Status Updates From January Beginnings: A Clean...

She hung up and screamed, jumping up and down in a very “Nora” fashion. Chad picked her up. It would have been romantic, if she hadn’t been thrashing about in such a giddy fashion to make him slip and then set her back down. But she didn’t care. She smiled at him, thanking him, though she wasn’t entirely sure why. She just felt like she needed to.

Maria is cheating this man out of his money and she’s doing a disservice to this company!” She had no intention to let silence settle yet, especially if it meant giving Maria a chance to argue with her. Instead, she let it all out. She confessed her own complicity with Maria’s dirty tricks, her relationship with Chad, Maria’s threats, everything. When she finished telling the story, she was breathless.

Maria told me that when you were representing me, you'd been misleading me.” Whatever she'd been about to say left her in an instant. She told me that you’ve been using our relationship to give her false information about me leading her to believe I'm interested in the houses she’s trying to sell me. She said you’ve used dirty sales tactics in the past, but she never would have thought you’d do something like this.

Chad looked at her thoughtfully and took her hands. “I want to introduce you to Mia,” he said, his face serious. “I’ve already met her, you goof,” Rachel chuckled. “As my real estate agent. Now you’re more than that. I know we haven’t been seeing each other that long, but with you it just seems right. Meet us at the park this weekend?” How could she say no? And yet, how could she keep the secret she was keeping?

He talked about his wife. She thought it’d be strange at first, but found that it was endearing how much he still loved her. Being married to someone required that much love, didn’t it? So, it wouldn’t be easy to just get over her. He talked about marriage like it was this beautiful thing. Not a fairy tale, but something far better. Her own view of marriage had been clouded by her parents’ divorce.

After we spoke last, I drove him around to show him the ones we discussed, Maria. That’s it,” Rachel held her breath. Maria cursed and Rachel waited while her boss composed herself. “He must be smarter than he looks,” Maria muttered. “He called this morning,” Maria said, pausing to see how Rachel reacted. “He said that he found a less expensive house online and wants to take a look at it in person.

What about your life, Rachel? You can’t just work yourself into a marriage.”

“Who says I want to get married? If my parents’ divorce taught me anything it's that marriage is a lot of hard work for too little happiness.”

She hadn’t become a real estate agent to swindle her clients. Her boss Maria, on the other hand, was a different story. Maria exemplified the image Rachel had in her head of what a cutthroat business woman looked like. Tall, black hair, tan skin, beautiful, but with a tongue as sharp as any knife. And she used that tongue often in all sorts of ways that made the twist in Rachel’s gut tighten.

I love how it's clean and has no language

A cute short story about a young woman trying to do the right thing while maintaining a career in this cutthroat world of ours.