Billie Jones - Mexican Kimono

I arrived at work promptly at 9.20a.m. and was admiring my hair in the reflection of my PC when I smelled garlic. A shadow fell over me, drowning my image in the screen.

‘That is not appropriate work attire. Shorts? What were you thinking?’

I looked over my shoulder to see Mr Boss Man staring at me in condemnation.

‘What? These aren’t shorts. It’s a skort.’

‘A skort?’

‘Yes, shorts at the back, skirt in the front, easier to move in, no embarrassing Sharon Stone moment flash the gash moments, which to me seems highly appropriate for work.’

He shook his head in apoplectic rage (he has some serious issues). ‘If you refer to your employment manual, you are to wear either knee-length skirts or full-length trousers, not skorts. There are no skorts in the manual.’

‘I appreciate your concern, I really do, but as a curvy woman, knee length doesn’t do me any favours. It’s just a personal preference.’

His hands began to quake. His forehead started to bubble with sweat and I feared he was in the early stages of a heart attack.

‘That’s it. You’re fired!’

My heart started to beat like it does in a Zumba class; maybe I was going to have the heart attack. ‘What? Fired? Because of a skort?’

‘You’ve already had two warnings, and this morning the board alerted me to your tweets for the last month.’

Oh no. In the immortal words of my dad, who was a chronic gambler: I’m fucked, and not in a good way.

‘Ah, Twitter? I don’t know what you’re—’

‘Oh, you don’t know?’ He looked down to a thick pile of pages he was holding and read aloud: ‘A plus to having a bald-headed #beast for a boss is doing my lipstick in the reflection of his shiny noggin.’

Oh shit, oh shit. ‘Ah, I meant that as a compliment. It really is very handy and I…’

He looked down at a surprisingly long list of updates. ‘#TGIF. Two hours and counting. May as well shop online until work is over!’

‘Ah, um, you see…’

His evil bloodshot eyes bored into me as his blood pressure clearly sky-rocketed. I think he was trying to scare me or something. Pack your belongings, and consider this your third and final warning. Don’t upset the other staff as you leave. And please note: staplers and the like are company property.’

‘I only took that stapler because I was planning on working from home that weekend!’

‘Yeah, you needed to file all your eBay receipts, I bet!’

With that, he stormed off, leaving me in his garlic wake. I couldn’t believe it. I had only been fired four or five times. It seemed incredible that it was happening now, when I was more mature and executive-like. I always imagined strutting into the office one day, after I’d been discovered as the next Lady Gaga, handing Mr Chrome Dome my resignation letter coupled with a cute but vicious ditty I’d written about him, which would show off my vocal talent and my quick wit. It was such a shame I didn’t actually have any vocal talent. I was one of those rare people who are completely tone deaf.

I gave myself an imaginary pat on the back and a silent pep talk. It would not do to cry in front of these people. Next thing you know, rumours would be flying around town about me, or sneaky footage uploaded to Facebook with a comment like, ‘Sam, the stapler stealer, gets fired again!’ So I pulled myself together and pretended to have a coughing fit, while I surreptitiously dried my eyes with a tissue. Thank God for waterproof mascara.

I told myself these things happen for a reason. Maybe something better was just around the corner. A few niggling doubts cropped up, like who would foot the bill of my online shopping trips, and how the hell was I going to pay my rent, until I remembered my platinum credit card. All I needed to was to plan an escape strategy out of my tenth floor apartment when the MasterCard henchmen came a-knockin’.

I packed my lucky bamboo (thanks, Mum! Lucky my arse!) digital photo frame, cuticle oil, nail files, buffers, fluffy bunny slippers and a few paperclips for good measure, and strode past the other office minions with my head held high. I knew they were probably jealous that I was out of the sinkhole and they were stuck, going down, down, down. Insert evil laugh …

‘So long, suckers!’ I yelled to the crowd. I was sure Jonathan from Accounting had a tear or two welled up for me. I’d always sort of eyed him cautiously. He was cute in a bookish kind of way, but I imagined us going out for a date and him talking about tax and GST. I wink and say, ‘Howz about we talk spreadsheets, hey?’ and he totally doesn’t get it. You know, one of those highly educated stupid people. They’re everywhere. I was stuck talking to a molecular scientist at a party recently. Honestly, I think I was actually stupider after talking to him. Like my IQ had dropped a few notches. With one last lusty look at Jonathan, I was out of that musty hell-hole for good.

Chapter 2

Breakfast at Toffany’s

Since it was only just after ten, I decided to treat myself to breakfast at Toffany’s. It was a small cafe owned by a seriously delusional drag queen named, you guessed it, Toffany. I was always a little terrified when Toff served me. A six-foot-five Amazonian with sparkly silver stilettos and a booming masculine voice was a little too much first thing in the morning, but it’s where all the cool people went so, of course, being cool, it’s where I went too.

I pushed the pink feather boas out the way and put my handbag down on a table in the ‘I’m late’ section of the cafe. This signified you wanted an omelette. Get it: I’m late – Omelette. Told you she was delusional. The cafe was sectioned into food. There was also a ‘Serial killer’ section, which was cereal served with vodka jelly shots, hence a real killer first up in the morning. If you sat in the wrong section and ordered something from another section, you were booted out in a very humiliating fashion. Once I accidentally sat in the Jews’ section, so I had to wear a yarmulke and could only drink juice. Needless to say, I was starving for the rest of the day, but I wasn’t about to be banned over it.

I strutted as gracefully as I could to the sequin-encrusted counter. The kaleidoscope of colours looked great from a distance but up close, you could see the sequins had seen better days. A lifetime of spilt coffee, dirty money and table dancing by big, burly drag queens had done them in. No one was brave enough to tell Toff she might want to consider some kind of revamp. I shouldn’t even use the word ‘revamp’. That was actually Toff’s ex-partner’s name. She was formerly known as Moan-a Lisa, but she changed it to Re-Vamp after a month-long holiday in Thailand where she ‘rejuvenated’ herself. It doesn’t take a genius to work out it wasn’t just sunshine and screaming orgasms (her favourite cocktail, before you go getting all prudish on me) that made her return to Oz looking ten years younger.

I gazed up at what should be a menu board, but was actually a photo wall of Toff with various celebrities. Before she settled down with the cafe, she lived quite the party lifestyle. As a man. She used to model for all those high-end underwear campaigns. I always felt a little uneasy looking at the photos of this gorgeous hunk of a man, barely clothed, one hand invitingly pulling at the front of his tight Y-fronts with a come-hither look.

I sort of fell a little in love every time. We’d lost Toff to the other side, so I crossed off another ‘maybe’ from my list. It’s true all the best guys are gay or look better in stilettos than you do. Life can be cruel.

I could smell wheatgrass juice, so I knew Toff was lurking somewhere behind the mirror balls that served as a curtain for the mysterious goings-on from the kitchen.