Margo, a petite five feet two inches, wasn't offended. 'I'll just wear higher heels.'
The phone rang, interrupting the conversation. Avery jumped at the sound, then checked the time. It was 10:14.
'This is it,' she whispered as it rang a second time.
'Answer it,' Margo anxiously demanded.
Avery picked up the phone on the third ring. 'Avery Delaney.'
'Mr. Carter would like to see you in his office at ten-thirty, Miss Delaney.'
She recognized the voice. Carter's secretary had a distinct Maine accent. 'I'll be there.'
Three pairs of eyes watched her as she hung up the phone. 'Oh, boy,' she whispered.
'What?' Margo, the most impatient of the group, demanded.
'Carter wants to see me.'
'Uh-oh. That can't be good.' Mel made the remark, and then, as if he realized he'd said something he shouldn't have, added,
'You want us to go with you?'
'You'd do that?' Avery asked, surprised by the offer.
'I don't want to, but I would.'
'It's okay. I'll take the bullet alone.'
'I think we should all go,' Margo said. 'A mass firing. I mean, we're all in this together, right?'
'Yes,' Avery agreed. 'But you three tried to talk me out of going to Andrews. Remember? I'm the only one who screwed up.' She stood, put the icepack on top of the file cabinet, and reached for her jacket.
'This can't be good,' Mel repeated. 'They're breaking the chain of command. It must be really bad to get the boss's boss
involved. Carter was just promoted to head of in-house operations.'
'Which means he's now the boss's boss's boss,' Margo pointed out.
'I wonder if all the bosses will be there,' Lou said.
'Right,' Avery muttered. 'Maybe all three of them want to take a turn firing me.' She buttoned her suit jacket and then said,
'How do I look?'
'Like someone tried to run over you,' Mel said.
'Your hose are shredded,' Margo told her.
'I know. I thought I had another pair in my drawer, but I didn't.'
'I've got an extra pair.'
'Thanks, Margo, but you're a petite, and I'm not. Mel, Lou, turn around or sit down.'
As soon as they turned their backs, she reached up under her skirt and pulled off her panty hose. Then she put her heels back on.
She was sorry now she'd worn the suit. She usually wore pants and a blouse, but she was going to a luncheon today and so she'd pulled out all the stops and put on the Armani suit her aunt Carrie had sent as a present two years ago. The color was a wonderful taupe gray and had a matching sleeveless V-neck shell. At one time there had been an obscene slit up the side, but Avery had sewn it together. It was a great-looking suit. Now it would be remembered as the suit she wore the day she got fired.
'Catch,' Margo said as she threw the new package of panty hose at Avery. 'These are the one-size-fits-all kind. They'll work
just fine. You have to wear hose. You know the dress code.'
Avery read the label. It did say the hose would fit every size. 'Thanks,' she said as she sat down again. Her legs were long, and she was afraid of tearing the hose when she pulled them up over her hips, but they seemed to fit.
'You're going to be late,' Mel told her when she stood up again and adjusted her skirt. Why hadn't she noticed how short it was? The hem barely touched the top of her knees.
'I've got four minutes left.' After she'd put on some lip gloss and clipped her hair back behind her neck with a barrette, she
slipped the heels back on. Only then did she notice how loose the right heel was. She must have broken it when she slammed
into the hood of the car.
Can't do anything about it now, she thought. She took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and limped toward the aisle.
With every step, her left knee throbbed.
'Wish me luck.'
'Avery,' Mel shouted. He waited until she turned around, then hurled her clip-on ID. 'You should probably wear this.'
'Yeah, right. They'll want to take it from me before they escort me out of the building.'
Margo called after her. 'Hey, Avery, think of it this way-if you get fired, you won't have to worry about all the work piling up while you and your aunt chill out at that fancy spa.'
'I haven't decided if I'm going to meet my aunt or not. She still thinks I'm chaperoning those kids around D.C.'
'But now that that got canceled, you ought to go get pampered,' Margo argued.
'That's right, you should go,' Lou said. 'You could stay at Utopia a whole month and work on your resume.'
'Not helping, guys,' Avery said without looking back.
Carter's office was four flights up. On any other day she would have taken the stairs as aerobic exercise, but her left knee ached too much, and the heel on her right shoe was too wobbly. She was exhausted by the time she reached the elevator. While she waited for it, she rehearsed what she would say when Carter asked what in God's name she thought she was doing.
The doors parted. She took a step forward and felt something snap. Glancing down, she spotted the heel of her shoe lodged in
the seam between the elevator and the floor. Since she was alone, she hiked her skirt up and bent down on her good knee to
pry the heel loose. It was then that the elevator doors closed on her head.
Muttering an expletive, Avery fell back. The car began to move and she grabbed the railing. She clutched the broken heel in her hand and pulled herself to her feet just as the doors opened on the first floor. By the time she reached the fourth floor, the elevator was full of passengers, and she was squeezed to the back of the car. Feeling like an idiot, she excused her way to the front and limped off.
Unfortunately, Carter's office was located at the end of a long corridor. The glass doors were so far away she couldn't even
read the name etched above the brass handle.
Suck it up, she thought as she started walking. She was halfway there when she stopped to check the time and give her leg a
rest. She had one minute. She could make it, she thought as she started walking again. Her barrette slipped out of her hair, but
she caught it before it fell to the floor. She clipped it back in place and continued on. She was beginning to wish Mrs. Speigel's
car had actually struck her. Then she wouldn't have to come up with any excuses, and Carter could call her at the hospital and
fire her over the phone.
Suck it up, she repeated. Could it get any worse?
Of course it could. At precisely the second she was pulling the door open, her panty hose began to slip. By the time she'd limped over to the receptionist, the waistband was down around her hips.
The stately brunette woman wearing a knockoff Chanel suit looked a bit startled as she watched Avery approach.
'Miss Delaney?'
