She pulled at the hem of her skirt, smoothing out a wrinkle in its cotton paneling. Above all else, she thought, I will not look a fucking mess.

Walking to the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that offered a dazzling view of the Orlando skyline, then beginning to make circles around the whole office, she ran her hand over the sleek mahogany desk, the leather-studded chair, and paused at the coffee maker.

“Thanks for your service,” she said to the machine.

She waited, as if expecting some kind of response from the inanimate object. No such luck, not even a beep. Where was the comfort of a robotic voice when a girl needed it?

Relenting, she strode to the full-length mirror she kept in the corner of her office for just such occasions. Well, not quite these occasions, but still. For crises. Late nights at the office, emergency video-conferences with clients, etc.

Heidi peered in the mirror, gently mussing her dark caramel locks that were run through with streaks of dirty blond. Hands came to rest at her trim waist, seated firmly above a set of bodacious hips.

“Yup,” she said, gazing at her reflection, “Still got it.”

Her confidence had gotten her this far, and damn it, it would keep her going. Confidence had given her the chutzpah to move from Miami, her hometown, to Orlando. What girl without brass balls could’ve swung that move? To leave behind the long, sultry days of Miami for—what? Retirement communities and outlet malls?

Although, in fairness, Heidi wasn’t spending her days at either of those joints. No, instead, she’d located the night life in Orlando, which she had to admit, passed muster. The bars were noisy, fun and packed with tanned men who would buy you a drink faster than you could say your name.

The local drink was a Negroni. The best nail salon was Bella’s, on 8th Street, where they had massage chairs and good gel polish. She knew the best route for runs, based on the weather pattern predicted for the day, and which local library had quiet spaces that didn’t smell weird.

She’d even gotten involved in neighborhood politics, helping a councilwoman run for reelection on the grounds of repaving the streets and getting a handle on that damn red light camera on the intersection of Normund and Colie, which always seemed to snap pictures about half a second too soon.

All these things she’d learned, and now what good were they? She’d probably have to leave town, like a bandit, in the middle of the night, rubbing her face over with grease paint. Finally call up her Mom and Dad. Poor Tom and Dina. She was really overdue to call them, but things in her life had been piling up like precarious blocks, and spare time to chat with parents had been a luxury she couldn’t afford.

God, that made her sound like an ungrateful brat.

Now, though, she’d have all the damn time in the world. Especially if she moved back down to Miami, which was looking increasingly probable.

And I was so close to having it all, she thought. Swanky apartment, nice car, killer job. She paused and reconsidered. Well, minus any semblance of a healthy romantic life.

In fact, she had to admit, maybe this was for the best. Work at Image-ine—the PR firm that had taken one look at her glowing 22-year old self and hired her for an internship on the spot—had always been frantic. Long days, longer nights, caffeine dependence, an aching back from hunching over a laptop all day.

And, as she’d soon painfully realized, celebrities don’t ease up on the scandalous behavior over the holidays. On the contrary, they seemed to amp it up, as if to say, “Sorry, we know you had Thanksgiving plans, but I just got caught snorting coke off a public urinal! Cancel your trip!”

And Heidi had made it in for each one of those calls. Through perseverance and sacrifice, she’d made herself invaluable, a vital member of the team no matter what play the bosses planned. Whenever a higher-up at the company needed something, they’d explain what they wanted to another intern, then sigh and say, “Just have Heidi do it.”

It wasn’t long before they’d been forced to promote her from unpaid schlep to Executive Assistant, and from there on out, she was given a better title and a pay bump every six months or so. She climbed faster and faster, with a speed and grace the firm had never witnessed before. That’s how she, at 27, had become the youngest exec in Image-ine’s history. And none begrudged the rapidity of her ascent.

Well. They hadn’t, at least. She had recently begun to wonder if that was what had prompted Gary to be such a fucking—Stop, she told herself in a firm tone. Don’t get mad. Get even.

After all, she’d already called up Meredith, her day-one office buddy who’d eventually become her closest confidant, and dramatically reenacted the whole story. They’d weighed pros and cons for nearly an hour and, at last, Heidi had given up on strategizing. She’d known the right move at the start of the hour, but sometimes, you need to hear your girlfriend say it about 50 more times before the answer sinks in.

Gary was a pig. No doubt about it. He’d always been a damn pig, squealing and getting flecks of the mud from his pen onto Heidi’s life. This just happened to be the last straw.

She thought she could withstand the incessant, inappropriate remarks until she’d scrounged up enough money to open her own PR agency; she figured that another remark about her firm tits could go be withstood in the name of the future.

That goal now seemed light-years away, in a different dimension. Opening up a PR agency? God, the seed investment alone would be in the hundreds of thousands. Her parents had offered to help, but she was too proud for that. Taking more money from them, after they’d paid for college? She couldn’t bring herself to do that.

Besides, even if they gave her the seed money, there was still the matter of literally everything else: finding investors, getting office space, hiring an entire new staff and training them by herself. She could do it—you don’t graduate alma mater from business school at the University of Miami without knowing how to open a, well, business—but it would take money she didn’t have, and there weren’t enough hours in the day. Besides, she’d have to do it all alone.

She took another long look at the skyline. She’d miss this part. The city at night, lights flooding the darkness as if for her and her alone. She liked the way they flickered and flashed in gaudy colors. And she liked the way her heels sounded clacking on the marble floor, liked feeling as though she moved with her own power soundtrack, click-click-clicks following her, always announcing her arrival.

Yeah. She’d miss all of it. Maybe she could convince Meredith to leave—actually, she was certain she could—but it wouldn’t be fair. Mere had a kid who needed to be placed in a private school, the little Brainiac, and a new home loan to pay off. Heidi couldn’t ask her to blindly jump onboard a startup that wouldn’t turn a profit for at least a year, assuming things went dazzlingly well.

Nah, friends watched out for friends, and that meant not roping them into a business that might land them in financial ruin. Heidi wasn’t some kind of shark; she took her friendships as seriously as she took her relationships (when those happened, back in the day). She wanted the kinds of friends she could call at two in the morning to cry about the finale of a reality show, not the kinds whose backs she stepped on to reach the next rung in the career ladder.

Heidi sighed. No time like the present. A small huff escaped her full lips and she reached one long, crimson red nail to the buttons, then began to dial home.