The Muse

Copyright © 2012, Suzie Carr. All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Also by Suzie Carr:

The Fiche Room

Tangerine Twist

Two Feet off the Ground

Inner Secrets

A New Leash on Life

Keep up on Suzie’s latest news and projects:

www.curveswelcome.com

Follow Suzie on Twitter:

@girl_novelist

Cover Photography courtesy of T.A. Royce

This book is dedicated to anyone who has ever

suffered at the hands of a bully.

Love and light to you,

Suzie

Taking action is more powerful than standing back and hiding.

We serve the world best when we shine our light on others.

Chapter One

I stopped within an inch of indulging in my first kiss when I was fourteen years old. Since escaping that mishap, I’d been convinced of one thing – in this lifetime, I would never experience this basic coming-of-age milestone.

I would bet my life that I, Jane Knoll, was the only twenty-nine-year-old person in my office who had yet to tingle at the touch of someone’s lips against her own.

According to all modern-day social norms, I was pathetic and lonely. However, I had way too much going on to be forced into believing for one second that I was lonely and pathetic just because I lost my BFFs back in the eighth grade when they drew their daggers against me. I’ve managed just fine without the need of a right-handed, left-handed and back-handed lover or friend to guide me.

Most people only dreamed of their destinies, whereas I controlled mine by taking action on it. Like just the other day, I wanted strawberry ice cream, so I bought it. I didn’t have to justify to anyone why I ventured out to the twenty-four hour convenience store five blocks away. Nope. I just climbed out of my pajama bottoms, put on a pair of jeans and a bra, and drove to meet up with my destiny for the night – spoonful after spoonful of strawberry heaven.

I’ve always been grateful for these wide expanses of freedom that defined my life.

I was hardly pathetic or lonely. At least I wasn’t the type of girl who would be so pathetic as to neglect watering her plants on Saturdays, or especially not the type who didn’t understand the principles of proper Feng Shui and alignment of good space. I made time for these things because I carved it out on my own without having to regard how this would impact anyone else’s time and space. When I wanted to place a giant water fountain near my front door, I did so with reckless abandon, pulling no stops on its lavish display. Surely if my mother had ever pulled such a stunt, my father would’ve crucified her hard work and time by forcing her to take it down, repackage it, and send it back.

I was free, and for that I was grateful.

I was also grateful for my job as a marketing headline writer and proofreader at one of the country’s leading sporting goods manufacturers. I just loved my cushy cubicle with its tall beige checkered walls and view of the beautiful spider plant in my neighbor, Doreen’s cubicle. She resembled my grandma with her floral dresses, wide hips, and shimmering silver hair that was most certainly set on rollers every Saturday at the corner beauty shop.

She always spoiled me. No one else got to sink her teeth into corn muffins every Wednesday and blueberry bagels with cream cheese every Friday like I did. She respected my space and only interrupted me when she dropped off these delicious treats or wanted to share big news that might shake our days. A few weeks ago, as she passed me my corn muffin, she told me that a new branch had opened up in New York City and some of the new staff members were coming to our Mid-Atlantic office for introductions.

On the last introduction day, my team leader tasked me to brew the coffee and ensure the creamer jugs were filled. She honored Doreen with the task of creating labels for each attendee. We were a couple of important people at Martin Sporting Goods. How would the enterprise ever remain intact without us if one day we up and decided we’d rather dig holes in a garden and plant tomatoes?

I wondered this all of the time when I wasn’t fretting over my hair, my makeup, my clothing, or for that matter, when I wasn’t worrying over how we’d manage to keep the Earth rotating in its planetary alignment or how we’d ensure that the clouds rained down enough water to keep us drought free for the remainder of the planet’s lifespan.

Yup, you guessed it. I happened to be a tad bit sarcastic, and justifiably so. Years of bullying did that to a person.

Hey, at least the cynicism kept me company. If it weren’t for its constant presence, I probably would’ve drunk poison or leapt off the side of this pretentious office building’s roof by now.

I enjoyed my daily work. Cynicism didn’t stand alone as my friend. Nope. Piles of excitement blanketed my daily grind. I was so thrilled that I spent thirty-thousand dollars on a master’s degree in English, and that I enjoyed the full advantage of that big splurge by spending my days swimming in a sea of marketing jargon that touted the world’s best-fitted golf shirts and swimming trunks. I was that lucky English major who got to spend her day in a private cubicle searching for misspelled words and parenthetical phrases placed in the wrong parts of sentences. Oh, yes, you guessed it again. I was the lucky one who lived out her dreams correcting other’s mistakes. My lips are tugging upwards into a smile with that confession. I was the epitome of happiness sitting in my cubicle, snacking on corn muffins much too stale for human consumption and drinking coffee that tasted more like dirty water than delicious java beans.

I would like to tell you truthfully what I’d really love to do one of these days. I’d love to stand up on my desk and tell all the glory stealers to kiss my ass.

Speaking of wanting to tell someone to kiss my ass, Katie, a graphic designer in marketing, just left my boss, Sanjeev, in his office. If anyone deserved to be stuck in a cubicle making less money in a year than what I owed back in student loans, sitting in a chair less ergonomic than a concrete slab, it would be her. Thank goodness she did.

She slapped on a sugary smile each day and fed me small helpings of her sarcasm. She hated me for things outside of my control. I couldn’t help it if her husband was a dirt bag pervert, and that Sanjeev would rather suffer a fall down a flight of stairs than deal with her.

In a messed up way, I enjoyed sharing sarcastic smiles with her. We volleyed our fake niceties back and forth like a couple of well-trained experts. She played hard. I did too. My years of bully hell taught me well.

She walked right past me without regard, strutting by in her high heels and goody-two-shoes attitude.

Sanjeev walked out of his office and headed straight towards me. He straightened his blue corporate tie, smiled into a few cubicles as he passed them, and stopped right outside of mine.

The rest went down like this:

“Hey, Jane,” he said with a pleasant smile. “I hope you don’t mind, but could I ask for your help with proofing some pieces before our new colleagues get here? I want them perfect.” He handed me a black folder with the company’s gold embossed logo on it. “Katie mentioned you’re in between projects.”

“Oh, did she?” I pointed my eyes down at the pile of work she had placed on my desk that very morning with the big note, due by noon.

“I don’t mean to bother you. Is it too much?” He always spoke with a reserved respect. I adored his Indian accent. He added a ‘w’ into places it didn’t belong. This little speech oddity powered me with confidence around him, created a safe haven for those times when he stared at me a little too long.

“Of course not, Sanjeev.” I smiled at him, and he flushed. “I’ll take care of it for you.”

He whispered a thank you, tapped the doorframe to my cubicle, and strolled away with his hands knotted at his lower back.

Doreen popped over to my cubicle a few seconds later, her hair cropped tighter than usual and her lips a shade too pink for the fluorescent lights. “He’s got such a crush on you, it’s ridiculous.”

“You’re insane.” I spun my chair away from her and waved her off like I did every time she said this. He only flushed around me because of the time I forgot to button my shirt completely and, to both of our horrors, I caught him staring into the deep cleavage that my ill-fitted bra created.

“He’s not going to be single forever.”

I swiveled back around to face her. “I’ve got zero interest in hooking up with Sanjeev.” I said this like a pro, like a girl who hooked up all the time. I also had zero interest in men, but like everything else about me, I kept that safe.

Nostalgia danced across her face. “If only I were thirty years younger, I’d be all over that.”

I’d love to step inside her worldview for a day just to experience life without the overcast shadows of doubt left behind from years of listening to mean girls tell me how much they didn’t like me, and watch as they destroyed my life and the lives of those I cared for the most.

# #

A week later, the new staff from the New York City office arrived.

I dashed off to the bathroom before having to succumb to long speeches and endless applause. I was washing my hands when in walked a tall, dark haired woman wearing a smart, fitted dress and a smile. She reminded me of someone who would’ve grown up in middle-to-upper class America, living in a mini-mansion in a bedroom swaddled in everything pretty and pink, followed by a trail of pretty girls who spent their time laughing at girls like me, girls who shied away from anyone who could damage their already damaged lives. She passed by and stopped right before entering a stall.