Chapter 2

Marj shouldn’t have been thinking about her spray tan. She should have been focused on the orientation for her new job. Still, she had forked over nineteen bucks for some cosmetology student to make her Bermuda tan, and she’d left the shop looking more of a Dreamsicle orange. Marj had gone after her limbs with the loofah, but no amount of exfoliation had rid her of her sherbet hue. So instead of listening to the trainer drone on about the PowerPoint, Marj was obsessing over the fact that her gorgeous and diligently toned long legs were an unflattering apricot shade that didn’t go well with her navy pencil skirt.

So much for trying to look professional on my first day.  

She had enough student loan debt that she wasn’t a woman who took a nineteen-dollar luxury expense lightly. What a waste, she thought with irritation. She’d wanted to look sleek and put together and like someone who took beach vacations instead of someone who only let herself have Starbucks once a week for budgetary reasons. She was in marketing by trade, but she had the soul of an accountant, or so her bookkeeper friend Britt had told her. Correction, her best friend Britt, the former bookkeeper turned billionaire’s wife. Marj sighed, possibly aloud, because the trainer gave her the stink eye before droning on about the slides again.

Marj knew that every company thought it was super special and had to build the culture with lots of training procedures, but frankly, she was good at marketing and knew how to do it without a dose of jargon. It was a challenge to leave her phone in her purse. She wanted to check her social media and see if she’d been getting any good swipes on Tinder. Although she was losing faith in dating apps. She hadn’t met anyone halfway decent since she and Luke broke up. And by ‘broke up,’ she meant ‘since he knocked up his secretary,’ which was so cliché it didn’t bear mentioning.

She made herself take notes, although she had no intention of ever reading them. Marj jotted down the names of competitors, which she already knew, and noted that the current CFO had been headhunted by a multinational based out of London. Whether this was mere boastfulness or whether the company needed new management, she wasn’t sure. The point was, she wished they’d get a new CFO for a very simple reason. At her last job, before the Luke debacle, Creative Consulting had been acquired by the Fitzsimmons Group, which included a new CEO and his hot son, who had ended up falling for Britt. So if this joint had a new executive, maybe he’d be hot or have an attractive single relative who’d like to meet a somewhat jaded but very shapely and aerobicized marketing girl.

Until some mythical Billionaire Charming (so much more desirable than a mere Prince Charming, to Marj’s mind) appeared to sweep her off her office chair, she was doomed to at least another thirty years of focus groups and targeting demographics. She tried not to stare at her legs. They annoyed her, and also made her crave orange sherbet, which most definitely was not on the low-carb diet she’d just started yesterday.

When the training dismissed, she bolted to the cavernous lobby of the building and checked her phone. A missed call from Britt. She’d been trying to reach Britt for two days and kept missing her. Britt was touring with her husband the adorable billionaire’s band. Because he wasn’t already perfect enough, he wrote songs about her and played them on his guitar while looking hot and having more money than most Central American nations. It was hard not to be bitter about the preciousness of the whole Britt and Jack union, but Marj did her best. Because she loved Britt, and a truly perfect man was the only solution, because no one else could hope to deserve her. She wanted Britt to be this happy. She just wished that Jack had an equally flawless brother for herself.

Jack did have a brother, but that hadn’t worked out well for Marj. He’d brought a date to the rehearsal dinner and rebuffed Marj’s every advance despite the fact that her incredible cleavage had threatened to spill forth from her dress. Apparently he’d gone ahead and married the girl. So Marj would have to shop outside her BFF’s in-laws to find a mate.

She was beginning to think that romance and happy endings didn’t happen for girls like her. Britt was a total sweetheart, not to mention one of the most loyal and responsible women on earth. So it wasn’t like they were ever competing for the same men. Men had types, for sure. And anyone who wanted Britt’s all-American cuteness wouldn’t have looked twice at Marj with her low-cut tops and her sarcasm.

She dialed Britt’s number, and her friend answered at once, her sunny voice conveying her happiness with Jack.

“Hi, babe!” Britt said.

“Hey, sunshine. Ease up on the perky. I just spent five hours listening to some broad in HR read a PowerPoint out loud.”

“Ouch. Five hours?”

“Okay, one hour, but it felt like five hours,” Marj grumbled. “Enough of me. How’re my favorite newlyweds?”

“Fantastic. I mean, I never knew it was possible to be this happy!” she said. “Jack’s got a show in Sonoma tonight, and tomorrow we’re headed for the boardwalk at Santa Monica!”

“That’s great. I mean, it makes me want to stick my head in the oven, but it’s great for you,” Marj deadpanned.

“It won’t do you any good. You just keep your shoes in the oven. I know you. It’s not like you’ve ever turned one on!”

“I’m not turning on anything or anyone these days. Gosh, I can’t believe everything went south so fast with Luke.”

“I mean, the secretary? Really? Did he not have a shot with a Swedish airline stewardess? I am profoundly disgusted with him, and I’m sorry I ever considered him a friend,” Britt declared loyally.

“What does Jack say?”

“He’s not happy about it at all,” Britt said.

“What does he say about what his friend Luke did to me? And don’t sugarcoat it. I’ll know if you do. Just give me the truth.”

“He said, ‘They’re both players, and one of them was bound to get played,’” Britt said with an audible cringe.

“Hmph. I guess he’s right, but it sucks. And tell him he’s never going to get to try my legendary apple pie, because I’m not baking for him!”

“With God as my witness, you have never baked a pie. Why would I threaten him with the lack of an imaginary pie?”

“Look, for all he knows, I could have won the blue ribbon at the county fair for my superior pies.”

“Marj, he’s not stupid. If I told him you won an award in Booty Boot Camp or you put together an unbelievably gorgeous outfit for like seven dollars, that he’d believe. He knows your skillset. You worked for his dad the same time I did.”

“Britt, trust me when I tell you that Jack was not wasting time and awareness on what might or might not be in my wheelhouse of abilities. He was ogling you. Straight up trying to peek down the cleavage ogles. Whenever we were talking down in marketing, and you headed our way, he’d kick his feet up on the desk like he was relaxed, just shooting the shit, but it was his ‘try to act natural’ move.”

“I think that’s cute,” Britt said.

“Of course you do. Because he was smitten with you. I’ve never scored smitten. It’s not a thing in my world. I’m not even getting selfie likes on Facebook anymore. I’m down to like six likes, and I think two of those are pity likes. I may need to redo my roots already. And I’ve been reading about eyebrows, like if you have skinny ones, they make you look older.”

“Your eyebrows are not old, Marj. You’re beautiful, and you’re in terrific shape because you work your ass off, and the only reason you don’t have a man yet is because most men are stupid. Like really stupid. I am fairly sure I got the last one in Manhattan who wouldn’t qualify for medical brain death declaration. I mean, do you remember the guys I used to date?”

“Yes. I do. I’d rather not mention them by name because I’ll have a post-traumatic episode. As a matter of fact, I haven’t had the best luck myself, and since I lack your sunny view of the world, I’m probably doomed to solitude.”

“In that case, I’ll send you a souvenir vibrator when we get to LA.”

“Thanks,” Marj said, “try and find one with my name on it. I like to feel special and scream my own name.”

“I still can’t imagine Creative Consulting without you. I mean, I know you didn’t want to work with Luke—”

“I could not work with him. He humiliated me, and I kept wanting to throw coffee on him whenever I saw him. As a practical woman, I knew that throwing scalding-hot coffee on him would cost me my job and stir up a lawsuit. So, to avoid jail time, I quit.”

“How’s the new workplace?”

“The salary’s the same, and the benefits are even worse. I may have to sell my spare kidney if I don’t get a tax refund this year.”

“You don’t exactly have expensive tastes. You’re the most frugal person I know, and I’m an accountant, Marj.”

“Correction: I do have expensive tastes, I just can’t afford to indulge them.”

“I don’t think you could overspend if you tried, babe.”

“Oh, but I’d love a shot at it.”

Britt laughed, and they hung up.

All snarking aside, Marj was going to have to go over her budget yet again, and it might mean cutting off the weekly coffee and muffin, as well as the occasional splurge on a manicure or, in this case, an ill-fated and orange-tinted fake tan. Up until recently, she’d had a roommate. Not the illustrious Luke, of course, but a nurse called Lisa who worked nights. They’d shared the rent and utilities and had only passed each other in the mornings as Lisa got home and showered while Marj left for work. Lisa, however, had taken a job at another hospital working three twelve-hour day shifts for the same as a forty-hour week. It left her with four days free, and she was starting med school with the on-campus housing to help offset the costs. So Marj was left flying solo on the rent.

She didn’t exactly live in a penthouse off of Park, but it wasn’t in a bad neighborhood, either. She always took the bus, not the subway. Now it looked as if she’d have to get to know the subway system. As a marketing major, she knew the value of rebranding, and she couldn’t face calling it the subway—it sounded so dingy and defeated. She hadn’t decided whether to refer to it as the Tube as in London or the Métro à la Paris.

Marj loved her apartment, and it would be the last thing she gave up. In extremity, she might move to Brooklyn, but it didn’t appeal to her. Brooklyn would be an admission that she couldn’t make it in Manhattan despite all her education, her bravado. Her skill at using a gaudy K-mart scarf, tied creatively, to make a drab basic outfit into something with style. Marj liked to think she had style, and she did not mean Brooklyn style.

She bought a salad at the corporate cafeteria instead of giving in to the temptation of the gourmet pasta place down the street. Fine, she thought, as she watched gorgeous girls emerge from the elevator, their fresh blowouts gleaming beneath the atrium skylight, go ahead and eat your expensive pasta. I won’t have credit card debt and a jiggly carb ass from my cheap salad. Still, the dried cranberries and gummy lettuce did little to console her. Marj returned to the training session early and started typing a list on her phone.

1. Advertise for new roommate. Put up notice in coffee shop and social media.

2. Check references of all applicants. Use HR’s background check software registration to run a thorough...is that illegal? Check on legality of using HR’s ID and password to investigate roomies.

3. Pack lunch every day. No wasting $ on takeout. Buy and eat high-fiber, low-sugar cereal.

4. Check to see if I could teach a class or two at the gym to offset membership costs. Otherwise purchase cheap stair climber on Craigslist.

5. Make effort to look sexy anytime I leave apartment. Could meet a sugar daddy anywhere, even at the Tube? Metro? Might be an eccentric billionaire who rides the Tube? Metro? to keep in touch with common man. Must convince him a Town Car is better.

The presenter cued up another PowerPoint, and Marj settled in for a long afternoon.