off her the shame and guilt of what she’d done.
Every time she made it to her fridge door, Fat Kat was there waiting. The old photo was taped to the door, slightly askew. More than once, caught in the act of helping herself to a spoonful of ice cream straight from the tub, or pouring shredded mozzarella into her mouth from the bag, she wanted to tear down the photograph, rip it into confetti, and toss it out the window.
“Don’t condemn me,” she told the photo. “You, of all people, should understand.”
But the moon-faced girl with bad skin and a jumble of crooked teeth had a different expression each time. One minute she looked shocked, the other, disappointed. Pitying, condemning. Her old self, the teenage self she’d tried so desperately to leave behind, was in no mood to forgive.
Kendra couldn’t blame her. What had she done? The escalating circumstances that had led to her scandalous downfall had begun with the best of intentions. First, tired of being overweight, fed up with feeling as if she always had to apologize for her size, she’d used every ounce of willpower to curb her eating sprees. Gradually, the weight had gone down.
Then there were her skin, teeth, hair—so many other things she still hated about herself. Getting that all fixed ate up a huge chunk of her savings. A dermatologist took up what was left. Then there were manicures, pedicures, skin treatments, pampering she’d never had in her life. And over the months, she’d started seeing someone in the mirror who didn’t look half bad.
Then, none of her clothes fit. Although she’d always had a passion for fashion and a huge sense of style, she’d never liked herself enough to wear designer outfits before; but now, with a pretty face, pretty hair and pretty smile, she bought expensive clothes to show it all off. When she’d maxed out her credit cards, she applied for new ones. For a while she was as happy as a pig in mud. For the first time in her life, she’d stopped craving food. And the more she bought, the better she looked, the better she felt about herself.
Then the bills had started rolling in.
Kendra leaned against the wall and squeezed her eyes shut at the memory. Fighting panic, going against all logic, she took cash on one credit card to pay off another…and kept on shopping. She’d replaced her old addiction with a new one.
The collapse came so fast, she’d barely had time to think. She missed a rent payment, an installment on her TV. She had a credit card cut up right in front of her—and then she missed another rent payment. It was awful. Crazy. And then, she’d been doing the finances for a project, her mind buzzing with the kind of low-grade panic that came with impending eviction, when she’d had an awful, desperate idea.
She filled out a voucher to cash.
She’d meant to pay the money back, had every intention of doing it. Then her car got repossessed. Her furniture was in the firing line. The credit card companies were calling, the bank was calling. So she filled out another voucher, and then another one….
“I’d be ashamed of me, too,” she said softly to the accusing photograph of the old her. With nausea bubbling insider her, Kendra dumped her last pint of ice cream into the sink and threw the last two brownies into the trash. “I am. I just wish…” Wished she could do something. Take it all back. Make amends for what she’d done.
Fix it.
Her mind spun around to the office…and Trey Hammond. His disgusted stare, his complete rejection of her. She wasn’t what he thought she was, she wanted him to know. Not really. She was a good person.
A good person who’d done a bad thing. What could she do to get him to believe her?
All that night, she sat in an armchair, too wired, too exhausted, too filled with remorse to sleep. She watched the sun come up, pale and watery, and watched the numbers on the clock tick away until she was sure Wanderlust was open for business.
Then the phone was in her trembling hand.
“Wanderlust, good morning. Trey Hammond’s office. How may I assist you?”
“Petreena?”
“Kendra? What’re you doing calling here?”
“I need to talk to Mr. Hammond.”
The hesitation lasted maybe a second and a half, but to Kendra it was vast. “I don’t know if that would be the best thing.”
“Petreena, please.”
“Kendra, you shouldn’t be calling. I don’t think he’d want to talk to you.”
“Just ask him. I only need a few minutes.”
“Well, he’s, uh, in a meeting.”
“What meeting?”
“That’s confidential.” Click.
Somewhere in the back of Kendra’s skull, steel doors slammed shut. Leaving her out in the cold like a ragged beggar. No, she wasn’t giving up like that. She hit redial.
“Wanderlust, good morning. Trey Hammond’s—”
“Petreena.”
Petreena’s tone was a combination of embarrassment, anxiety and irritation. “Kendra, I don’t think—”
“Petreena, please. Help me. We used to be friends.”
“I’m not too sure about that….”
To be spit out so easily, like a pebble in a spoonful of rice. It shouldn’t have hurt, but it did. For a dizzying moment, she had the sensation of blinking out of existence and then flickering back. If you were denied by people who knew you, did you cease to exist? She accepted her demotion from friend status with grace, but insisted, “Well, we were colleagues, at least. You’ve had coffee at my desk. We’ve split lunch. For the sake of that, if nothing else, please let me speak to him.”
The hesitation was longer this time. Then she heard a series of clicks and blips.
“Miss Forrest.”
The hand holding the receiver had gone cold. It took great effort not to let the phone fall to the floor. “Mr. Hammond, I need to see you.”
“What about? I thought we’d already said all that needed to be said.”
“Please, I need you to know I’m sorry.”
“I’m sure.”
“I mean that. You have to believe me. I made a mistake and I’m sorry.”
Hammond’s deep voice was deceptively melodious, but what he was saying was poison. “Miss Forrest, time is money, and you’ve taken up enough of both of mine already. If you want to apologize, fine. That’s neither here nor there with me. But if your conscience is pricking you, I suggest you find a priest. Absolution is their job, not mine. Now, unless you have a check for fourteen thousand dollars that you’d like to drop by with—”
“I’ve got nowhere near that—”
“Then we have nothing more to say to each other.” The next thing she heard was the dial tone. She
