Girl In Pieces by Jordan Bell Page A

business, figuring out what its heart looked like, then making it into something that could be seen and touched and held in the palm of your hand. I loved translating an abstract concept into something consumable and understandable and believable and colorful. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do anything else, I just didn’t want to do anything else. And I hated giving up that dream to fall in line.
    What I was beginning to understand when my landlord threatened eviction last week, when Josh made me lust after him then took his friendship and love and walked out of my life, when my dreams didn’t pay enough to feed me…what I was beginning to understand was that most people didn’t get what they want most of the time.
    We got what scraps we could get our hands on and pretended to be grateful. Pretended it was what we always wanted in the first place.
    This job, the people working busily like bees in their cubes around me and my tiny, insignificant place in it made me feel like an epic failure. Brian would crow when he discovered how he’d been right all along. When he heard I’d given up to do what he’d been telling me to do all along…I’d rather gouge out my own eyeballs with a spork than tell him about this job.
    My desk mate appeared an hour later and I knew as soon as the doors opened that I was destined to be stuck beside her. She stood five foot nothing in a yellow and pink paisley sun dress, her arms full of yellow daisies and a bright, polished smile. She looked like she’d just stepped out of the pages of a 1950s vacuum ad. I slunk down in my seat and tried to hide behind my laptop as she approached.
    “Good morning everyone!” she called, earning her a couple of murmured hullo s. She surveyed our table briefly, nose crinkling at the disarray that had been left there, then without hesitating grabbed an empty coffee cup and dropped her daisies into it. “Oh, wow, you must be the new personals girl.”
    I peeked up slowly. She positively radiated excitement, which made me want to crawl under the table and hide. I nodded and half expected her to swallow me whole with her big, white smile.
    “I’m Gwen. Katrina right? We’re neighbors! I hope you like flowers. My boyfriend gets them for me all the time. He’s really very sweet. I edit. I’m an editor.” She laughed and swatted the air playfully before sweeping into her chair. “I’m just really good with grammar. How’s your first day?”
    “Kat. It’s just Kat. And I’m still here so...”
    “Of course you are.” She laughed and shrugged and opened her laptop without once turning down the kilowatts. “We’re really friendly here. You’ll really like it I bet.”
    A glance at the others at our table hiding behind their monitors told me that was stretching the truth a bit. Until Gwen showed up, the guys at the other end of the table hadn’t so much as looked my way.
    The Asian guy who kept swearing about some interview he had to go do now rolled his eyes every time Gwen shone her baby blues across the mess. It was the only time her smile looked strained.
    After the fourth distracted sweeping glance, she closed her laptop lid and stood up.
    “Maybe I’ll just pick up a little.”
    “Maybe you should,” Asian guy said into his iPhone.
    “You know how I work best when I’m organized.”
    “I know how you do.” He winked.
    She blushed and sighed and swept all the trash into a nearby can and carefully restacked all the newspapers. And, if I wasn’t mistaken, in date order. I didn’t know what possessed me to help, but something about the three guys at the end of the table goading her into being their little smiling maid service unnerved me. I helped her pick up even though she rearranged everything I arranged. She chatted while she worked, and despite her mild OCD ADHD, she didn’t bug me as much as I thought she would.
    “My boyfriend, Max, he’s really great. We’ve been together for eight months. Eight months! We’re going to