(Fair warning: Holly has a mouth as considerate as her personality, so foul language ahead.)

A Quick Synopsis:

Holly Papadopoulos has been blessed with good fortune. Her father’s inheritance gave her financial freedom. She married  her college sweetheart, David. And she’s the youngest marketing executive for Toronto’s top frozen yogurt restaurant chain where she works with her childhood best friend, Annabelle.

Too bad she doesn’t appreciated any of it.

In reality, her trust fund is gone, squandered on her selfish, materialistic desires. Annabelle is her assistant, who Holly degrades on a daily basis. She’s cheating on David with a co-worker. And she’s about to betray her husband’s father to gain control of his company. After injuring a pedestrian in a drunk driving accident, she’s visited by the Fates—Past, Present and Future—who are not pleased with her lack of appreciation for their gifts. Fed up with Holly’s selfish attitude, the Fates have decided they’re taking them all back.

With her wealth, success and friends now gone, Holly finds herself working as a farm hand on the dairy farm for the company she was once poised to rule. Determined to reclaim her former status, Holly makes a deal with the Fates: if she can learn three lessons (one from her past, present and future), they will return her good fortune. But the more Holly tries to regain her old life, the more she questions whether she wants it back.

My head is pounding. I try to swallow the bitter taste in mouth, but my tongue seems to have swollen to twice its normal size. It feels like it’s pushing against my teeth and my tonsils at the same time. I want to open my eyes, but I’m afraid that any exposure to sunlight will anger the small rodent currently trying to scratch its way out of my skull.

I’ve never been this hungover before. This is worse than the morning after last year’s office Christmas party when I drank so much, I tripped over the stuffed reindeer and fell into Santa’s gift bag. My entire body is aching. Every time I move, the bed sheets scrape across my skin like sandpaper. I open my mouth to yell for David to get his skinny ass in here with the aspirin, but all that comes out is a hacking cough. I feel like I’m choking on a mouthful of dirty cotton balls.

I know I’ve said this before, but I swear I am never drinking again.

Take last night, for example. It had to be one of those crazy drunk dreams. Those three crazy women claiming to be the Fates. And that horrible accident. Like I would really be stupid enough to drive in that condition. As if I would be callous enough to leave an injured man on the street. It had to be a dream.

Had to be.

I should really get out of bed. I can’t be late for work, not now. It wouldn’t be professional and I’m practically the boss now.

A wave of nausea hit me and I have to swallow back a sudden rush of stomach acid. Oh God. Sebastian found out about the board meeting. David called, furious with me. Do I even still have a job? Did I manage to convince them of my innocence before passing out?

I relax a little. If the accident was a dream, then so was the phone message. Sebastian doesn’t know anything. I’m still safe.

Which brings me to my next question: where am I? Did I fall sleep at the hotel? I must have, otherwise David would’ve woken me up before he left for work. But I certainly don’t remember the hotel bed having such cheap, lumpy sheets. Remind me to complain about this when I check out.

With a near-Herculean amount of effort, I manage to crack open one eyelid. The assault is just as vicious as I feared. This is what staring directly into the sun on Venus must feel like. Any minute now my eyeballs are going to melt out of my head like the Nazis when they looked at the Lost Ark.

Eventually, the bright lights fade and my vision clears. With a cry of disgust, I bolt upright in bed. Only it’s not a bed, it’s a futon. I scramble out from under the sheets and my heel lands in a half-empty bowl of soggy cereal. The threadbare carpet under my other foot is littered with dirty clothes and discarded shoes. I look down at my chest in confusion. I’m wearing a worn cotton t-shirt and faded pyjama pants that feature monkeys dressed in bikinis.

These aren’t mine, I realize. More importantly, I don’t know anyone with a predilection for slutty monkeys.

I glance around the strange apartment, trying to get my bearings. Directly across from me, there’s a tiny kitchen equipped with scratched countertops and appliances that look like they came over on the Mayflower. Next to the ancient kitchen, an open door reveals a bathroom the size of an airplane lavatory. If I wanted to, I could wash my hair in the shower while sitting on the toilet. A dank, moldy smell hangs in the air and the passing feet outside the windows tell me that I’m currently below sea level.

Maybe I actually managed to guilt Byron into taking me back to his place. But a quick look around the room reveals what a ridiculous idea that is. Byron is a man of incredible good taste (nicknamed penises notwithstanding). He would never deign to sleep on anything that came from Ikea. And he certainly wouldn’t be living in a bachelor apartment, much less a basement bachelor apartment.

In fact, I am pretty sure this is a woman’s apartment. There are fashion magazines stacked next to the bed and makeup containers lined up on the vanity dresser. The empty liquor bottles scattered across the laminate dining table would suggest she threw a party recently. Did I stumble across some random celebration and decide to join in?  I realize that I’m standing on a discarded pair of pink panties and kick them away from me in disgust.

Suddenly, the telephone rings, startling me. It’s a landline with built-in answering machine. I didn’t think they still made those. I reach for the receiver, wrinkling my nose at the sight of the overflowing ashtray next to it, but I freeze. The ringing is like an ice pick to my temple, but if I let the answering machine pick up, maybe I can figure just where the hell I am. Unfortunately, it takes another five rings for the answering machine to engage. My skin breaks out into tiny pinpricks as I listen in astonishment.

“Hey, I’m out living my glamorous life, so leave a message and if you’re lucky, I’ll call you back.”

That’s my voice.

The beep sounds, followed by a female voice I don’t recognize. “Holly, this is Kathleen. I just got a call from Gloria and she said you didn’t show up for work this morning! I’m in Muskoka for my sister’s wedding. You promised you would cover my shift today. I’m calling your cell phone. You’d better be on your way in.”

She hangs up and a few seconds later, another phone rings, this time from the depths of the crumpled bed sheets.

Seriously, what the hell is going on? I don’t know anyone named Kathleen. I tear through the bed sheets until I locate the source of the ringing. Oh gross, it’s a flip phone. I answer it because I honestly don’t know what else to do. “Hello?”

“Where the fuck are you?” Kathleen snarls on the other end. “Gloria is totally losing her shit! You were supposed to help her open the coffee shop this morning!”

Whoa, Kathleen. Let’s take the attitude down a notch.

I struggle to maintain a polite tone. “I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about. I think you have the wrong number.”

“Very funny, asshole,” she snaps. “Did you forget that you were supposed to start at seven? Wait, don’t tell me—you were out clubbing last night and overslept.” I open my mouth to correct her, but she cuts me off. “I should’ve known you’d pull a stunt like this. I must have been crazy to think you would actually come through for once.”

I knew I shouldn’t have answered the phone.

“Screw you, Holly. I don’t even know why I’m bothering to tell you, but Gloria said if you don’t make it in for the afternoon shift, don’t bother coming back at all.”

And with that, she hangs up on me. Sheesh, what a bitch.

But I close the phone and take a closer look at my surroundings. Slowly, like a Magic Eye poster, things begin to pop out at me. The gold locket hanging from the necklace rack on the vanity. It’s the same as the one my father gave me for my sixth-grade graduation. And that dresser looks an awful lot like my grandmother’s antique wardrobe. A small, nagging feeling is beginning to grow in my stomach. A memory floats to the surface, but it’s distorted and blurry under the rippling waves of vodka still soaking my brain.

The three women. The Fates.

We’re taking it back.

I toss the phone back onto the bed and run into the bathroom. I catch a glimpse of myself in the water-stained mirror and grasp both sides of the porcelain sink, reeling.

My own anguished face stares back at me, but it’s not my face. It can’t be. Instead of my beautifully highlighted mane, my head is now the resting place for a hideously botched dye job. My eyes are lined with enough black eyeliner to star in their own Pat Benatar video. My lips are stained with traces of pink lipstick that can only be described as electric. My face is a graveyard of clogged pores, and the shine from the lingering oily concealer is almost blinding. This is impossible. I only use brand name makeup. I exfoliate every night!

I hurry out of the bathroom and begin rummaging through the nightstand. I find a handful of utility bills and flip through them. All of them have my name on them. They’re all overdue. Like, really overdue. One company is threatening to send me to something called a collection agency, which sounds scary and dangerous, like some guys are about to show up at the door with a bat. But that doesn’t make any sense. What happened to my trust fund? And my executive job?

“It’s a dream,” I murmur aloud. I toss the bills onto the floor and sit on the bed with my head between my legs. “It’s not real. I’m still dreaming.”

I grab the meatiest part of my inner thigh and twist it. It doesn’t do anything except make me want to scream out in pain.

I raise my head and pull on my bleached hair. “Get it together, Holly. There has to be a rational explanation for all this.” I brighten as a thought occurs to me. “Maybe someone stole my identity!”

Yes! There’s some jealous, obsessed woman out there who looks exactly like me and resents my success, so she dumps me in her rat-hole of a life and steals mine. That happens, right?

Okay, shut up. I know that doesn’t really happen.

My eyes fill with tears as I survey my surroundings with mounting despair. They really did it. All my good fortune, my money, my success, everything I took for granted. The Fates took it back and left me with nothing. Manic Sundaes, David, Annabelle… it’s all gone.

I glance at the digital alarm clock on my nightstand and feel a fresh thrill of terror. Shit. And I’m late for work!