Page 53 of Last Letters to Ara
Theo: Obviously, we’re celebrating.
My smile widens and now the aliens can see it from Pluto.
Me: See you tonight then.
Me: I have to get back to MY AWESOME JOB now.
Theo: Hey, Ara?
Me: Yeah?
Theo: I love this for you.
Squeezing my phone to my chest, I spin in a little circle.
I want to send back an entire paragraph about how Dad’s letter sent me here, and how I’ve never felt this excited about a job. I want to tell Theo that he was the first person I wanted to share it with, that he’s become the first person Ialwayswant to share things with.
But all of that will have to wait.
I have a job to do.
Jane and I are utterly spent by the time we finish unloading the new material rolls from the boxes. There must have been a hundred of them. I welcome the exhaustion after having weeks of inactivity, but Jane looks like she needs to take a seat.
“Were you planning to do all of that yourself?”
Jane nods. “My store manager had to leave suddenly last week to go care for her ill mother. Of course, she had to go, but it’s left me in a bit of a tight spot.”
“That’s terrible.” Then one word, tucked into the rest of the sentence clangs through me.
Manager.
Manager.
Manager.
“Who is her replacement?” It can’t possibly be, but Jane is looking at me like I’m missing something obvious.
“I’mherreplacement?” I screech. So professional. So elegant.
“What did you think I was hiring you for?” Jane asks with a chuckle.
“Well, the sign just said ‘Help Wanted’ so I figured you needed someone to keep stock or something.”
“Sweetie, one look at you, and that kind of job would be an insult. I can tell you’re a designer of some kind. You’ve got a clever eye and you’re brimming with potential.”
Jane thinks I’m clever? That I have potential?
Like a nauseating montage, I can’t help but run through all the times Karen spoke to me like I was little more than garbage. Jane has only known me for an afternoon and thinks more of my worth than I do.
For years, I’ve surrounded myself with people who belittle me, gaslight me, go behind my back, and worse. Somewhere along the way I started believing it was because ofme,thatI was lacking some ingredient, which made me undeserving of human decency.
Fuck that.
“You know what? You’re right. You won’t be disappointed,” I say with the confidence of a boss bitch who believes it. I vow to start believing in myself right then and there.
“I know I won’t.” Jane smiles. “Now get to work, all the new samples need to be cut and displayed in front of the rolls.”
“On it, boss,” I say with a huge grin.
