“Shit, I better…”
“Go, go… be awesome.”
I winked at my friend before rushing to the meeting room to find other people from the department already arriving. Of course, the second I started to get funny looks from the rest of the department, I started to feel even more out of my depth.
The boardroom was full, with people here I wouldn’t have even expected to see, and some were people I had already been working with on this. Like the head of the design team and media coordinator. But there was Toby, our copywriter, and Katie, our CEO specialist. There was also our public relations manager, whose name I could never remember, and he would bore you stupid talking about his ten thousand cats in the breakroom.
There were others too, like our marketing analyst, Martin, and Poppy, from the administration team. But it was Jenifer,akaJenny the Slutbag, that I hated with a passion and who was smirking at me now as if I was the shit on the bottom of someone else’s shoe that had just walked in.
She was the social media manager and had done everything in her power to get me thrown off this account. Of course, she was also bosom drinking buddies with the bitch, Melissa. Someone who worked alongside Slutbag and who wanted to see my head on a manicured spike (whatever one of those was). Because in a nutshell, she was making a play for the next artdirector job, a position it was well known I had been working toward getting.
Hence, the snigger I received as I walked inside. Something made even worse when my boss, Mr. Banner, our advertising director and owner of the company, scanned the length of me. Doing so like I was a ghetto wall covered in graffitied curse words talking about having sex with someone’s mama. I mean, it was a black dress with grey runes and white symbols on it, not gang signs and F-bombs.
“Nice choice of dress, Swallowmere,” Slutbag said, bumping into me and making me grit my teeth.
“It’s Shadowmere.”
She ignored the correction, tossing her platinum-blonde hair, and it was obvious even to me that most of it was extensions, the longer sections at the back were a mismatched shade. But then, had she been a nicer person to me and not some spawn of the devil, then she would have, no doubt, been considered attractive. And well, most of the male workforce here must have been under the same impression, as she had slept with a lot of them. But I’d learned that when someone was ugly on the inside, it inevitably bled through to the surface, and her core was as rotten as they came.
“Eliza, I hope you’re ready for this. You know this could very well be our biggest account to date, should your pitch go right, that is.”
I swallowed hard and said,
“I won’t let you down, Mr. Banner.”
Of course, it didn’t help when my boss gave me another once-over, and his face said it all…what’s up with the goth attire?
But then, thankfully, he got a phone call, and it finally took his assessing eyes off my dress. So, I decided to busy myself with plugging the laptop in so it wouldn’t lose battery during the PowerPoint presentation.
“Well, it looks like our client is running late. Why don’t we take ten minutes?” Mr. Banner said, making me tense in an obvious, wishful way and hoping, or more like praying, that the guy would reschedule.
“And enough time to change, perhaps,” My boss then muttered, giving me a pointed look and one that I tried to laugh off.
Well, that was until it was clear he wasn’t joking. So, I nodded and quickly dashed out of the meeting room, ignoring another of Slutbag’s evil sniggers. Then I raced over to my friend, Tara, who thankfully wasn’t that far from being the same size as me.
“Wait, is it over already?” she asked, looking confused, and over to where the others were helping themselves to coffee through the glass wall.
“I need your clothes.”
“What?” she asked, frowning at me as if looking for my second stain of the day.
“Basically, the client is running late and Mr. Banner just told me that I have to change before the meeting starts.”
“What… wait, he can’t do that,” she said now with a hand on her hip and doing her best ‘I’m an all-powerful diva that can cut you down to size’ stare. Yep, she was essentially my office hero, but right now, I just needed her clothes.
“Well, he pretty much did, and if I want to nail this presentation, then I need to look like something other than a person who has an obsession with Vampire novels and has an altar in their house covered in black candles… basically, my mom’s house,” I added, as being my best friend, Tara had obviously met my mom and my sister.
“Okay, okay, but you should really take this up with HR.”
“Tara,youare HR,” I reminded her.
“Yes, but what I mean is in a more official capacity and not just the usual name-bashing we do when getting shit faced drunk together.”
“Well, getting shit faced drunk sounds great right about now, and name-bashing Jenny-lady-slutathon even more so. But right now, I just need the clothes off your back… so just come to the bathroom with me and we can…”
At this, she waved off my panic and said,
“Don’t worry, I’ve got a spare outfit in my drawer.”
