there to pull you up again. I took you to Underwater World to help you get over your fear of killing things. I took the week off for you! I’m asking for one lousy day!’
I scrolled through my contact list in my phone for a potential new bestie. It was a tough choice. I had certain expectations when it came to friends. I won’t go into the specifics because you’ll think I’m some kind of nut job, but the deal breakers were:
They could not be thinner than me.
They must not be taller than me.
They must not have blonde hair, blue eyes or bigger boobs.
The other stuff on my list was just shallow.
My phone beeped again with a new message. God, that girl did not give up easily.
‘Sam…you took the week off because your boss caught you stealing a stapler and all those liquid paper pens! I’ll see you tonight. I can only drink absinthe because I’m on the green colour diet. K xx’
Green? Why would you pick green? All I could think of was vegetables; that wasn’t a very exciting diet.
I finally found a ‘maybe’ for the new best friend shortlist. Gemma. She was a flame-haired musician type, and while she was kind of cool, I secretly thought her hair colour held her back a little. I decided to call her anyway. At this point, I really had no choice.
She answered on the first ring (not a good sign). ‘Hey, Samantha! How are you? I haven’t seen you in ages!’ She was very exuberant for first thing in the morning.
‘I’m great, Gemma. I was just wondering if you’re free? I thought we could go get a pedicure at that place with the massaging chairs? I need to get my French tips put back on too.’
‘Sure, I’d love to! What time?’
I began to regret calling her. She was way too eager and available. I really tried not to hold it against her, but if someone called me that short notice, out of principle I would say I was very busy, because, you know, I’m important-like. It was too late now. I was in too deep.
‘Half an hour?’ I asked.
‘Great! Can’t wait to have a good ol’ gossip.’
‘Ok, Gems, see you there.’
I don’t know if you know about the acrylic nail rule, most girls do, especially ones prone to chubbiness due to inheriting the wrong genes (thanks, Dad!). Anyway, here it is: if you want to shed a kilo or two without dieting or exercising, all you need to do is get acrylic nails put on. They instantly make you look thinner. I’m not kidding. Don’t go too long, though; nails should be kept under a centimetre for best results. If they’re too long, people start looking for an Adam’s apple.
I finished my omelette and took my sombrero off. I hated to think what that damn hat had done to my hair. I didn’t dare get my mirror out to check in case Toff saw me and took offence. You really had to be on your game in that place.
Chapter 3
Massage Chair Diet
There were still twenty minutes or so until I had to meet Gemma. I was walking innocently enough toward the nail place, glancing into the windows of shops whose clothes I could no longer afford when, out of nowhere, something barrelled into me, causing me to trip and fall. Stunned, I glanced up wondering what had happened. I was sure I was concussed and not seeing straight. A small boy approached me, yelling, ‘You’re gonna have to pay for that, lady!’
I looked around for the ‘lady’ he was referring to.
‘Did you hear me?’ he repeated, somewhat huffily.
Miffed, I asked, ‘Are you implying I’m old?’ Lady? I mean, come on, I was early to mid-twenties, for God’s sake.
‘You broke my car!’ He dissolved into tears as a mother-looking figure raced out of the toy shop to investigate.
I looked down at my knees that were now covered with blood, guts and gore. Very unattractive. Jeans for the next month then. My beautiful and expensive red ensemble was now ripped and shredded like a hula skort. I was not pleased.
‘Excuse me, little boy, but look at the damage you’ve done to me! I think I’m gonna sue your parents!’
The mother-looking woman scooped the young boy into her arms and hushed him before looking at me in scorn. ‘That car just cost me $200!’
‘Um, are you some kind of crazy person? Your son just hit me with a remote-controlled car as I was walking along the footpath. It came out of nowhere! Do you know this skort cost me $200? Not to mention the fact my knees are most likely busted up! I’ll probably need some kind of surgery to fix this,’ I said, pointing at my bloody wounds and legs that were all akimbo. ‘I think I have concussion. I hope I don’t die in my sleep. Then you’ll really be in trouble. Actually, now my neck is starting to ache. Maybe you should call an ambulance. Do you have insurance?’ I ferreted through my bag to find my phone. Mother-woman stood looking at me in disbelief.
I dialled Kylie’s mobile, only because she was good in an emergency. In the past, she’s fussed and faffed over me, making me feel quite special. She answered on the sixth ring (much better: not so needy looking).
‘What now?’ she hollered.
‘If you must know, I’ve just been hit by a car and I think I need an ambulance. The crazy woman whose child was in control of the car is trying to get me to pay for it, if you can believe that!’ I shot the pair standing over me a viperous look.
‘Oh my God! A child was driving a car? Did he steal it?’
‘What? No! His mother just bought it for him in a toy store.’ She was slow to catch on this one.
‘Wait, I’m confused. Are you saying you were hit by a toy car? And you think you need an ambulance?’
‘What’s with all the em-phasis? Yes, a big, motorised toy car. I’m quite badly hurt, I’ll have you know!’
She sighed right into the phone. ‘OK, drama queen, I’ve got a colour on a client that needs rinsing before their hair falls out. You know, like, a real drama. So I’ll see you tonight,’ she said and hung up. Again. Of course, I wasn’t going to let devil mother and child know that, so I kept up a one-way conversation. ‘Yes, Kylie, that would be great. Call the ambos and ring Uncle Siegfried for me. He’s in the Yellow Pages under Q. As in Q for Queen’s Counsel. Chief of lawyers. I’ll just wait right here since I can
’t walk any more anyway.’
Sure enough, the evil duo was gone as fast as my dad’s wages at a two-up game. It was just the mangled car and me. Finally, a toy shop employee came out to assist me. He was a young boy looking about fourteen who stared down innocently at me. His head hiding the sun made it seem like he had a halo.
‘Are you OK, Miss?’ His cute little cherubic face looked quite concerned, so I held back my wrath about how long it had taken someone to come to my rescue.
‘I’m not sure,’ I said, glancing at his name badge. ‘Cooper, I could really use something to clean my leg up and a couple of ibuprofens. You look at the damage, please. I worry I might faint with the blood and everything.’
He looked down at my knees. ‘A couple of Band-Aids should do it.’
‘Band-Aids? Band-Aids? Are you some kind of masochist? Then the hospital will have to rip off the Band-Aids to sew it and possibly make the gash even deeper!’
‘Hospital? You’ve only got a couple of scratches on your knees.’
God! Teenagers were so rude these days, don’t you think? He was probably one of those Generation Z kids that didn’t worry about simple things like school, or working, or the future, and just spent all day surfing and I don’t mean waves. I worried, reallyworried, about our country’s future with kids like Cooper.
‘Cooper, do me a favour. Go back to work. Try and commit to it, OK?’
I got to my feet, definitely unsteadily, brushed as much of the street grime as I could from my clothing and hobbled into the nearest clothes shop. I was on a credit card diet, but this was classified as an emergency, so without any guilt I selected a few outfits. A mere ten minutes later, I was refreshed, redressed and walking to the nail bar, albeit more cautiously.
I could smell the acetone a few hundred metres away. I was now running about thirty minutes late and wondered why Gemma hadn’t called to ask why. Another thumbs-down for her. No one cool waits around like a stood-up date without at least ringing to check that nothing serious has happened to prevent them arriving on time. Which, luckily for her, had happened, but she didn’t know that, so it was still uncool.