“Do you know what she told me? She told me that I would grow up to be trailer trash and that while I was pretty now, it was obvious that I wasn’t very smart.” Elly glanced up, surprised to see Snarky Teenager’s eyes fill with tears. “I thought that I would be a match for her. I mean, I’m pretty hot, and,” she gave Elly a devious grin, “I’m wicked sarcastic. But she was a different kind of mean. She wasn’t funny mean, she was cruel. One minute I was in there, totally chill and I felt like I had the upper hand, and the next moment I was getting screamed at, and I wanted to cry. I was so overwhelmed…” She looked down guiltily. “I’m sorry I left you alone. I was upset, but I should have stayed.”
Elly shook her head, stood and sat down on the bed next to her, wrapping her arm around Snarky Teenager’s shoulders. “No. This is my issue to deal with. People like Lucia, sadistic and devious people – there is no point in arguing with them. You should have never had to attempt it and it’s my fault for leaving you at the table with her. That was completely wrong of me. I thought I was about to lose control and I had to get away, but it wasn’t the right choice. Forgive me?”
Snarky Teenager nodded and then looked at Elly weirdly. “Why is your arm around my shoulders?”
Elly bit the inside of her cheek. “Get off of my bed. You still have half a workday to finish.”
“Can I wear your pj shirt as a dress? It’s kind of hip in like a retro, old person way.”
Elly pointed at the stairs. “Go. I can’t believe I paid you today to take a nap in my bed.”
Snarky Teenager grabbed her white knit dress and headed to the bathroom to change. “No. You paid me today to defend you from your ex-husband’s lover. If you ask me, I am being drastically underpaid.”
Elly heard the door slam. She would apologize later, she decided. Finally alone, Elly closed her eyes and lay down on her bed. She saw Lucia leaning over her, her long fingernail poking into Elly’s chest. Her eyes. Her eyes were filled with such rage, such unrelenting hatred. Elly had expected the smugness, the superiority. She had not expected Lucia’s billowing anger, big enough to fill a city block. It was hard to believe that same face, those same fingers were kissed and loved by Aaron. How could he love someone like that, someone so harsh? Had Aaron ever really loved her, his wife? How could he, if he could love someone like Lucia?
Or, she thought tearfully, was I just his meal ticket? A woman who gave him a warm home, who cooked for him, and made love to him in the hot afternoons? Was my entire life with him a lie?
Elly groaned and buried herself under the covers with Cadbury, giving herself over to every drop of despair; the tears and the anger, the shock and the jealously, the betrayal and the disappointment. She let them all in, and they wrapped around her like a cocoon. There was strange comfort in letting the pain take over and she let herself slide into it, thought after destructive thought.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
It was the end of October, and Elly believed she was sweating to death. One in the morning was not an attractive time for Elly on a normal day, but with the added sweat, frustration, and the fact that she was half-naked, it became a nightmare of epic proportions. Her pajama shorts sat bunched at her side, and her tank top lay damp against her skin. The back of the store wasn’t air conditioned and without it, the design area and back storage closet became infernos, even in colder weather. That, unfortunately, was where Elly was counting out crystal dangles.
It had been a few weeks since Lucia’s disastrous consultation, and Elly was tinkering this particular evening on the edge of madness. No one had informed her that beading and counting 1,500 dangling Swarovski crystals would take hours upon hours, and that while the light reflecting off the crystals made the room a sparkling wonderland, it made it very hard to count.
“750, 751…” Elly pulled out each crystal, inspected it, and hung it on a hanger. The studio, while being under her actual home, had become her only home. In the last few weeks, Elly had done nothing but take meticulous detailed steps planning the Kepke wedding. Aaron’s wedding. Earlier that week, Elly spent the entire day ordering flowers, and then buckets to hold all those flowers. She had done some large weddings before, but there was still something about writing “500 White Phalenopsis Orchids Stems” that gave her cold sweats. Her massive order placed (five pages of flowers, two pages of floral supplies, and one full page of glassware), she moved on to making sure that her order was shipped in the right time frame. Greenery was being delivered the Wednesday of the wedding, orchids and tropicals on Thursday and the bridal party’s flowers arrived Friday. Getting such a behemoth delivery all at once would cripple the store, and leave them all to die, buried by imposing piles of parrot tulips and gardenias.