Cake Love: All Things Payne(104)

"You're right. How could I forget? I usually am reminding people weeks in advance."

"I know. That's why I think it's imperative you come out with us tonight. You need to break out of this funk you are in, both psychologically and physically."

"We?"

Aria nods, "Yes, me and Evaleen. Oh and Tiffany is going to be there too. It's Thursday SWIM meet but I thought we could also have your birthday celebration too."

Tiffany? Since when is she friends with Tiffany?

"Wait ... wait ... wait. What? ... um ... Mr. Payne's girlfriend? Tiffany? What?"

Aria sighs again and turns a little to face me resting her head on her hand leaning back on the couch.

"Look, I ran into Tiffany while Evaleen and I had a SWIM meet a few weeks ago. She is actually kind of cool. She isn't the terrible person you think she is, Morgana. Tiffany has a twelve year old boy who is in the hospital. The SWIM meet is the only chance she has to get out and relax. She is a single mom, so it's not like she has a ton of support."

Now I feel terrible. All the names I called her. God I am going to hell. Oh let's face it, I was going to hell long before I met Tiffany.

"Oh that's terrible. Now I feel bad. I should at least buy her a drink ... oh wait I have no money because I got fired AGAIN for the same thing in less than a month."

"Look, I know it's shitty. But just take a break tonight and tomorrow you can resume feeling sorry for yourself. Okay?"

"Fine!" I groan while removing the comforter and standing. My legs are wobbly as I have been on my ass most of the day.

"Oh dear God, that smell. It's like a cat gave birth to a litter box. Go. Now. Before I get the vapors or whatever it is that people die of from toxic fumes."

Aria is covering her face with her hand as her other hand waves me away.

I head off to my bathroom and take a much needed shower. Feeling refreshed after the time in the bathroom I put on a nice green dress and start to feel good about myself. I can do this. When I am back in the living room Aria, in a sleek pale blue blouse and dark skinny jeans, approves my outfit and we head out into the very brisk evening.

Once we enter the dark bar, I see Evaleen and Tiffany already seated in a black padded booth chatting away. It's early evening so the place isn't crowded yet. The bar on the far side of the wall is a worn yet polished wood, and the windows by the door are stained glass. I'm sure the look was smashingly stylish in the 1970s when this place was built, but just makes the establishment a bit depressing now. As we take our seats I give Evaleen a friendly smile.

"Hey, Evaleen! How are things at Mimir?"

She groans and starts to suck at her straw before lifting her head. Her blonde hair up in a sophisticated French twist, small string of pearls around her neck and simple black sweater give her the appearance of a rich socialite instead of a bitter HR manager.

"Ugg, awful. I can't tell you how much the Payne has been acting up. These past two weeks he's been even more of a nightmare. We have gone through twelve assistants in the past ten days."

I nod and turn my attention to Tiffany as I REALLY don't want to talk about Mr. Payne.

"Hello, Tiffany, nice to see you again."

She smiles sweetly and gathers her long brown hair to drape over one shoulder. Tiffany looks just as gorgeous as she did when I first met her, with her tan V-neck sweater accentuating her golden eyes and ample bosom.

"Great to see you again, Morgana. I heard about the job problems, I can't tell you how sorry I am."

She gives a sympathetic grin.

"Yeah, well when you work for tweedle-dumb and tweedle-* maintaining a job gets hard."

She snorts and covers her face in embarrassment, looking at Aria and Evaleen to make sure they didn't notice, which they did.

"I think I can guess who Tweedle Asshole is?" Tiffany removes her hand and smirks while fiddling with her wine glass.

"Payne. Does any woman like him? I mean seriously that man needs to take a class on how to interact with people and not treat them like shit." Evaleen adds to the conversation.

"Well, I feel bad for Tiffany. She's his girlfriend." I try to mutter the words as if I am just mentioning this fact in passing but the high pitched tone and supersonic speed that I utter them causes the entire table to stare at me.

"Oh he's not my boyfriend. I mean, I did try once a long time ago. My husband had died in a car accident almost ten years ago and his parents and sister died in the same accident, so that's how we met. We grew close as he would help me with my son. About a year after I made a move but he turned me down. We were still emotionally not ready to have a relationship, then over the years things changed. I see him more like a brother now than anything else."

We are now staring at Tiffany with our mouths hanging open. She is nervously looking around at us expressing small giggles with snorts sprinkled in here and there.

"Oh, I would get why you think he's my boyfriend, me telling you I am his girlfriend when we met. I thought I was helping him out, you know when you think a friend is being harassed by a guy, or in Henrik's case a girl, so you tell them they have a boyfriend, or girlfriend in his case. When Henrik would mention you, Morgana, I just got the impression that you were causing him trouble so I decided to play the girlfriend to get you to back away. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cause problems."