Ashley did not want to get on a scale in front of the entire office. This was humiliating.
‘A hundred twenty pounds. Look at you, girlfriend. Gold stars all around. You’ve lost fifteen pounds.’ Eve clapped as Perry stepped off the scale in front of Ashley, who reluctantly took her place to be weighed.
She squeezed her eyes closed as she felt Eve pinch her hard on her hip. ‘Oooo, you gained five pounds. Maybe just juice for you.’ Eve snickered before looking her up and down again. ‘You were prettier when you first started working here.’ She turned to the next girl in line. Ashley hadn’t felt so humiliated since rushing Kappa Theta, when the older sisters stripped the pledges to their underwear and drew circles around their fat bits. The weigh-in was ostensibly part of the ‘Glossy Body Challenge,’ a three-week juice cleanse/boot camp program to ‘kick-start a new you after the New Year.’
‘It’s really just to make sure everyone is a size zero at her wedding. She wants everyone there to look completely ano!’ Ashley grumbled to Imogen from the confines of her office, where the two of them hid after her humiliating weigh-in. Imogen didn’t have to participate in the boot camp or the cleansing. Eve, at least, granted her immunity from that.
‘Do you know what she sent a bunch of us this weekend?’ Ashley fumbled on her phone to find the picture Eve had texted her on Sunday. It was a frontal shot, taken before a mirror, of Eve in a bra and panties, her stomach concave, her thighs twiglike, with the caption ‘WEDDING READY BITCHES! Let this be your THIN-spiration!’
Imogen rolled her eyes at the picture. ‘Tell her you think it was inappropriate.’ A smile played on Imogen’s lips. She knew Ashley would never say something like that to Eve.
‘Maybe I will.’ She crossed her legs and played with the little gold anchor on the chain around her neck, dipping it in and out of her mouth and letting her teeth brush against the metal. ‘I’m working on being meaner. It’s one of my New Year’s resolutions. Be more mean!’
Now Imogen laughed. ‘Please don’t do that. How about “Be more assertive,” or “Stand up for yourself.”’
Outside the glass walls, Ashley could see the content producers quietly stuffing Glossy discount cards into white gift bags for Eve’s big day, tying the tops of the paper bags with giant red bows.
‘Maybe I’ll get the stomach flu tonight and I won’t be able to go to the wedding,’ Ashley said, making a faux vomiting noise and then instantly regretting it. Thankfully, Imogen laughed.
‘She’d dock your pay.’
‘That’s not even funny, because it’s true.’ Ashley wanted to tell Imogen her good news. Would she be excited for her? Would she think it was silly? Ashley watched Imogen as she typed on the shiny MacBook Air. Gone was the near-constant frustration that furrowed her boss’s brow just a couple of months ago when she sat in front of the same computer.
Ashley wouldn’t quit work – not yet. A $100,000 investment wasn’t really enough to do that. She needed to hire a product manager, engineers, and a business development person. She needed to build her product before she could think about doing SomethingOld as her full-time gig. Besides, Imogen still needed her.
‘So, I have something fun to tell you,’ Ashley said, feeling like a little girl bringing home a straight-A report card to her mom.
‘What, darling?’
‘I kind of have this company that I have been thinking of starting. Well, no, I started it. It’s totally real. And we reached our fund-raising goal. I raised one hundred thousand dollars for it.’
Imogen closed the computer and placed her elbows on top of it, placing her chin in her hands.
‘That’s wonderful. Tell me all about it.’