She started laughing as she blow-dried her hair.
Mega Loser?
Loser Squared?
Nope, none of those fit.
Self-Indulgent, Moronic, Dolt.
Dolt had always been a favorite word for her, so she was sticking with it. It was short, succinct, and definitely fit. Plus, she’d probably had food in her hair from Larry’s penchant for talking with his mouth full, thus the need for the shower!
At least tomorrow was Sunday. She could catch up on her reading. Spend a little bit of time with nature in the community garden and maybe, just maybe, take Eden up on a subdued late lunch that would consist of pasta. She deserved lots of carbs since she had hardly eaten any dinner tonight. Okay, yeah, who was she kidding, she’d end up working. But a girl could dream.
She went to her kitchen for a glass of water before bed to take her multi-vitamin. She saw she had a message. She wasn’t surprised to see it was from Toni. She was surprised to hear David’s voice.
Samantha, I can’t apologize enough for tonight’s fiasco. I have never known Larry to be this much of an asshole. Normally he is a great guy. I hope you’ll forgive me sooner than Toni does. Please don’t blame her for setting you up. It was all my idea. Just want to see you happy.
Sam immediately texted Toni.
David’s a keeper. But not for a minute do I believe the set-up was his idea. See you on Monday. No hard feelings. Love you, Girl.
As she was headed to bed her eye caught the design boards she’d been working on yesterday at the office. Something had been wrong with them. For the last week, it had been driving her crazy. Kyle had been doing a great job with the lighting, and Fabiola was spot on with the furniture selection, but Pam was all over the place with the color scheme. When it came to paint and fabrics, nothing was tied together.
This was her first project with Lawton International, and as the Senior Designer her ass was on the line. Samantha had worked on three of the Billingham boutique hotels out west and they’d loved her work. When they’d started a big renovation project out here in Virginia, the one caveat before awarding the project to Lawton International was that they had to hire her on as a Senior Designer. Sam was the youngest Senior Designer in the firm. It had basically been a shotgun wedding, and it was up to her to provide the goods.
The real problem was that Lawton was known for a certain aesthetic and Samantha knew what Billingham wanted. The two were not meshing. But dammit, the customer was always right. She paced over to her drafting desk and picked up the board with the paint samples and fabric swatches. There was nothing wrong with the butter-yellow walls and with the pop of turquoise, but that wasn’t the Billingham’s style. They wanted chic conventional, which was a tough nut to crack. They also wanted to be cutting edge. The reason they were such a lucrative client was that they were not afraid to do a total re-do every three to four years to stay relevant.
Samantha did what she always did when she was stuck. She grabbed her huge stack of current fashion magazines, clothing catalogues, and any magazine that had something like ‘who wore it best’. Her monthly magazine budget was astronomical, but it was worth it.
She plopped three piles of reading material onto the sofa, then curled up into the corner with a pair of scissors.
“Okay my pretties, show me something.”
It wasn’t until her neck protested in pain that Samantha realized she’d gone through almost all of the magazines. She looked down and found a pile of snippings. She picked up the pile and did some major stretches as she walked over to her drafting table. There were a lot of silver dresses with a hint of violet.
A lot.
She placed them all around the hotel lobby and imagined the walls painted that color. Next, she placed down a bunch of luxurious leather boots, purses, and jackets that she had cut out. She looked at the lobby again and thought about having the fireplace ensconced in leather. Maybe tiles covered in leather surrounding it up to the ceiling? All different shades? Or just three shades. Hmmm. That had possibilities.
She could then cover some of Fabiola’s chairs in leather, as well as the silver/violet color.
Samantha closed her eyes. She still needed a pop color that would tie in everything. She sifted through all of her snippings and rejected the violet. That was too obvious, but the sky blue, that would be gorgeous.
She grinned.
“It’ll work!”
“Ah shoot.”
She thought about having to confront Pam about totally redoing her color scheme. Pam had been with Lawton for five years. She’d been gunning for a Senior Designer slot and didn’t get it. Instead, she ended up reporting to Samantha who was ten years her junior. This was not going to go over well.
Sam knew her own strengths and weaknesses and leadership was not one of her strengths. She’d been thrust into a management role for the first time, five months ago when she landed here in Virginia, and she had no idea how to break this to Pam softly without having her blowing a gasket.
She rubbed the back of her neck. The sad part was, she knew how it would play out. Pam would go to one of the Principals of the design firm and bitch about Samantha…again.
