All That Really Matters by Nicole Deese (new books to read TXT) 📕

I picked up the phone on my desk and punched in Glo’s extension. I would ask her to pull up the other background-checked women we had on file and schedule interviews for early next week, seeing as our summer program was officially as short on instructors as it was on time.

Glo answered without so much as a hello. “Ms. McKenzie just left.”

“Yes, I’m aware.”

“And . . . ?”

I clenched my jaw, released, and clenched again. “She’s not right for us.”

“Huh. That’s too bad. I liked her.”

“Liking her is not the issue. A lot of people like her.” Over half a million, in fact.

“Shall I add a new requirement to our application forms, then? ‘Must be unlikable.’”

“Glo.” I rubbed my left temple. “She’d be a constant migraine to manage.”

“Then don’t manage her. I will.”

A humorous remark, considering Glo’s responsibilities were already at maximum capacity, like the majority of our staff. “I’d rather focus on who we have on file already. Let’s make some follow-up calls, okay?”

“Alrighty.”

I set the receiver back in its cradle and closed my laptop with a heavy sigh. Rolling back in my chair, the toe of my shoe bumped the wastebasket housing Molly’s folder. And then, before I could stop myself, I reached down and lifted it out of the trash and placed it in the bottom drawer of my file cabinet.

6

Molly

A cascade of silky fabric shimmered over my hips as my hands reached for the sash at my natural waist. My fingers stilled on the knot as my mind added yet another class idea to a syllabus I’d never be allowed to write, much less teach from: Multifunctional Fashion—How to Get the Most Bang for Your Buck When Purchasing an Outfit. Most people struggled with how to take a simple article of clothing and either pair it down for a casual ensemble or, on the flip side, add a few meaningful accessories to dress it up a notch or two. One piece could easily serve multiple purposes. Surely not even Silas would criticize such a budget-friendly notion. Clothing one’s body could easily be categorized as both a critical need and a life skill, depending on the occasion.

“Molly? You there? Can you still hear me? Did we lose audio again?”

I fumbled to locate my phone, hidden under the last outfit I’d tried on in the tiny dressing room I currently found myself in. When I unearthed it, my assistant’s smiling face stared back at me. This was our standard practice, Val waking up early to hop on a video call with me while I tried on clothing options in a space suited for Polly Pocket.

“Sorry, yeah. I’m still here.” At least, physically I was. Mentally I was back in that too-giant manor again wishing I could tell myself not to start a livestream from the lobby. I raised my phone to the mirror to show Val the second jumpsuit from today’s shoot collection. “What do you think about this one?”

“Hmm.” She tilted her head to the side and leaned close to her laptop screen. “It’s beautiful and unique, but I still prefer the pale pink over that chartreuse. I think it’s better for your complexion overall.”

One of the biggest myths in the beauty industry was that photo shoots were the mountaintop of a career in fashion. Lies. Don’t get me wrong—I was grateful for any and all opportunities to further the reach of my brand, but the constant pinching, tweaking, waxing, plucking, and comments to “suck in” while trying to hold an unnatural pose and not look constipated while doing it . . . well, it was all less than glamorous. As was the 4:00 a.m. wake-up call to catch my flight to Seattle, especially after I’d been awake most of the night rehashing a certain conversation with a certain highbrow director.

“Great. Decision made. I’ll wear the pink.” Awkwardly, I pinched the phone under my chin and worked the zipper down the side of my jumpsuit, slipping it off easily.

“Decision made? Really?” She laughed. “I think that might be the quickest you’ve ever decided on an outfit in your life. Much less while at a shoot. You still have a pile of options there from the stylist. Are you sure you don’t want to try on a few others just to make sure?”

“I’m sure. I trust you.” The instant those three little words came out of my mouth I was transported back to that hallway outside Silas’s office, back to when he looked me dead in the eyes and said, “I don’t trust you.”

It had been those words that had kept me awake, those words that had rattled inside my brain since the moment I drove away from Fir Crest Manor. How could he not trust me? Hadn’t I made a living earning the trust of strangers worldwide? Hadn’t I become an expert in the art of connecting with people? My word alone had become a profitable stamp of credibility in my industry, and yet astoundingly, someone who had sat with me in person while I shared an honest piece of myself had deemed me untrustworthy due to an eight-second mistake.

His swift and candid assessment of me had stung far worse than the vilest of comments left by an online troll.

But try as I might, I still hadn’t found a delete option for real-life rejection. And I’d been searching for one for twenty-seven years.

“Okay, Molly, what is going on with you today? Wait, before you answer that, you might want to flip the camera the other direction, unless you feel like answering a nine-year-old’s questions regarding female anatomy. Tucker will be waking up any minute now.”

I quickly flipped the camera so it was no longer pointing at my silicone pasties. “Good call.”

“So? What is it? You seem . . . I don’t know, unusually distracted this morning.”

“I’m just tired.” I hadn’t told Val what had happened at The Bridge. I hadn’t even told Miles yet. How could I, when I was still so confused by it all myself? Molly McKenzie didn’t fail