Appalled at her own clumsiness and the woman's nasty reaction, Amanda just stood there wondering what the hell had happened to her life. Maybe if she clicked her heels three times, she'd wake up back in her four-poster bed in her tasteful, understated apartment in Chicago. She could go shopping on Michigan Avenue. Hit Sugar, one of her favorite bar hang-outs.
But she wasn't in Kansas anymore.
Damn it.
Harriet bumbled over, looking angry, flustered, and out of breath. "What on earth happened here, Miss Raeleen?"
"This incompetent spilled her coffee on me. At my age, I could have had a heart attack, or a stroke, not to mention this is my best dress, new only three years ago. I absolutely demand that you fire her." A bony knuckle with dangling skin pointed at Amanda.
She couldn't help but snort. And her father thought she was a drama queen? This biddy had her beat.
"I'm really sorry. It was just an accident." Amanda was trying to think of the proper restitution to offer the old bag, when Harriet turned to her, tight-lipped and determined.
"You're fired, Amanda. I'll pay you for yesterday, but you can collect your things and leave now."
"What?" Amanda just stared at Harriet. She couldn't be serious. And the ruin of that woman's ugly, flowers-on-acid-looking dress wasn't any great loss.
"You're just not up to snuff. I expect superior skills from my employees."
Amanda looked around her at the mottled assortment of aging, overweight beauticians shuffling around in their thick-soled orthopedic sneakers, tissues tucked into the sleeves of their blouses. She just had to wonder… superior skill at what? Creating immovable hair that could withstand hurricane-force winds?
"Okay, fine, whatever, Harriet. You can calculate my pay while
I get my purse from the back." Baby was probably lonely at home, anyway. She wasn't used to being by herself.
Amanda refused to sigh. She refused to worry. And nothing would make her whine. She got her purse, collected her forty dollars, which seemed so not worth a whole day at work, and went outside to look up her cousin's number on her cell phone. She was so done.
Brady Stritmeyer was in front of the door, leaning on a pair of crutches, his low-hanging shorts drooping over a leg cast.
"Hey, Brady." Amanda dug in her purse for her sunglasses, the intense sun prickling her skin and making her eyes water. "What happened to your leg?"
Brady was Shelby's cousin and about ten years younger than Amanda. They had struck up an odd sort of friendship almost immediately, though she hadn't seen him since her Time of Troubles had begun.
Hovering on his crutches, he flicked his head, sending a lock of blue hair to the side and out of his eyes. "I'm telling everyone I fell playing basketball."
Amanda smiled at his wording. "But what really happened?"
"I was in Joelle's bedroom, uh, without parental permission, and when her dad started to come in, I went out the window. Got my foot caught in my pants and fell off the side of the house. Went down about ten feet. It hurt like a motherfucker."
She had to laugh. "Oh, my God, you idiot." It wasn't hard to picture Brady lying flat on his back in a bush, groaning. "Did her father figure it out, or did you get away?"
"My leg snapped like a twig, man, of course I got caught. I was stuck there all helpless like the gingerbread boy in Shrek." He shuddered and patted his shorts pocket. Brady drew out his cigarettes and offered her one.
"No, thanks." Amanda moved to the side when a customer came to the door of Harriet's. "I'd better sit down. I just got fired by Harriet, and if I hang around she'll probably call the cops and claim I'm loitering or something." She dropped onto the bench next to the door.
"I got an appointment, but I'm really early." Brady pointed to his head, resting on his crutches as he flicked on his lighter. "Going to go red. I'm tired of blue."
"That'll look cool. So are you playing the sympathy card with Joelle? You can tell her you broke your leg in pursuit of her love." Amanda thought leaping out of a window had been a really stupid thing to do, but at the same time, she wondered what it would feel like to have a boy or a man so enamored of you he would sneak into your room, risking life and limb.
No man had ever risked anything for her, except maybe surpassing his credit card limit. Men always bought her things, but it didn't mean anything. Money was easy. Money was always there, available, to the guys she'd gone out with.
A diamond bracelet from them meant nothing more than Brady Stritmeyer offering her a cigarette from his pack.
Emotion, love—those had never been offered to her. And she had to wonder why. Was she so inherently unlovable that no one would ever climb the side of a two-story house for her?
It sure in the hell seemed that way.
Brady snorted, smoke filtering out his nose in a pungent cloud as he gingerly lowered himself onto the bench next to her. He dropped a knapsack at his feet. "Nope. Joelle gave me no sympathy. None. Told me I was stupid to be sneaking into her room like that and that I deserved everything I got after she told me not to do it." He shook his head. "She was a nag anyway—always talking about getting married. We're done."
Such was teenage love. But it still made Amanda sigh. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be. Joelle was my first serious girlfriend, and I'll always have feelings for her, but it's time to move on." He grinned. "And Abby Murphy's been coming around the house with cookies for me. She feels sorry for me."
She wished she could be so prosaic. Logan was a prick, but it was time to move on. Yet it festered and burned and irritated her, the feelings of self-doubt he had inspired in her. Or maybe not inspired, just illuminated. Maybe she had always doubted herself.
Maybe that was why she had never pursued a real job in art.
Maybe that was why right now she was considering taking her forty dollars and buying a bus ticket to Chicago to throw herself at the mercy of her father.
"So what are you going to do, Amanda? If word gets around that the biddy fired you, you'll have a hard time finding another job. I'll loan you the cash if you want to get back to Chicago."
Amanda stared at Brady, at the sincerity in his eyes. He meant it. He would loan her the money, no questions asked, no concerns if he'd see it ever again, all on the basis of a minor friendship.
"That's sweet of you…" But how could she do that? How could she take money from a fifteen-year-old, who Came from a modest, hard-working family, and slink back home to mooch off her wealthy father?
She couldn't. She just couldn't.