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I fiddled with my napkin.
How should I explain this?
“Did you hear about what happened to the CEO of Luxmore?” I asked.
Nicole perked to attention. “He jumped off a roof, right? It was all over the news.”
Hannah’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my gosh. You mean he killed himself?”
I nodded. “That’s what started this whole mess. So, the CEO died, then a new boss came and started making all sorts of changes, including a big restructure. I was one of the unlucky ones.”
I wasn’t about to go into the whole Amelia Crook saga. This was all they needed to know.
“Oh man. That sucks.”
We fell silent for a minute. Then our drinks arrived.
Hannah swirled her straw, making ice clink against the glass. “You know, Milly, maybe losing your job is a blessing in disguise. It’s the perfect time for you to finally do your big overseas trip.”
“Good idea, but I don’t have enough money. Not to mention my student loan. I’ll have to start paying interest if I move overseas.”
Nicole frowned. “Ugh, don’t even get me started on student loans. What a rort.”
“Well, you never know what the future might hold,” Hannah said. “Maybe something will change, and you’ll be able to make it happen sooner than you think.”
Her optimism heartened me, even if I didn’t share it. “I hope so. Anyway, don’t worry about me. Tonight’s your night, Hannah. Let’s make the most of it.”
As the conversation shifted to wedding and travel plans, I did my best to stay engaged and positive. But inside, I felt like I was getting left behind while my friends moved forward with their lives.
Once Hannah left for her overseas experience, Nicole would be the only friend I had left in Auckland. All my other friends had moved to other parts of the country, or to Australia or the UK. And now Nicole was about to get married, cementing her place in that coveted next stage of adulthood. While my friends were building their careers, getting engaged, and jetting off to exotic locales, I was struggling just to stay afloat.
I took a deep, steadying sip of my wine, trying to push down the sense of dread and inadequacy. What if I couldn’t find a new job soon? Would I end up falling even further behind, watching helplessly as my friends continued on to bigger and better things?
The thought made my gut twist up in knots. I’d worked so hard to get to where I was, to build the life I wanted. And now, in the blink of an eye, it felt like it was all crumbling around me.
As Nicole launched into a detailed description of her wedding dress, I mustered up what I hoped was an interested smile. Now wasn’t the time to wallow.
Chapter Twelve
The rejection email stared back at me from my laptop screen, the words blurring as I blinked back tears. Two months of this—endless applications, tedious interviews, nothing but dead ends. Just when I thought I was close to landing something, another door slammed in my face.
I closed the laptop and slid off the edge of my bed, needing to move, needing to do something with my hands to stave off negative thoughts.
Cleaning always helped soothe my anxiety. I looked around my tidy studio apartment—not a speck of dust in sight, the beige curtains perfectly aligned, every surface gleaming. My sight landed on the vacuum cleaner propped up in the corner. There was no such thing as too clean, right?
Without a second thought, I grabbed the vacuum by the handle and began running it over the floor, the rhythmic hum drowning out the chatter in my mind. Up and down the length of the floor, around the perimeter, back and forth across the centre. The repetitive motion lulled me into a familiar trance. When I finished, I moved on to the kitchen, scrubbing the countertops and appliances until they shone.
As I worked, an idea began to form. Cleaning—that was something I knew how to do, and do well. During my teenage years, I had a part-time job cleaning at a local motel, and after my last stint of unemployment, I cleaned at a mall until I had regular work as an office temp.
Even though the prospect of returning to manual labour stung my pride, I couldn't deny that it was reliable work. Something I could do in the meantime while I continued searching for my next proper job.
The thought filled me with a glimmer of hope. Abandoning the sponge, I hurried back to my laptop and began researching.
I ended up making a profile on a cleaning app as a vetted independent contractor. A few days later, I scored my first cleaning client—someone who went by the username “Cat Dad.” The fact he was a proud cat owner was enough to make me like him without knowing anything else about him.
On cleaning day, I lugged a backpack full of supplies onto the train, then off at Britomart station. Cat Dad lived in an apartment in the Viaduct—an area quite close to my old office. As I strode along the waterfront, I hoped to avoid awkward run-ins with former colleagues.
The Viaduct was made up of trendy restaurants, fancy office premises, and five-star hotels, but the side streets were leafy and quiet, with residential buildings rising from the commercial street front.
