Fired by Veronika Bliss

 
    I stood by my desk, utterly humiliated as I packed my belongings into a cardboard box.  Of course they’d fired me - it didn’t matter that I’d been the receptionist for over three years.  That I’d been successful, professional, had worked hard and stayed late and never complained.  I was just a receptionist.  And the VP’s niece needed a job now that her poetry degree wasn’t instantly panning out, so out I go. 
     
    I was staring at my little line of porcelain figurines and trying not to cry.  They were little ducks painted in the styles of famous artists: Van Gogh, Picasso, Monet, Lichtenstein.  I’d painted them all myself, starting with my first week and adding one for each anniversary at the company.  Well, I thought as I wrapped them in my scarf and stuffed them into the box, guess I won’t be painting a Dali duck after all.
     
    A rather large man in a suit stood just at my elbow, a security badge emblazoned across his shoulder, making sure I wasn’t stealing pens or USB drives or complicated company secrets.  It was insult on top of my gaping injury, his very presence unnerving me and making my fingers fumble as I emptied out my desk.  I could feel eyes on me, knew that some of my coworkers were watching the spectacle from just beyond the grand foyer of the company’s corporate office.  I finally just started raking things off my desk without a care, unconcerned with whether or not my stupid polka-dotted stapler crushed my stash of cheese crackers into dust.  I just needed to get out of there so I could go home and cry.  And drink.  And maybe combine the two.  I was, after all, perpetually single and now unemployed.
     
    I finally finished and hauled the box into my arms, surprisingly light for three years’ worth of possessions.  Not that being a receptionist was my dream job and not that working at this company had been a joy, but it paid the bills and allowed me to paint at night and on the weekends.  Now I was jobless, with the rent due on my incredibly tiny studio in Manhattan - why hadn’t I taken my friends’ advice and moved to a borough? - and no paycheck to pay it with.  My thoughts spiraled darker and darker, and I imagined myself as one of those horrible caricature artists in Times Square, and then I was actually crying in front of people.   The guard looked horrified, and I saved us both the trouble and hurried around the desk and out towards the elevator bank.
     
    I managed to hook one arm around the box and use the other to blot the tears from my cheeks, taking a deep breath like they tell you you’re supposed to do and which did absolutely nothing to help.  Sheer embarrassment was the only thing that got the tears to stop, and I told myself that once the elevator doors closed, I would let myself cry all the way to the subway.
     
    The bell rang, the doors opened.  And I froze, my dark eyes surely as round as saucers, to find that the elevator was occupied by none other than Richard Sellers.  He was one of the most successful investors in the city, and I only knew him because he’d been trying to buy this company for the last six months.  He was British and stunningly handsome, of course, with his perfect salt-and-pepper hair and exquisitely tailored suits, but he’d always stopped to speak to me when he arrived, which was more than I could say for most of the executives I came across.  Most of them didn’t so much as acknowledge my existence, much less engage me in conversation and remember that I’d always wanted to visit the Louvre and the Museo Del Prado and the Rijksmuseum but had never managed to get a single stamp in my passport.   I’d spent more than a few nights fantasizing about being ravished by him, imagining what sort of muscles he was hiding behind those pinstriped suits.
     
    And here he was, watching me as I stood frozen holding my box of shame.
     
    The doors started to close, and for a split second I thought maybe they would just