Golden Girl

Five weeks. That was all it took for them to replace me. I had walked into my boss’ office on 1 September to tell him I was done unless he paid me what I was worth, and by 10 October, some other woman was adorning my television screen with my old job title decorating her name. Miranda St John. Even her name seemed to be made of money. I examined her perfectly coiffed hair, the immaculate nails she was brandishing animatedly, and the tailored blazer hugging her shoulders. And I understood the message my old boss was sending me - I wasn’t worth what I thought, but she sure as hell was. I highly doubted she would have rolled out of bed for twice my measly ‘wage’... if you could even call it that.

Although I was tempted to hurl the remote control across the room, I took a deep breath and pointed it at the television instead until I found a nostalgic sitcom from the 60s that made my eyes crinkle instead of my blood boil. I waited until I was several episodes deep and far calmer before I dared to even look at the take out menu, lest I order every second dish listed, reminding myself that I was unemployed now. No - freelancer, I corrected myself. I had finally been given the opportunity, nay - gift, to name my price, or even better, to sell to the highest bidder. Now all I had to do was to whore myself out there whilst convincing everyone I was a goddamned queen. And why the hell shouldn’t I be both - it was 2021 for goodness sake, I reminded myself.

This Miranda woman had clearly waltzed into Greg’s office and, judging by her appearance and confident demeanour, convinced him she was worth at least twice as much as me. I scooped a dollop of icecream into my mouth, ran a hairbrush through my hair for the first time in a week, spruced a little mascara onto my tired eyes and poured myself a glass of wine so generous my grandmother would have surely chastised me for it. I jumped behind my desk, writing so long into the night that my hands started to cramp, reminding me that I was in fact 37, not 22. Yet on I ploughed, until I awoke to the sun sneaking through my eyelids and a keyboard fairly solidly imprinted onto my left cheek. I would have QWERTY imprinted into my person for a week at this rate. But if that didn’t demonstrate my commitment to my art, I didn’t know what would.

I rubbed my face as I switched my wine for coffee - I didn’t feel quite ready to go full Hemingway just yet. I settled back at the computer and glanced at the wordcount in the lower left hand corner - 17983 words. I blinked, and then I blinked again, positive that an extra zero must be there by mistake, or that my face had written a bunch of “jdbn luebfe usfl.funesfe shuesys” during my snooze. But no - as I started to read over my words from the previous evening and early hours of morning, I grew entranced by the story I had never planned on writing. I could feel my value increasing with every paragraph. And over the coming months, my newly appointed editor agreed wholeheartedly. Enthusiastically even. Passionately. Zealously. And it belonged to me. And suddenly even the salary Miss Miranda St John was collecting seemed trivial and pointless. I refused to ever call it a silver lining. This was my goddamned destiny. And it was golden.