Lola and the Rolling Stone

Chapter 44

Lola felt her arm heavy under her in the morning clutching her vibrating phone. "Ugh." she groaned shaking her arm as she used her hand to rub her eyes quickly shaking her arm in pain. She squinted her eyes walking toward the bathroom hearing her phone buzz again. I'm fucking up. She moaned in her head reaching for the bathtub handle to turn on the hot water. She stepped in washing her body limb by limb. She lathered all the moisturizing conditioner in her hair to keep the curls she perfected for her interview the day before. Well those don't matter . She thought to herself reaching for shampoo washing out all the ickyness of the day before.

"Good morning..." she said to Bianca as she walked into the common area to get breakfast.

"Morning." Bianca said staring at her phone and glancing up at Lola. "You look like shit."

"I know." Lola groaned taking a bite of a granola bar. "I know." she said throwing away the wrapper for the bar that made her itchy, sneeze and tired all at the same time. "I'm not going to take the job." she said through her bites.

"What?" Bianca asked.

"No. It's crap. I can't control anything. It's just not worth the jump." she shrugged. "It has to be perfect, B. And he doesn't get it. It's just not that big of a thing for him." she started walking back to her bedroom. "But we can talk later...I don't want to be late."

"Love you, Lo." Bianca said knowing her friend was not in a good place.

"I love you too." she waved her hand heading back into her room.

Bianca glanced down at her phone after Lola left seeing a text pop up.

Should I come?

You already need to be here.

She typed.

**

Lola went to her desk, sat down, put on her head phones and started to type. She typed and typed and typed for what felt like hours before being interrupted by her boss. "Delores can we please talk?"

"Yes. I'll be right there, Carla." Lola responded pressing save and standing up. I fucking swear. I am not dealing with this shit today. She thought to herself walking into Carla's office seeing another manager, Isaac, sitting in an empty chair near Carla. Well at least it's not HR....

"Really, Delores, I just want to cut to the chase....." Carla said inpatiently.

"Isaac is stealing you. We're reorganizing everything and your Lifestyles and Culture is moving over to the Entertainment side of the house." Carla said.

"Everything is fine, Delores. Your columns, your style, your social media, your youtubes, everything is fine. I love it." Isaac said clapping his hands dramatically.

"When does this happen? I mean..the change, the flip, the whatever...." she asked.

"Monday." Isaac said. "You and Penny are coming over with me. Not too far...." he said pointing over to the other side of the partition that split the two departments.

"Okay....." she nodded her head trying to understand what was happening. Shit. I haven't heard good things about them...like they get new people all the time...and people don't leave on good terms... "Well, I'll miss you Carla." Lola smiled.

"I will miss you too, but you can always cross the border wall." Carla joked about the partition.

"True. But I may need a passport or something." Lola laughed. "I guess I'll finish up what I'm working on and move over there on Monday...."

"We will see you Monday, Delores." Isaac said standing up. "We will be in touch."

Carla and Lola waited for Isaac to leave the room before saying anything else. Carla was in her late 30s, a mother of three young children and one of Lola's closest colleagues, next to Penny. "Is he really going to call me that? He sounds like my admissions counselor from Detroit....."