What A Girl Wants by Liz Maverick Page B

she was trying not to laugh, Suz said, “Okay, but think about it this way. You just go in there asking about Fred, and if you get positive vibes that he seems interested in you, you can still ask him out.”
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    To avoid wallowing in misery, the minute Hayley returned home from the memorial service she called Audra to set up an appointment with Bruno Maffri.
    She was pretty happy with herself for taking the initiative on that matter. Free therapy, free lunch, and plenty of free time sans gainful employment; what excuse could there possibly be for turning it down? She’d run out of ideas. Or rather, she’d run out of her friends’ ideas save for this one.
    And so it was a day later she found herself eating Chinese food in Audra’s swanky office. The Humbert & Quigley building was located in downtown San Francisco in the prestigious Spear Street Tower complex by the waterfront.
    It would make the girls feel much better if they could attribute Audra’s meteoric rise at such a young age to the fact that she’d had a head start by graduating a couple of years earlier than the rest of them. But Audra could smell money about to happen from miles away, and she’d had the smarts to put herself in the right place at the right time, when venture capital companies couldn’t hire people fast enough to handle all the money flowing in and out of the economy.
    Which explained why Audra occupied a large office on the thirty-second floor with a window overlooking the Bay Bridge. She sat behind her giant mahogany desk eating the last third of a carton of chow mein with personalized red-lacquered chopsticks.
    She was looking much better, in spite of the thicker-than-normal layer of foundation on her face. Hayley assumed the hives had mostly gone away, and Audra didn’t say anything about it. Shewas her normal self-satisfied self, actually, which meant she’d been feeling much better lately, too.
    Hayley shoveled more broccoli beef into her mouth with a plastic fork and looked around the office while she chewed.
    It was hard to tell which was more impressive, the pricey digs or the fact that Audra was able to wield chopsticks so vigorously without damaging her fabulous suit. Audra’s Donna Karan charcoal-gray crepe pantsuit was severe, masculine even. But those stiletto death heels and the perfectly crisp white shirt opened deep at the neck just short of “wow” . . . well, she was truly magnificent, in her element. A true queen of kick-ass.
    Why can’t I be like that?
    â€œI really don’t think you should be taking advice from Suz. You know I love her, but really, Hayley. Let’s be honest.” Audra tapped her temple with two fingers and mouthed, Not quite all there.
    â€œI don’t know.” Hayley sighed. “I can’t seem to get things on track. I thought all I had to do was decide to change my life and give it a go, and things would get better. But I’ve been giving it a go, and in spite of what feels like a yeoman’s effort, things seem to be degrading rapidly.”
    â€œThat’s not true. Well, I guess losing your job was a decidedly inferior outcome, but the situation with the policeman, in all honesty, I don’t think we’ve seen the end of that story yet. There’s potential there.”
    Hayley peered into her take-out carton and pushed the contents around to find the good stuff. “You don’t understand; I was supposed to take a stand and ask him out. I’d been trained less than twenty-four hours earlier for just such a scenario, and I copped out.”
    Audra let out a short laugh. “No pun intended.”
    â€œHa-ha. I just don’t seem to have what it takes. I established these two goals. I decided I wanted a raise and a guy, and the best I can do is to keep the one goal afloat—barely—while the other tanks. That’s not progress.”
    â€œWell,