Idiot For Hire [On Hold]

1: It Started with a Latte

Oh. Right. I’d just fired the girl who answered my phone for me. Maybe that wasn’t the best move on my part…

Oh, well.

The next time my phone began to ring, I did remember to grab it, surprisingly, and the caller ID made me let out a loud exhale. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Caroline, exactly. It was just… no, I didn’t like her. I briefly considered letting it go to voicemail, but in the end I took the call. “Hey, Carol.”

I didn’t get a greeting. Instead, I got, “Adriana! Stop calling me that! Carol could be my mom’s name, or worse, my grandma’s name.”

I rolled my eyes. “What do you need, Carol?”

She huffed, and I could almost picture the annoyed expression on her face. It was great. “Mikey told me to call you. He needs a third model for this spread.”

I frowned. This sounded like a reluctant offer, something I definitely wasn’t okay with. “I thought you already had three.”

“Jenny backed out. She went on vacation with her boyfriend’s family.”

I could sense her disapproval just by her tone. Caroline strongly believed in the concepts of having several boy-toys and being a shameless home-wrecker. She liked older guys, and they always liked her back—no exceptions. If they were taken, it added to the thrill. If they were married? Be still her beating heart.

“You want me to take Jenny’s leftovers?” I asked incredulously. Seriously, how many times was she going to ask this of me before she realized I was never going to be up for it? “No, thanks.”

Caroline let out a frustrated groan. “We need a short model for this shoot, Adriana. You’re all we’ve got. You can’t let us down.” 

I resisted the urge to hang up on her. It would only give her satisfaction—even in the face of losing a photo shoot. “You’re two inches taller than me. You can take the part of the short model and find another giraffe.”

Caroline, clearly having lost what little patience she had, retorted, “There’s a big difference between 5’6” and 5’8”, honey. I meet the requirements. You squeezed by thanks to your mom, so you can either take jobs you can actually do, or you can stay in your mom’s shadow forever. It’s your choice. You know, I keep trying to help you, but you won’t even help yourself, much less let me do it. So just take the job for once and get over here.”

My jaw clenched at her words. God, I hated her... “I appreciate your concern, Carol, but I have work to do.”

“Work? What work? You don’t do anything.”

I could have gone into how much crap my mother liked to fill my schedule with, but it just wasn’t worth it. Caroline didn’t care. I was better off ignoring her and ruining this shoot for her. “Well, I hope you find someone,” I said. “Wouldn’t it just be a shame if you were duked out of a shoot?”

“Adriana—”

“Good luck, sweetie.” This time, I didn’t give her a chance to reply and ended the call. I held my phone in a tight grip and had to resist the urge to throw it against the wall.

Didn’t she get it?  I didn’t need or want her help, not when it was laced with passive aggressive comments and half-hearted sentiments. I didn’t need anything from her. I never had, and I never would.

Unfortunately, not even the memory of Caroline being pushed into a pool was enough to calm me down, and I headed to the fitness room to work the frustration off—the usual ending to my day.