Tell It Like It Is
Chapter one
Everything about the office Lizzy sat in was slicked down and polished. The books, that covered an entire wall of the gigantic office, were seamlessly shiny and the floor squeaked with every step her casual sneakers made toward the chair next to the perfectly manicured desk. Hell, even the garbage can seemed to have recently been polished.
The worst part though, of the office and all its cleanliness, just happened to be the woman that sat on the other side of the perfectly manicured desk. Appropriately she too was perfectly polished with flawlessly manicured finger nails (and probably toe nails too if Lizzy felt like trying to find out) and a pristine, not to mention very fashionable, white cashmere sweater that not only (just like everything else in the office) looked brand new but also redefined the phrase "casual meeting."
Lizzy skimmed over the woman's flawless makeup and glittering diamond earrings and self-consciencely remembered that she'd forgotten to put on deodorant this morning. This woman seemed as though she'd never forgotten a single aspect of her appearance, yet alone something as basic as deodorant.
The woman quickly stood from her chair and stuck her hand out to Lizzy. She wore jeans that would have constituted a more casual ensemble if it hadn't appeared as if those jeans cost more than three month's rent in Lizzy's apartment.
She gave Lizzy a quick glance over and hid her wince at Lizzy's appearance with expertise. Lizzy had on a scruffy pair of pants that even had a thin layer of mud around the hem despite this being the city, where mud is perfectly avoidable. She had on a black t-shirt that said "Follow me, I'm lost" on it in neon pink writing and her short blonde hair was drawn back into a tangled ponytail that screamed "I forgot to shower this morning." The woman handled her messy appearance beautifully. She'd dealt with enough authors and artists to understand that most people, that preferred to be heard rather than seen, really took no pride in their appearance. Why would a radio host be any different?
"Oh Lizzy, it's so great to finally meet the face that goes behind that amazing voice," the woman said coolly while shaking hands softly with Lizzy.
While Lizzy was comparing the callus ratio of her own hands to the pristine one that held it she once again dragged her eyes over the woman's professionally whitened teeth, her million dollar necklace, and finally across her desk to the gold plated name plate. Melanie Slaide. The name slid around her brain like poison.
"So I hope you know why you're her." Melanie sat back into her chair without Lizzy even giving some form of "hello."
Lizzy tried to ignore her chipper, girlish voice, which reminded her of an old cheerleader from her high school, and the way her acoustics seemed so false. Lizzy made it her job to know a person based solely on their voice and she could immediately tell that everything about Melanie Slaide's voice made her a fraud.
She was a lair. A pseudo-human. She was faker than her own tattooed eyeliner. More so than her expensive hair extensions. But, worst of all, she was even more phony than her over-inflated boob job.
Lizzy bit her tongue and smiled at the woman then slid into her own, and decidedly less cushioned, seat across from the woman. "Um. I actually have no clue why you asked me here."
Melanie laughed but Lizzy couldn't help but want to point out that nothing she'd said was funny.
As Melanie finished her egregious chuckle she rested her left hand softly on top of her desk and flashed a glittering mammoth of a diamond that sparkled more than everything in the room combined. "Oh Lizzy you're such a free spirit. No one could ever tame you, could they?"
Lizzy tried to decide if the woman was speaking about her or Black Beauty the horse. She then shrugged and forced herself to smile again. Suddenly she realized that her false smile made her fit more easily into the theme of the office. She hoped this theme of lies also held true to that gigantean diamond engagement ring that graced the woman's hand. "They never really tried to 'tame me.' I guess it was just too big of a task," Lizzy replied flatly and with moderate sarcasm that Melanie decidedly ignored as she laughed again.
"So you really can't realize why you're here." Suddenly Melanie's voice had changed. She was no longer talking to an equal but an inferior and her voice let this thought shine through, right onto Lizzy's perceptive ears.
Lizzy shrugged again and stopped bothering to smile. "Well you're a publisher so I guess you want me talk about some sort of book on my show."
"Close." Melanie smiled again. "I do think that's a brilliant idea, but I was mostly thinking that you should write the book, then feature it on your show."
"Me?" Lizzy pointed to herself as if there was someone else in the room that Melanie could be talking to. "I'm not a writer," she protested feebly as Melanie nodded.
"Have you ever tried?" Melanie asked now not even bothering to look at Lizzy anymore as she shuffled through a couple of papers on her desk. Now that she'd made her suggestion she figured the idea would sell itself.
Lizzy held true to an old mantra her best friend from high school would always mutter whenever she thought Lizzy would lose her temper or get snappy. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.
The silence stretched across the office (all 9 billion square feet of it) while Melanie stopped shuffling her papers, and locked her eyes into Lizzy's, not understanding why Lizzy wasn't brainstorming ideas already like most people she proposed such an offer to did.
"That's a hell of a rock you got there." Lizzy eventually ground out the first thing that came to mind as she refused to consider the ludicrous proposal.
At the mention of her precious stone Melanie brought both her hands to her heart and cupped her right hand around the gigantic stone. Lizzy hoped that the edges on the 26-karat diamond would slice right through her palm and make her bleed all over her rock. Then she went right back to hoping it was a fake ring that symbolized a fake relationship.
Melanie stuck her left hand out and wiggled her fingers to make the thing refract light right back into her eyes. It just so happened to be a dreaded twist of irony that the angle she held it at also refracted the light right into Lizzy's face and momentarily blinded her.
"Will –that's my fiancé- he said he picked the biggest one he could find so that the whole world would know I was his girl!" She smiled at the ring and Lizzy secretly wondered if she was actually just checking her reflection in it.
"He must be one hell of a guy," Lizzy muttered with honestly no trace of humor but she had to stop herself from laughing as Melanie continued to gush about the ring, and unfortunately her fiancé.
"Oh he's so incredibly perfect!" She was practically squeaking… Lizzy related it to the sound of a mouse. "You don't even know-"
Don't I?
"He just always thinks of ways to surprise me and all these little things that make me so happy. He's a huge record executive. He's the type of guy that would never forget your birthday, you know?" She'd asked a question but didn't wait for an answer before she continued. Lizzy considered her self lucky that this entire conversation could take place without her saying a single word. "I just love him so much but it was still such a surprise to have him pop the question. I mean we've only been together for nine months."
"That's enough time to have had a baby," Lizzy interjected without meaning too. She never knew why but she always had this weird tick of always relating time to unconventional things. Like if someone said the term "once a month" she automatically thought they were speaking about their period.
Melanie stopped and regarded her for a second almost as if she was even shocked to find someone else in her office. "Er- I suppose." She obviously wasn't used to being caught off-guard.
Lizzy, on the other hand, was very good at catching people off-guard.
"So I've decided I'll do it," Lizzy said brightly, suddenly smiling with an evil contorted grin.
"Get married?" Melanie asked. Obviously her mind wasn't on her beautifully developed business proposal.
"I'll write the book. It'll be an autobiography of how I ended up where I am."
Melanie smiled brightly but confidently. Obviously she never even considered the thought that Lizzy might say no. What B-list (or possibly even C-list) celebrity would pass up a way to get her name plastered everywhere?
Lizzy, under normal circumstances, would have loved to have been the first, but saying no to this woman would only have ruined a perfect torture device for a woman who truly thinks her life is perfect.
Lizzy could have passed up the book offer but she never in a million years would pass up the chance to introduce someone into the real world.
Maybe it was time that Melanie Slaide understood that she wasn't the first person to get into the heart of her "oh-so-perfect" fiancé.
Yey! Thats he first one. I'm going for shorter updates so I can get them done faster. Plus I hated having to do the length that Lizzy's Guide was.
What do you guys think of Melanie? Or better yet what do you think Will thinks of Melanie?
I honestly tried with the typos so please forgive whichevers managed to slip through my fingers.