“Ugh, damned hair,” Denny scowled
and dragged a shiny black comb through her rat's nest of mousy brown hair. Her
scowl deepened at that thought. Rat's nest... mousy brown... why did she have
to think of rodents right now?
No matter. She whipped the comb
through, again and again, hoping to achieve some semblance of order in her fine
locks. She'd never really like her hair. It was middle length and straight,
but not thick. It was fine as a baby's, and easy to break. She had to be
careful, or else she could very well make her hair even thinner than it already
was.
Her hair was the only part of her
body that could aptly be described as 'thin', of course. Every other part of
her was thick, and not in a good way, she was certain. It must have been why
her husband of seven years left her.
It wasn't only that. It was that
damned floozy he'd ran off with. Apparently they'd been sleeping together for
over a year, and the bitch finally convinced him to pull up his roots and leave
Denny.
She didn't even know the woman's
name. She only saw her once, standing smugly by Rob as he handed her the
divorce papers, then packed everything out of their apartment and left. He
took everything. The TV, the bed, the furniture.
And her heart.
Of course, that was a ridiculous
romantic's way of looking at things. Denny knew their marriage had its
issues. She knew it wasn't perfect. But she didn't think it was that bad.
She didn't want to be reminded of
Rob anymore, and that apartment was nothing but a dismal reminder of her
failed marriage and her failed life. So she pulled up her own roots, took her
meager savings, and moved on as well. At least she hoped to move on.
She hadn't even found a job yet.
Which brought her to the combed
hair? What she was going after was a long shot of a job – a personal assistant
for someone – but she thought she could do it. After all, she'd been personal
assistant to Rob for nine long years, including the time they'd lived to
together but not in holy matrimony, and she was quite good at babysitting an
adult.
But she wasn't stupid. She knew
personal assistants were generally young. And pretty. She was neither. She
was frumpy and fat, and middle age loomed on the horizon. She was only thirty,
and she already felt that the best parts of her life lay behind her, not ahead.
Ma'am. That was what the young boy
at the grocery store called her yesterday. Ma'am. It wasn't the first
time she'd been called that, she was certain, but it was the first time she
remembered it so clearly. She wasn't a miss anymore; she was a dowdy old
matron. Perhaps she should give up on this interview, and just go find a
school to be a teacher at, or a hospital to be a nurse.
She cursed and yanked her hair back
into a severe bun. If she couldn't be young and sexy, at least she could look
put-together and organized. Perhaps whoever was doing the hiring was actually
looking for an assistant, not eye candy.
Denny sighed, and then got to work
on her makeup. She shouldn't be so pessimistic and she knew it, but it was
difficult to be anything but after the last year she had to endure. She lost
her husband, she lost her job in the process of moving as far away from him as she
could, and she just lost everything. She needed something to pick her up and
get her life back on track, and she could only hope that it was this job.
There. Hair done, makeup done,
interview outfit applied, and she was ready to go. At least, she looked
ready. She certainly didn't feel ready.
Turning the light off, she stepped
out of the shabby bathroom and into the equally shabby apartment. It was all
she could afford at the moment, but there no hiding the fading, peeling
wallpaper from the seventies, or the carpets that had suffered through years of
abuse at the hands of toddlers and the paws of unruly cats and dogs. The
radiator in the corner rattled and spat just then, adding
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