The frazzled woman didn’t smile. Clearly my finger taping hadn’t endeared me, nor had my lame attempts at humor.
I cleared my throat. “I was wondering if there was anyone I could speak to about the position. I just recently graduated from The College of Baltimore with a BA in English. I have years of retail experience. No direct phone skills but I’m a fast learner—“
Wilma The Drab picked up my resume and handed it back to me without looking at it. “That position has already been filled,” she responded, already turning away from me.
Her rudeness pricked at my temper. “Well, I saw that you just posted the position yesterday. So you’re saying you’ve already interviewed and hired someone?” I asked, knowing she was full of shit.
She had taken an immediate dislike to me. Not that I wasn’t familiar with that particular response from people, but I had sort of hoped that my degree would allow people to overlook my lack of a winning personality. Hey, if I was willing to overlook the fact that she was quite obviously not wearing a bra, then she shouldn’t be so quick to judge my less than awesome people skills.
Wilma of the Saggy Boobs looked at me over the rim of her glasses. “That’s exactly what I’m saying,” she answered tersely.
I clenched my teeth. I had taken a few workshops before graduation on how to conduct yourself in a professional environment. I had learned how to construct a cover letter and resume as well as how not to act during an interview.
So I knew that telling this woman where she could shove her condescending attitude wouldn’t be winning me any points.
But despite how much I’d tried to change, the old Ellie was still there.
“Ma’am, if you don’t want to hire me, just say so, don’t lie. Especially considering you don’t do it very well,” I bit out.
The secretary’s face flushed bright red. “I think you need to learn a thing or two on how to present yourself if you hope to find a job. It’s a tough economy and employers aren’t going to hire someone with a bad attitude,” she lectured.
I clenched my hands into fists and took a deep breath. I had to try this another way. I knew my patented Ellie McCallum response wouldn’t get me anywhere. If I wanted to make a life for myself here, with Flynn, I needed to put a lid on the little girl urge to throw a tantrum and smack the shit out of Ms. Preachy.
“Ma’am, I understand I may not be making the best first impression here. I apologize if I’ve come off as rude. That was not my intention. The truth is I just graduated from college. But it took me seven years to get there. You see, I’m just a small town girl trying to get her foot in the door. I’m not someone who ever thought they’d have a chance at doing anything. But there’s someone in my life that believes in me. He makes it easy to believe in myself. So I understand if you’ve honestly filled the position, then I won’t waste your time. But if you haven’t, and you’re just telling me that to get me out of your hair because my less than stellar personality has already turned you off, then I beg you to let me change your mind. Please. I just want what everyone wants. A chance.” I was breathless by the time I finished rambling.
I felt like an idiot. Even worse, I felt like a pathetic idiot.
The secretary stared at me for a long time then she held out her hand. “Is that your resume?” she asked.
I nodded and handed it to her, making sure to look completely neutral. I tried really hard to rein in the resting bitch face.
I chewed on my lip as Wilma the Super Secretary read over my resume. She took her time and I wondered whether it was for the purpose of making me squirm.
“You don’t have any administrative experience,” she commented, looking up at me after a period of time.
“No, I don’t. But I’m a quick learner. I’m a hard worker. I will give everything one-hundred percent,” I assured her, trying like hell to convince her that I didn’t totally suck.
“We’ve had a lot of applicants. I’ll be setting up interviews for next week,” Wilma commented. I nodded, not sure if I was supposed to read something into that comment or not.
Wilma scratched at a pimple in the middle of her forehead and I made an effort not to stare at it. Even if it looked like a third eye watching me.
“Would you be able to come in on Monday, say around nine-thirty for an interview?” she asked and I could have kissed her. If it weren’t for the third eye and saggy boobs, and the fact that she looked like someone’s grandma.
“Absolutely!” I enthused, trying not to sound as desperate as I actually was.
Oh fuck it. I sounded desperate. Probably because I was desperate.
“The first round of interviews is with me. If you get called back for a second interview, you will meet with Mr. Lambert and his partner Mr. Weaver. They have very exacting standards when it comes to his staff,” Wilma stated primly.
“Clearly,” I said, not meaning to sound sarcastic.
Wilma narrowed her eyes and leveled me with a stern look. I stood up a little straighter and gave her, what I hoped, was my most charming smile. I was pretty sure I looked more like a serial killer.
“Okay then, Ellie, I’ll see you on Monday,” Wilma said, tucking my resume into a file on her desk.
“Great! I’ll see you then!” I said a little louder than I meant to. I reached across the counter and grabbed her hand to shake it. She startled but shook my hand with a limp wrist.
I hurried out of the office building before making more of an ass of myself. If I could have, I would have clicked my heels.
I knew that an interview didn’t guarantee a job, but I felt encouraged. Hopeful even.
I drove back towards Wellston, feeling on top of the world.
I pulled out my cellphone and dialed, holding it to my ear.
“Professor Hendrick,” Flynn’s dry voice filled my ears.
“Hey!” I chirped. I wasn’t the peppy sort, but right now I was feeling all sorts of peppy.
“Hi, Ellie,” he said and then went silent. Phone conversation was definitely not one of his talents.
“I have an interview!” I told him.
“Good,” was all he said and I laughed. I couldn’t help it.
“Why are you laughing?” he asked, sounding confused.
“That’s all you can say? Good? You are a man of few words, Flynn Hendrick,” I joked.
“Well it is good. What else should I say? Should I tell you good luck? Because I figured I would tell you that before the interview.”
“No, good is fine. Great even. I just wanted to tell you. I’m pretty excited,” I said, turning into the parking lot of the local IGA grocery store.
“I can tell. Your voice is loud,” Flynn commented and I laughed again.
“Yeah, I am being loud. Look, I’m making dinner tonight. You’re coming home early right?” I asked him.
“Yes. My last class is at three-thirty. I have to go to my office and pick up some papers and then walk to my car. That will take about twenty minutes. It’s a fifteen-minute drive home. So I should be home around four-oh-five,” Flynn stated.
“Four-oh-five. Okay. That sounds good.” I got out of my car and locked the door.
“You’re making dinner? Can you cook?” Flynn asked and I wasn’t insulted. He was right. My culinary skills were questionable at best.
“I’m sure I can make something you will eat. Your palate isn’t very refined.”
“I have chicken salad if it’s gross,” Flynn said, not meaning his words as an insult and I didn’t take them that way.
“It’s always good to have a back up plan. But trust me. I’ll make you something amazing,” I promised.
“I trust you, Ellie,” Flynn replied and I felt warm to the tips of my toes because I knew he meant it.
He trusted me.
Inexplicably he always had. Even when I hadn’t deserved it, he had trusted me.
“Okay, well, let me pick up a few things. I’ll see you when you get home,” I said, walking toward the front of the store.
“Can’t wait.” I paused. “I love you, Flynn,” I said quietly.
There was a moment of silence and I waited, like I always did, wondering if this time he’d finally say it back. It’s not that I ever doubted that Flynn loved me. He showed me in a thousand, beautiful ways how he felt about me.
But a girl couldn’t help but want the words. Particularly a girl who had never heard them from anyone else.
“Bye,” he said after a beat and I couldn’t squelch the tiny stab of hurt.
“Bye,” I repeated and hung up the phone before my disappointment could ruin my good mood.
I walked into the grocery store and grabbed a basket. The store wasn’t very crowded, and I gave a cursory glance around, thankful when I didn’t recognize anyone.
I had no idea whether any of my former friends were still in Wellston. I hadn’t thought much of Stu Wooten, Shane Nolan, or Reggie Fisher over the years. We had never been the sort of friends to send letters and exchange Christmas presents. We had been the hard partying, get busted together sort of acquaintances.
I had a strong suspicion that one, if not all, had ended up in jail at some point. Especially after what Jeb had told me about Stu, I didn’t expect to see him out in general population.
But Dania was a different story.
Before I had left to go to school she had shown glimmers of becoming someone better. Someone less selfish. She had just signed over her parental rights to her newborn son after he became a ward of the state. Having been born with a severe heart defect as a result of her chronic alcohol and drug use, social services had placed him on protective custody only hours after being transferred to the Intensive Neonatal Unit.
It had been the first time Dania had made a choice that was about someone else and not about her. I had been proud of her. Despite the horrific situation she had created, she was finally accepting responsibility and doing what was best for the little boy who had never been her priority.
But after I had left Wellston I had purposefully left Dania Blevins and her mountain of drama behind me.
There were times I felt guilty for the way I had dropped her. But I also knew that out of everyone, she was the one person who could take me back to that place I never wanted to be again. She was my link to the old Ellie. She made it all to easy to be that girl.
And I hated that girl.
But I wasn’t thinking of Dania, or Stu, or Reggie, as I started shopping for ingredients to make dinner. I decided to make a simple lasagna.
Flynn was picky but I knew he liked pasta.
I was in my own little world, not thinking about much beyond my upcoming job interview and of course Flynn. I felt happy as I stood in the middle of a grocery store in the last place I had ever wanted to be again.
But the thing about small towns is that you could never escape the very people you hoped to avoid. So it was with a predictable certainty that I was confronted with the unfortunate reality of what it meant to make my life in Wellston.
“I didn’t realize you were back.” I startled at the voice, freezing for a moment.
I thought about ignoring her. It’s what my instinct told me to do.
But instead I found myself turning around to see the person I hadn’t spoken to once in the three years I had been away.
The person I had left behind in my efforts to put distance between myself and the horrible person I had been.
I didn’t want to see her. She reminded me of the pain. Of the ugliness.
Of the truth.
So I didn’t smile the way I once would have. I didn’t pretend that I was happy to see her. Because I wasn’t.
But I found myself greeting her all the same.
“Hi, Dania.”
Dania’s once long, dark hair was now short, just above the shoulders. She had put on some weight, mostly in the hips. Long gone were the booty shorts and halter-tops that had defined her wardrobe the entire time I had known her.
She was dressed simply, dare I say, matronly, in a long jean skirt and plain white sweater. She wasn’t wearing any make up and her eyes looked tired, ringed in dark circles.
But not from drugs. She didn’t seem strung out or high. She just looked exhausted.
And then I saw the reason why.
“Mommy!” A little girl, no more than two, with dark hair and heart shaped face, reached her arms up out of the cart where she was sitting, wanting to be picked up.
I watched in something akin to horror as Dania lifted the pretty toddler out of the grocery cart and sat her on her hip.
My eyes almost popped out of my head. I knew that I wasn’t doing a very good job of hiding my shock because Dania’s face soured.
“This is Lyla Grace,” Dania said, indicating the child who was currently putting her mother’s hair in her mouth.
“Oh, wow. Um, I had no idea you had another kid,” I said stupidly. Of course I wouldn’t know. It’s not like I had kept tabs on Dania’s life.
“Well, no you wouldn’t, would you?” Dania said shortly, calling me out.
“Yeah,” was all I said, wishing like hell I could run away as far and as fast as my legs could carry me.
“Mommy!” little Lyla yelled, pointing to her mouth.
Dania looked down at her spitting image and gave her an uncharacteristically sweet smile. “Are you hungry, baby?” she cooed, kissing the mop of dark curls before reaching into her purse and pulling out a bag of grapes and giving Lyla one.
I stood there, staring at my former friend, completely dumbfounded.
I had no idea what to say. Too much time had passed to make this exchange anything but uncomfortable. But here was Dania, a mother once again, and a seemingly decent one at that.
“She’s beautiful, Dania,” I said finally.
Dania’s face was soft as she looked at her daughter. “She is. She’s pretty amazing.” Dania looked back at me and the softness disappeared in an instant.
“I never thought I’d see the day Ellie McCallum would come waltzing back into town,” Dania stated with a hint of bitterness.
She was pissed. I hadn’t expected anything less.
Though I was more than a little shocked that she wasn’t tearing me a new one in the middle of the grocery store.
Dania had always been the sort to like making a scene. The more attention the better. It didn’t matter if she made herself look like a psychopath in the process.
“Yeah, well I never thought I would either,” I said curtly, grabbing a box of pasta and putting it in my basket.
Dania stared at me, just as I had been staring at her. Lyla started fussing and Dania bounced her on her hip, shushing the girl quietly.
“I didn’t think you wanted anymore kids,” I stated bluntly.
“And I thought you were too good for the rest of us. At least that’s the feeling I got when I never heard from you again,” Dania spat out, her light blue eyes flashing dangerously.
There was the Dania Blevins that I knew and feared.
Once upon a time I would have backed down instantly. Dania and I had an unhealthy, co-dependent dynamic that made absolutely no sense. We had been two horrible people bound together by crappy circumstances. As hard and bad as I had been, she had been the one person I had never been able to stand up to. No matter how nasty she was to me. I took it. Because I had this warped sense of loyalty where she was concerned.
I still felt it, even after all this time. The need to back down. The desire to make her feel better. The urge to justify my actions to her was strong.
But I wasn’t the Ellie she remembered. I had made sure of that.
“What do you want me to say, Dania? That I’m sorry for not calling you? Because I’m not,” I told her sharply.
Dania drew herself upright. Lyla, as though sensing her mother’s tension, began to cry. Dania fumbled in her purse and pulled out a pacifier, putting it in the crying child’s mouth. It did the trick and Lyla was instant
ly quiet.
“I didn’t expect you to be sorry. Remorse has always been beyond you,” Dania said angrily.
My face flushed with indignation. I resented Dania standing there, acting as though I had wronged her. I had always been there for her. Even when she had treated me like shit on her shoe, I had helped her and supported her in any way that I could.
I had made the decision to leave with her blessing. She had encouraged me to go to school. She had no right to act betrayed because I had done it.
“What the hell is your problem, Dania? You were the one who told me to go!” My voice rose and I cast a quick look around. Luckily no one seemed particularly interested in our less than amicable reunion.
Dania bit on her lip and for a second and I thought she was going to cry. I recoiled, completely off balance. She looked hurt. Upset. Bewildered.
“I just never thought you’d leave me behind is all,” Dania said softly, shocking me. I stood rooted in place, not sure what to say. What to do.
I had never, in all the years I had been gone, allowed myself to think about what my absence would mean for Dania. Dania was in my past. A past I never wanted to think about again.
When I looked at my former best friend I saw the worst of who I could be. She and I had always brought out the viciousness, the ugliness, in each other. Looking at her I was reminded of how I had tortured and traumatized the man I loved because I had been too much of a coward to stop it.
When I looked at Dania, I saw the girl who had stood by me as I set Flynn’s house on fire. A fire that had destroyed his home and killed his beloved dog, Marty.
I saw the woman who had encouraged the horrible parts of me to dominate everything.
She had been my miserable company. My wicked companion. I had hated and loved her in equal measure.
“There was nothing left to say, Dania. You had your life. I had mine. That was it,” I said frankly, not pulling any punches.
Lyla had laid her head on her mother’s chest, her tiny fist clutching Dania’s hair.
“Whose the father?” I asked, knowing I wasn’t entitled to that information. I figured Dania would tell me exactly where I could shove my curiosity anyway.
But she didn’t. Instead she answered me.
Chasing the Tide Page 7