Taking the Heat (Jackson: Girls' Night Out 3)

“Not much, I’d bet.”

No, not much. Not as much as she’d get paid if she’d followed in his footsteps and gone to law school. “I told you I’d be happy to pay rent.”

He waved a dismissive hand before picking up his Scotch. “At least I don’t have to worry about the unit being vacant during the spring and fall.”

Yes. At least she could do that for him. Fill space in the smallest apartment in the building he owned.

“I only got you that job as temporary work,” he grouched, settling back into his sweet spot of disappointment combined with magnanimous gestures.

“I’m a writer, Dad. It is an actual job.”

“Is it?”

She stuffed more gnocchi into her mouth and stared hard at her water glass. If she’d been making even a few hundred dollars more a month, she’d never have accepted her dad’s offer to live in his building. She’d known exactly what it had meant. But she’d spent her life savings trying to make ends meet in New York. When she’d come home to start over and try again, she’d thought maybe—just maybe—she’d find a soft place to fall.

She’d been wrong. “Just tell me the market rate on the apartment and I’ll pay it,” she said, not for the first time. “Then you won’t have to worry about my job or my decisions.”

He gave the same answer he always did. “You can’t afford it.”

The problem was that he was likely right. As small as the apartment was, it had a nice kitchen and a fireplace and it was in Jackson. It was a place she definitely couldn’t have afforded during ski season, but she told herself that a yearly lease wouldn’t be quite so much. It wouldn’t be like living in New York. Nothing was that expensive.

She set her fork down hard. “I’d better go,” she said. “I need to get ready for the show.”

“Knock ’em dead,” her father said, already looking at his phone again.

He was always like this. She knew it had nothing to do with her, but it was sometimes hard to believe it when he was directing his arrogance at her. “Sure, Dad,” she said. She gave him a kiss on the cheek. He patted her hand, then got back to his phone.

Maybe her plan to see her dad tonight had actually worked. She was still nervous about the show, but she had a little anger to energize her now. She stalked toward her apartment, pissed that her dad was such a self-absorbed ass and mad at herself for failing so hard at life that she was relying on him again. She was living one of her Dear Veronica letters.

“Dear Veronica,” she snarled as she jammed the key into her apartment door, “I’m a stereotypical twentysomething who couldn’t quite make it out of the nest and now whines nonstop about it. What should I do?”

She slammed the door behind her and looked around at the furniture that had once filled a Brooklyn apartment she’d shared with two virtual strangers. “Shut your mouth,” she told herself, “stop whining and find something you’re good at.”

Actually...

She stared at the stylish little chair she’d found on the curb in front of a nice brownstone near her subway stop. It had been one of her most triumphant moments in the city, sadly, and she still loved that chair.

Find something you’re good at.

Hadn’t she already done that? She was good at writing. Her editors in New York had rarely offered anything less than praise, and her boss seemed happy with her work here. She was a good copy editor and she was surprisingly good at giving advice, despite having zero qualifications for it. Aside from the normal trolls, commenters on the paper’s website seemed thrilled with the column and eager to contribute their own thoughts. So maybe “Find something you’re good at” wasn’t the right advice.

It wasn’t her work that was the problem; it was...everything else. And everything else was a lot harder to fix than the wrong job.

She needed advice. And she was good at giving it. She just had to dig a little deeper.

Veronica made herself move slowly as she got ready for her show. She couldn’t rush or she’d panic and lose all this hard-won calmness. So she changed from jeans and a sweater to the dress she’d already laid out on the bed. It was a cute little blue A-line number she’d found at a charity store in New York.

She’d found a lot of her clothes there. So many women in New York would wear a dress only one or two times before they moved on.

She added high-heeled ankle boots and a silver necklace that looked expensive but had been on clearance at a department store. Her hair was already styled, so she freshened her makeup, darkened her eye shadow and put on some earrings that swung and sparkled when she moved.

Her transformation was complete.

She’d never thought much about her apple cheeks and blue eyes before she’d moved to New York, but once there, her look had drawn attention. Men had called her Heidi on the street, as if she were fresh off the mountains of Switzerland. They’d called her “baby doll,” yelling out that they’d love to dirty her up a little. Her stupid round cheeks had flamed with mortification every time, which made the men howl with laughter and get even filthier. Catcalling was not something she’d grown up with in Wyoming, and it had taken months for her to school her response.

But she’d done it. Walk taller, tune them out, don’t look at them, don’t respond. She’d learned to put on heavier makeup, a mask to hide behind, along with high heels and a long black jacket anytime it was less than eighty degrees outside. Stare straight ahead. Look impervious.

It had worked moderately well with the catcallers, and the rest of New York, as well. Don’t let them see the real you.