Life on the Leash by Victoria Schade

Author:Victoria Schade
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books

TWENTY-FIVE

* * *

Cora’s phone rang at five after ten the next morning. She was still reveling in Aaron’s loss and fighting off the killer hangover from their celebration the night before. Cora had lucked out and scheduled her first client for noon, but Maggie couldn’t get out of her regular shift at Saks, so she was already at work and Cora was surprised to see her picture come up on the phone’s display.

“Ca-can you come pick me up?” Maggie cried into the phone. “I don’t want to ride the Meh-Meh-Metro like this.” She hiccuped.

“Maggie, what’s wrong? Are you okay? What happened?”

“I got fired!” she wailed.

“What? How is that possible?”

“The steamer! They think I stole the stuh-steamer!”

“The broken one? They were throwing it out. Did you tell them it was broken and Gym Jake fixed it?”

“I told them everything, Cora, they won’t listen to me! They escorted me out like a criminal!” Her wails got louder. “Please just come get me. I’m in the parking lot.”

Cora glanced at the time. “I’m on my way right now.”

Fritz and Josie barely stirred as she ran by them, both exhausted by their early morning wrestling match. “Aunt Maggie is going to need a lot of love when we get home,” she told them.

Making it to the mall in record time, Cora found Maggie sitting under a tree in the far corner of the parking lot. Her face was covered in a spiderweb of mascara streaks.

“Darnell told them about the steamer,” Maggie spat at Cora as she climbed in the car. “He’s the reason I got fired.”

“Why does it even matter? They were throwing it out, right?”

Maggie shook her head and looked out the window. She clearly wasn’t ready to talk about it. She rarely cried, so Cora tried to give her space as she processed what had happened.

They rode home in silence, with Maggie occasionally hiccuping a leftover sob. Maggie’s progression from tears to fury was a quick and predictable one. Cora actually felt bad that Darnell was on the receiving end of this much rage.

“Can I ask how it happened?”

The words came out in angry bursts. “The guys from corporate were in. Darnell made some crack about how I shouldn’t be up for the Excellence program because I stole a steamer. Corporate heard ‘steal,’ and I was out on my ass.” She clenched her fists. “I want to kill that fucker.”

“Are you serious?” It sounded like just one of Darnell’s badly timed jokes. “Why would he do that?”

“He did it because he didn’t like the competition. He’s used to being number one, and for the first time in a long time he wasn’t going to be because my numbers are insane this quarter. I can’t believe he’s jealous of me!”

Cora knew that wasn’t the case. Darnell was Maggie’s devoted friend, and there was no way he would ever do anything to sabotage her. More likely, he had just reacted to the discomfort of the moment with a wisecrack.

“Was he . . . kidding? You know how he makes those stupid jokes all the time.

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