Page 59 of Breaking All The Rules
Bea sat bolt upright, staring at the screen, a slow mushroom cloud of what the fuck rising in her chest as the details of the arrest and the extent of the allegations were revealed.
Kevin Colton? Kevin freaking Colton?
The less talented and not at all freaking brilliant guy who had been promoted over her? The guy who’d been given the much-coveted keys to the kingdom?
The guy who was sitting in her corner office?
Rage—the same rage that had burned through her like a California wildfire the day of her dismissal—flared anew. She’d told them Kevin could talk the talk but was not capable of walking the walk. Having worked with him for three years, picking up his slack and covering for his lazy ass, she knew that as surely as she knew that putting a Labrador puppy in an ad was the best way to sell…basically anything.
And now, less than two months into the job, she was watching live pictures of him being hauled out of the building she’d practically lived in for fifteen years. Bringing disrepute and God-only-knew-what financial shitstorm down on a company that had been a huge part of her existence. She’d lived and breathed and bled for Jing-A-Ling, and Kevin dipshit Colton had taken a wrecking ball to it in less than two lousy months?
She checked her phone—all her social media notifications were in triple digits. With a very familiar burn in her gut, she opened her Twitter app, determined to figure out what in the hell had gone so wrong so quickly.
…
Three hours later, she was about as worked up as she was the day she’d told the CEO to take this job and shove it, and, having lived through that, Bea had thought nothing worse could possibly ever happen to her in a professional capacity, but she’d been wrong. She was so damn stressed and angry, every muscle in her body was wound tight. Even Princess had moved away from Bea’s increasingly exaggerated patting.
She’d scoured every social media platform, googled everything she thought would unearth information, and spoken to about a dozen people from her old life.
And all the time she was thinking, why? If they’d promoted her instead of scumbag Kevin, they could have avoided all of this. That hurt most of all. Knowing they’d thrown her over for an asshole who had robbed them blind.
Her phone rang suddenly, and Bea stared at it for a beat or two as the name Charlie Hammersmith flashed on the screen.
What the…? Was he kidding? He had brought this on himself through his own bigotry and shortsightedness, and he wanted to call and…what? Make nice with her now? Because he had to be shitting himself big-time, and knowing Charlie as she did, he was probably in the midst of some kind of knee-jerk, super-panicked damage-control exercise.
And she didn’t have to answer to know he wanted her back to help fix the mess. Well, screw that and screw him. She wouldn’t trade what she had now for that mess in a million years.
Although the temptation to answer and tell him I told you so and suck shit was strong, her fear that she might actually cry again—because goddamn it, she’d cared deeply about Jing-A-Ling and what happened to it—had her throwing the phone on the bed.
She’d left that all behind. It wasn’t her concern anymore.
Distracting herself from whatever message her ex-boss was probably leaving on her cell right now and from the urge to scream and/or cry, Bea checked her emails. She hadn’t checked them since she’d stopped working, because what would have been the point in leaving if she was still a slave to her inbox?
But maybe there was something in there about what had happened…
There were about a hundred emails waiting for her. It was nothing compared to the normal volume when she’d still been working, which had been more like a hundred a day, but since she wasn’t in the Jing-A-Ling address book anymore, that was hardly surprising.
The emails were pretty much the same assortment she usually received, minus work stuff. A bunch of spam trying to sell her everything from solar power to shoes, a couple of invoices, correspondence from her bank and BMW about her next service, and a couple of emails from head hunters who’d heard about her unceremonious parting with Jing-A-Ling and wanted to offer her a job.
During her time at the agency, she’d had frequent offers to leave the firm for more money and better perks, but she’d never been tempted—idiot that she was—and had always deleted them. She was even less tempted now that she was done with the corporate rat race.
Could she drink beer for breakfast and go sans bra and elliptical back in LA? No, she could not. So she deleted these emails, too.
Only one of them grabbed her attention. It had been sent two days ago from Kim Howard. Bea and Kim had worked together at Jing-A-Ling for a couple of years, back in those early art-department days. The subject line said “Greet Cute.” Bea was tempted to delete it, thinking it was either a sales pitch for a pyramid scheme, a sales pitch for the latest corporate guru workshop, or a sales pitch for some kind of new dating app.
But still, curiosity won out, and Bea opened it instead of hitting the trash icon.
The first couple of paragraphs were general chitchat about what Kim had been up to since she’d left Jing-A-Ling and offering her commiserations on Bea’s departure. Apparently, the rumors surrounding the circumstances were rife in LA advertising circles.
Well, not anymore, thanks to Kevin freaking Colton…
Then came the sales pitch. She and two others had started a greeting card company, and Kim remembered how Bea had always done hand-drawn cards for work occasions and how cute and funny they’d been, and had Bea ever considered putting her art skills to use, because they were looking for creatives who might be interested in joining their team.
Creatives? Bea blinked at the screen several times, then read that line again. Okay, sure, Kim was a lovely person and they’d always gotten along, and yes, Bea could draw, but she wasn’t a professional artist. She wasn’t a creative. Just because she’d done one lousy sketch, and had been tempted every damn day to do more, didn’t mean anything.
Plus, given the Kevin Colton news just now, the last thing she wanted was to be headhunted by corporate-landia. And she sure as shit was not in the mood for the cutesy, schmaltzy, rot-your-teeth sentimentality that had been the catalyst for Bea always making her own cards.
The email ended with, I do hope you’ll think about being part of the Greet Cute team. I know it won’t be long before some other agency snaps you up (if they haven’t already), but we’d love a fresh new voice, and your particular brand of funny will, I think, work well for us. We’d certainly be keen to see anything you had on offer. Any consideration you could give to us would be much appreciated.
