The One That Got Away Read Free Page A

her.
    “For once you’re showing excellent taste, Babe.” He winked. “You made the right choice.”
    His girlfriend shrugged, picking up her pace until she left him in the dust.
    “To an extent I guess you’re correct.” She acknowledged him, but only briefly, with the slight inclination of her head. “I’ve decided to go home alone, Dallas, leaving behind the man of my dreams, as well as the product of my greatest nightmare.”
    Dallas froze, considering her words with a thoughtful frown.
    “Which one am I?” He shrugged in an astounding show of genuine perplexity.
    A despairing Cecily buried her head in her hands and turned away.
    * * * *
    Tampa, Fla. 2012
     
    Cecily was dog tired. No, she amended with a sigh, she’d bypassed ‘dog tired’ about two hours ago and now approached a comatose state.
    “Not a bad idea, actually,” the 41-year-old shrugged, curling up at the edge of her daybed in the midst of a cluttered living room. “If I call in comatose to the diner tomorrow, maybe I could clean up this rat hole before the landlord kicks me to the curb. Or I could work on that illusive resume, then send it out to another company that’s ‘not hiring right now because of how things are.’ Or I could get all wild and crazy and get some sleep! Wow, what a concept!”
    Twenty years ago this month, she’d mused, she’d been a freshman at a design school in Orlando, Florida. Fueled by dreams, ideas, and grant money, she’d graduated with honors, soon landing both an entry-level job at a local fashion house and this cute loft apartment.
    “Well, at one time it was passing cute.” She cringed as she regarded her living space, which she hadn’t had time to clean or dust in months. “Now it’s motif can best be described as ‘cobweb chic,’ or perhaps ‘nouveau dust bunny.’”
    After being ‘downsized’ at the fashion house (i.e., the rubenesque, raven-haired Cecily was told that if she didn’t go ‘down a size’ she’d be out of a job), she told her bosses to take their ‘haute couture’ way down south to the ‘hautest’ place around; immediately afterward she sought employment elsewhere.
    “Probably a smart move,” she nodded, wrapping her arms around her legs and closing her eyes tight.
    Indeed, it had been, as she soon landed a head designer post at a smaller, but friendlier, family run clothes business; a firm that folded four years ago, about the same time that her longtime boyfriend dumped her for another woman.
    “She was wealthier, skinnier, and had bigger boobs,” she shrugged. “And now she has the biggest boob of all. Him.”
    Not allowing herself time to grieve, she paid a prompt visit to her favorite local bistro; not to get drunk, as she really, really yearned to, but to get a job. Just something temporary that would hold her over until a full-time design position came along.
    Four years had passed since her first day at Bette’s Bistro. She was still slinging burgers and beers, though she also managed to net an occasional design gig; most recently creating a size 2 wedding gown for an old college roommate, now a doctor engaged to a lawyer (“I love her to death,” she sighed, “but in a bizarre fit of jealousy I was about ready to give her a bridal frock that doubled as a mummification device”).
    Oh, make no mistake, her phone rang off the hook these days; but with calls from bill collectors, not from boyfriends or potential employers.
    “I really do need a day away.” Collapsing in the softness of her rose dream day bed, she curled up in the depths of its floral comforter and rested her head on a fluffy pillow. “I need to go find my happy place. Or at least maybe a place where the guys are hot and the beer is cold….”
    On this last, downright poetic thought, she grinned in spite of herself and drifted to sleep.
    * * * *
    Midnight. Cecily bolted upright, eyes flying wide as her ears were assailed by a deep, keening wail. Likening the cry of a banshee, the