“I don’t think you could overspend if you tried, babe.”
“Oh, but I’d love a shot at it.”
Britt laughed, and they hung up.
All snarking aside, Marj was going to have to go over her budget yet again, and it might mean cutting off the weekly coffee and muffin, as well as the occasional splurge on a manicure or, in this case, an ill-fated and orange-tinted fake tan. Up until recently, she’d had a roommate. Not the illustrious Luke of course, but a nurse called Lisa who worked nights. They shared the rent and utilities and only passed each other in the mornings as Lisa got home and showered while Marj left for work. Lisa, however, had taken a job at another hospital working three twelve-hour day shifts for the same as a forty-hour week. It left her with four days free, and she was starting med school with the on-campus housing to help offset the costs. So Marj was left flying solo on the rent.
She didn’t exactly live in a penthouse off of Park, but it wasn’t in a bad neighborhood either. She always took the bus, not the subway. Now it looked as if she’d have to get to know the subway system. As a marketing major, she knew the value of rebranding, and she couldn’t face calling it the subway—it sounded so dingy and defeated. She hadn’t decided whether to refer to it as the Tube as in London or the Metro a la Paris.
Marj loved her apartment, and it would be the last thing she gave up. In extremity, she might move to Brooklyn, but it didn’t appeal to her. Brooklyn would be an admission that she couldn’t make it in Manhattan despite all her education, her bravado. Her skill at using a gaudy K-mart scarf, tied creatively, to make a drab basic outfit into something with style. Marj liked to think she had style, and she did not mean Brooklyn-style.
She bought a salad at the corporate cafeteria instead of giving into the temptation of the gourmet pasta place down the street. Fine, she thought, as she watched gorgeous girls emerge from the elevator, their fresh blowouts gleaming beneath the atrium skylight—go ahead and eat your expensive pasta. I won’t have credit card debt and a jiggly carb ass from my cheap salad. Still, the dried cranberries and gummy lettuce did little to console her. Marj returned to the training session early and started typing a list on her phone.
Advertise for new roommate. Put up notice in coffee shop and social media.
Check references of all applicants. Use HR’s background check software registration to run a thorough...is that illegal? Check on legality of using HR’s id and password to investigate roomies.
Pack lunch every day. No wasting $ on takeout. Buy and eat high fiber, low sugar cereal.
Check to see if I could teach a class or two at the gym to offset membership costs. Otherwise purchase cheap stair climber on Craigslist.
Make effort to look sexy anytime I leave apartment. Could meet a sugar daddy anywhere, even at the Tube? Metro? Might be an eccentric billionaire who rides the Tube? Metro? to keep in touch with common man. Must convince him a Town Car is better.
The presenter cued up another PowerPoint, and Marj settled in for a long afternoon.
Chapter 3
Three weeks into her new job at a new company, Marj found out that her smartass belief that the joint needed a new COO if he was advertising the fact he was being headhunted was accurate. The COO had decamped for greener pastures just ahead of a so-called merger. What it was, was an acquisition by a sweeter name. The company would get to keep its moniker and brand under the umbrella of Power Regions Ltd. Presumably, it would be helmed by a new executive. And almost guaranteed it would be some old, fat, white guy with three ex-wives, not the second coming of Jack Fitzsimmons.
Here it was, the irony train coming into her station, Marj thought. It was like a bad sequel where the leads from the first movie took their awards and ran while less skilled unknowns took over for them in the follow up that no one liked. Like that Keanu Reeves sequel with the cruise ship and no Keanu Reeves, she thought morbidly. If Britt was recast as Marj, she was willing to be that Jack was being recast as a Danny DeVito lookalike. She groaned aloud. Not only was she damn near broke from covering the lease alone, she was about to get a brand new boss. It was not a promising prospect.
Her work friend, Angelica, gave her the inside scoop.
“Power Regions is a major player in international business. It was big before the old man died and it’s better now. The son leveraged some serious buyouts, and it’s a legit empire now.”
“Please tell me that the son is hot, single, and ready to take on a pet project in the form of our marketing department?” Marj suggested hopefully.
“More like the son’s out of a job. His expiration date is coming and the game is about to change. Word on the street is he failed to meet the terms of the will, so the wicked stepmother takes all. Lena Cates has a team of lawyers circling him like vultures. She’s about to take over,” Angie said.