New story! :) This popped into my head while in the shower today, where the magic happens. Hah. It's a take on the film with the same name, so it wont be completely the same but the plot - I will be taking. I'm not abandoning my other story, just needed a little change. Updates will depend on where my muse is at the time, so I could work on this for a while then decide to switch to my other story, like I said... the muse is the one in charge. :) This is my feel good Bethyl story so I hope you like. x
Chapter 1-
She wakes up feeling like crap, hangovers are the devil and so are Rosita and Tara for dragging her out on a weekday when they had work the next day. She's been working as a writer for a magazine called 'Composure' where she first met her two best friends and work colleagues. Rosita writes fashion and trends, Tara writes fitness and health and Beth... she's the 'How to..' girl, writing things like... how to get out of a speeding ticket, and how to loose weight fast. She always practices what she preaches, so speeding by a cop car was very nerve wrecking for her, her winning smile and flirty behaviour won out in the end, the cop was like putty in her hands.
When she moved to New York from her home town in Georgia two years ago she wanted to get a job writing about things that mattered, religion, politics, but she soon found out that she couldn't be picky in a dog eat dog business and settled in to her role as the 'How to' girl... people actually call her that unfortunately. Now two years later, she's twenty four years old and is busting her balls trying to climb up that proverbial business ladder to be able to convince her boss to let her write what she really wants to write. Her boss is a tough nut to crack though.
Beth gets out of bed and heads straight for her precious coffee pot, she cannot function without her daily dose and she thanks god everyday for creating the guy who discovered it. She gets dressed in a respectable white blouse, pencil skirt and favourite black heels, sipping coffee as she gets ready for work. She leaves her apartment and heads to the underground parking lot to her old ford pickup truck. She gets odd looks now and then when she's seen driving into work by her other co-workers but she just smiles and tells them good morning. Having a piece of home is comforting so she will keep it no matter what she looks like.
When she arrives at work everyone greets her, by now she's well known for her famous articles that have helped many people in need, even if it's just 'how to keep frizz at bay'. People need to know stuff like that...right?
She's about to enter the conference room where their morning meetings are held when Tara comes running up to her.
"Rosita's M.I.A!" Tara gasps out of breath, clearly running around like a lunatic to find her.
Beth knows what M.I.A means when it comes to Rosita... another breakup.
"Shit...she knows Carol will tear her ass up if she's not at this meeting." Beth whispers lowly, not wanting anyone to overhear, especially her boss Carol.
"We have a half hour before the meeting starts." Tara explains.
Beth looks at her wristwatch to see it was half eight, the meeting was at nine so if they left now they could probably make it back before then. Rosita doesn't live too far away, a few blocks at the most.
"Alright...lets go." she says, hurrying back to the elevator with Tara close behind.
Beth drives them to Rosita's apartment, luckily the traffic wasn't too bad so they had fifteen minutes to drag her depressing ass to work whether she liked it or not. She wasn't gonna let her throw her dream job away by getting fired. She has an extra key to Rosita's like she does with Tara's, they all have keys to one another's homes in case of emergencies, New York can be a dangerous place to live for young women like themselves.
She doesn't bother knocking, just lets herself in and can immediately hear quiet sobs coming from Rosita's room. She exchanges a knowing look with Tara before entering Rosita's room, they find her sitting up on her bed with used Kleenexes all around her. Her eyes are red rimmed an puffy from obviously crying through the night, she looked terrible.
"Abraham broke up with me last night." Rosita cries, blowing her nose in a tissue and throwing it on her bedroom floor.
Tara cringes in disgust, "Dude... you have a bin right here, that's gross." she says, gesturing to all the snotty rags.
Beth elbows her in the ribs to silence her, Tara gives Beth a confused look while rubbing her soar ribs, mouthing a silent 'What?' at her. Beth just shakes her head and smiles, Tara can be so clueless sometimes.
"What happened?" Beth asks Rosita, taking a seat at the end of her bed to avoid the snot rags.
Beth knows what happened but she would ask anyways, she gets the same answer every time and its really starting to get old. Rosita loves to love, she dates a new guy every month and each time she makes the same mistakes which lead to her being heartbroken. She's a hopeless romantic who doesn't know the meaning of boundaries in a relationship. When she gets involved with someone...she gets too involved, she's clingy and needy and chases the guy off declaring her love for them in such a short amount of time together. So Beth is not one bit surprised when Rosita tells her what happened.
"I told him I loved him while we were having sex for the first time...I love him so much it hurts." Rosita explains, holding her hands over her heart.
Tara huffs out a breath, "How long were you dating him again?" she asks.
"Does it matter? Those five days together were magical..." Rosita starts.
Tara cuts her off, slapping a palm to her forehead, "FIVE DAYS!?" Tara bellows, "Rosie...you cant be serious?!"
"I have never been more serious Tara, he was the one...and now he's gone. I cried the first time we made love, it was so beautiful." Rosita says, looking longingly at the wall behind them, seemingly remembering the moment.
Beth checks her watch and gasps, they had less then ten minutes to get to their meeting.
"Ladies, we need to move... T-minus ten minutes till the meeting, we are so fired if we're late!" Beth exclaims, getting up to drag a groaning Rosita from her bed.
While Rosita was getting dressed, Tara couldn't help but poke fun at her last comment, "I cant believe you cried having sex...I cant believe you gave it up in less than a week...you're such a slut."
Rosita throws a sweater from her closet at Tara, catching her right in the face, while Beth paces...anxiously checking her watch every two seconds. She doesn't want to get fired herself when she is so close to being promoted.
"Stop looking at my ass...who's the slut now?" Rosita says playfully at Tara who was secretly checking out her friends backside.
"You do have a nice ass but you're not my type babe." Tara says, winking at a now fully dressed Rosita. They all laugh as they make their way out of the apartment.
In actual fact, Rosita was exactly Tara's type, curvy in all the right places, tan skin, dark hair. But Tara and Rosita were like sister's, always teasing and bickering at each other, Tara just appreciates a nice body when she sees one.
They rush out to the car, Beth is a nervous wreck.. they will be at least five minutes late. She doesn't regret trying to save her friends job so if she is fired then she will just have to accept it. She thinks of Rosita and her recent breakup, thinks about how her friend can so easily fall in love in such a short amount of time. Its simply impossible. She herself has never been in love before, kinda sad considering she's in her mid twenties with only having one boyfriend in high school. She smiles remembering Jimmy, he was a nice boy, she really liked him, but love? No...she never loved him.
Even if she wanted to fall in love she couldn't, she has no time for men or love at the minute. Her career is the most important thing to her right now.
When they finally get to the meeting ten minutes late, they are stunned to find that Carol isn't there yet. She is never late.
"Well look what the cat dragged in, its a shame Carol is running late, would have loved to see you three skanks getting fired today." Jessy says, smirking as they take their seats at the huge oak table.
Jessy is the food and drink writer, she is the cruellest bitch you will ever meet. Since day one Jessy has some sort of vendetta against Beth in particular. Her head is so far up Carol's ass its hard to know where she starts and Carol ends. Jessy would do anything on her way to the top, is it any wonder Beth hates her?
"Shut your..." Tara begins, but quickly closes her mouth when Carol suddenly emerges, leaving all three of them throwing dirty looks at Jessy.
Carol is the epitome of scary...very intimidating indeed. She's cool and calculating, she can make a grown man cry with one look, and she secretly has a heart of gold which apparently only Beth knows about. Beth accidently stumbled on a letter in Carol's office one day, stating Carol's large donation to a children's hospital. Beth found it odd that Carol being a single widower of forty seven with no children would donate to a children's hospital. She places the letter back where she found it and wondered why Carol acts like she doesn't care about anyone but herself when she clearly does. Beth can tell Carol has been through some hard times in life, she's one of the toughest women she knows which is why she looks up to her. Carol is the most successful women living in New York, everyone who's anyone knows the name Carol Peletier.
Carol sits at the head of the table, no 'sorry I'm late' or any explanations. And why would she, she doesn't need to explain herself to anyone, she doesn't answer to nobody.
"So who wants to start us off?" Carol says, not looking up from her paperwork in front of her.
Jessy's hand shoots up like she's back in school, almost bouncing in her seat as she waves her hand in the air as if she's trying to touch the ceiling.
Carol doesn't even have to look up when she says, "Jessy...shoot."
Jessy starts to babble on about this new up and coming restaurant when Carol finally looks up.
"What was is this time Rosita? Did you call him up just to see what he had to eat that day again?" Carol says, cutting over a pouty faced Jessy.
By now everyone knew what Rosita's problems with men were like, she came into work more than once with puffy eyes and a sad face. But today was the first time Carol commented on it which had Rosita gaping like a fish out of water. Tara stepped in to answer for her though.
"Premature declarations of love." Tara says, earning a kick from Beth from under the table.
Everyone around the table starts to sympathise with Rosita except of course for Jessy, who is still looking butt hurt that she got interrupted. Carol has a look of indifference as she stares at Rosita.
"Write about it, everyone loves a good breakup story." Carol says to a horrified Rosita.
"Carol please, I write about fashion, I cant write about my personal life..." Rosita starts to argue.
"A good writer can and will write about anything." Carol says, her voice even and cold as she cuts over her.
Rosita looks stunned, she opens her mouth to say something but Carol once again cuts in, seeing that Rosita is obviously uncomfortable writing about her heartbreak.
"Fine... who would like to write about Rosita's breakup?" she says, looking around the table.
Jessy's hand immediately shoots up again as she chants, "Me, me, ooh me."
Carol nods in agreement and Jessy hisses out a triumphant "Yeessss", looking smugly at Rosita.
Rosita and Tara start to protest when Beth speaks up.
"I'll do it."
Rosita and Tara look at her pissed, Carol looks at her intrigued, looking for her to explain.
"I mean I'll sort of do it, Rosita will be my inspiration." she begins, Carol looks at her to explain more though.
Beth straightens up in her seat as she begins her pitch to Carol.
"Look at Rosita, she's a gorgeous, young woman who cant hold onto a man and doesn't know where she's going wrong, like most of our readers. So what if I date a guy and drive him away making the same classic mistakes women like Rosita make. I'll keep a diary of my progress and it will be sort of a dating 'how to' in reverse."
Carol smiles at her, nodding her head approvingly. "Yes, I like that. How to lose a guy in ten days, get started on that asap." she says, starting to flick through her paperwork and was about to change the topic of discussion when Beth speaks up again.
"Wait Carol...uhm, why ten days?" she asks, ten days wasn't very long to meet a guy and then have him dump her, she was gonna have to be worse than Rosita to be able to pull that off.
"We go to press in eleven days, I want your article before then." Carol explains simply.
Beth slowly nods her head in agreement and looks to Rosita and Tara for the first time since offering to cover the story. They both smile at her, Rosita mouths a silent 'Thank you' from across the table. Beth smiles and shrugs as if what she was about to do was nothing but she knew it was a huge deal. How the hell was she going to find a guy and get him to breakup with her in just ten days,... whoever the poor guy is, he wont know what's going to hit him.
Daryl will be making his appearance next chapter! :) x
