Thirty-Two Going On Spinster (The Spinster Series Book 1)

by Becky Monson

  Brown looks at me and shrugs. “Well, we might know a little bit.” She smiles slightly at him.

  “Great. Well then, let’s start with you two. How long have you worked at Spectraltech?” he asks, looking from Brown to me with those intense blue eyes. Oh, and now the flutters have turned to butterflies in my stomach. What is this? Fifth grade? I soooo hate me right now.

  “I’ve been here for five years,” Brown says, her voice full of confidence.

  He gestures toward me. “Ten” is all I can say, and then I blush. Why would I even blush at that? What is wrong with me?

  Brown looks over at me like I’m some sort of an idiot, and I’m sure she’s a little shocked at seeing me at a loss for words because that doesn’t happen very often. Her eyes open wide and then a smile comes across her face. And just like that, Brown knows. She knows I’m being a ridiculous schoolgirl and, of course, she’s not used to this, since we’ve never had anyone at Spectraltech to look at in, well, ever. Then, an evil smile spreads across her face and I shoot her a glance like “you wouldn’t.” Oh, but she would.

  “Now it’s our turn. So, where did you go to school?” Brown asks Jared and flashes a conniving smile.

  “CU,” he says, and smiles at me.

  “That’s so funny because Julia went to UNC. Isn’t that so funny, Julia?” No, it’s not funny, it’s not funny at all.

  “Why is that funny?” Jared asks, looking confused.

  “You know, they’re both universities … in the same state. Anyway, I’ve got a meeting to get to, so you two can chat about that.” Then in some sort of lightning-fast speed, she leaves me there by my deaf-mute self, alone with ridiculously hot job-stealing Jared.

  “So UNC, huh?” Jared says, clearly not planning on leaving as I’d just prayed for him to do.

  I nod my head yes. Say something!

  “So, CU, huh?” Really? Is that the best I could come up with?

  Jared gives me a kind of you-must-be-slow smile. “I guess I better get back to work.” He starts to open the door, and then turns back to me. “That cupcake was one of the best I’ve ever had; you should think about selling them.” He flashes me a genuine smile that makes my stomach turn in a ridiculous way. I goofily smile back, surely confirming that I am, in fact, slow.

  Back at my desk, I have a report to work on for Mr. Nguyen, but before I get to that I need to send the most hate-filled email to Brown. If our emails weren’t monitored for cussing, I’d be using some very choice words as well.

  I start to write the email, but then I realize two things. First, my anger would be lost on Brown. She truly wouldn’t care. And second, I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of knowing how irritated I am.

  I decide I deserve a soda from the vending machine, but as I’m about to leave my office I’m stopped short by Mr. Nguyen who does not look at all pleased. Although, that’s how Mr. Nguyen always looks.

  “Julia, do you have that report I asked you for?” he asks sternly.

  Report? Report? Report? Please say I did it yesterday. “Which report was that, Mr. Nguyen?”

  “I emailed it to you this morning.”

  Craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap! “Yes, I’m . . . um . . . nearly done so I’ll just … uh . . . get that right to you,” I stammer, very unconvincingly, and head back to my desk. I’ve done absolutely no work today. Oh please, don’t let this be a long report! With all these new people in the office—okay, new person in the office—I’m forgetting to do my job. I can’t be that girl. I am not that girl.

  It was not a long report, but it was not an easy one. I kept re-running the numbers because they didn’t make sense. How could profits be down so low last quarter? I feel confident that I did the report correctly, so I shoot it off to Mr. Nguyen.

  I spend the next few hours in my office, doing various reports and designing a spreadsheet Mr. Nguyen asked me to do for a big meeting we both have to attend tomorrow. I work my way through lunch, just eating at my desk. I guess I’m feeling a little guilty for not doing my job, and I also feel a little stupid for letting some weird schoolgirl crush get in the way of work. That’s the kind of girl I make fun of, not the kind of girl I am.

  ~*~

  “I feel that, as a friend, I need to tell you something,” Brown says to me as we go outside to the smoking area. It’s near the end of the day and Mr. Nguyen had a meeting, so I figured I could take a little break.

  “What is it?” I ask, truly not caring. I’m still annoyed with her. I want to say something, but there’s no point. She wouldn’t care anyway.

  “Friends do not let friends go around with that,” she says, pointing to my upper lip.

  “What do you mean? Is there something on my lip?” I ask, walking over to the door to see if I can see my reflection in the glass. I can’t see anything.

  “Yes, there’s something on your upper lip … hair.”

  Whaaaaaaaaat? “Are you serious? I have a mustache?” My hand immediately goes up to my mouth, covering it and my upper lip. “But … I … How bad?” Somehow this is very fitting. A spinster with a mustache.

  “Look, it’s not bad. And we don’t call it a ‘mustache.’ It’s referred to as ‘upper lip hair,’” says the perfectly-put-together prom queen. “You’ve sort of … always had one. But it was always blonde hair, so I never said anything. But now, all of a sudden, there are brown hairs as well as the blonde.”

  I guess right now would be a good time to die. I mean, I recently had a conversation with a good-looking man and this hasn’t happened in well over a decade. And I realize it wasn’t a real conversation since I couldn’t say more than three word sentences. But he was talking to me, up-close and—oh, my gosh, he could have seen it. Of course he did because that’s how my life goes. I’m an under-a-conference-table-hiding-deaf-mute-possibly-slow-spinster … with a mustache. Next comes sagging boobs and trailer parks.

  “Relax, it’s not that bad. I just thought you might want to take care of it, just in case, you know, you see your little lover boy, Jared.” She says “lover boy” in a sing-song voice.

  I roll my eyes at her, still covering my mouth and upper lip with my hand. I’ll have to walk around the rest of the day like this, just in case I run into … someone … anyone! I don’t want anyone seeing my mustache. Unless it’s Martha, and then maybe I could get some tips from her—she’s got one as well. Maybe Martha and I could start a mustache club.

  I can’t believe the one thing I have in common with Martha is our twin mustaches, but our love lives—oh no, those are polar opposites.

  “Oh, get over yourself, Jules,” Brown says, seeing the horror on my face. “I’ll email you an address for a little place I go to. You can have it taken care of and be upper lip-hair free by tomorrow.” She pats me on the head like I’m her little dog.

  I relax a little. Thank goodness I can have this taken care of tonight. I was seriously considering calling in tomorrow because of it. But I can’t because of the meeting I have to attend with Mr. Nguyen.

  A freakin’ mustache … seriously.

  “Listen up, I have some fantastic gossip,” Brown says, turning my attention quickly away from my upper lip.

  Apparently, Jean in sales, who’s going to be out of the office for the next three weeks because of some family illness, is actually going to get a boob job, a boob reduction, actually. I have to say, in Jean’s case, this is a necessity. But isn’t everyone going to notice? I don’t know, maybe breast reductions are not as obvious as implants. We soon shall see.

  After our break, I hurry back to my desk because I don’t want anyone to see my mustache, or upper lip hair—whatever. I stop by the bathroom on the way back just to take a closer look at myself, and sure enough, I’m a spinster with a ‘stache. Kill. Me. Now.

  As promised, Brown sends me an email with the info I need to prevent me from being an upper lip-hair-girl for life. It’s a little mani-pedi place just down the road from here. Apparently, they remove hideous lady-mustaches as well.
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  I make an appointment for just after work. I want to get this over with. I’ve never had my upper lip waxed, and it honestly doesn’t sound like fun. It sounds quite painful, actually. I emailed Brown back, freaking out a little about the possible pain, but she wrote back and said it was no big deal.

  I successfully make it out of the building and to my car without running into anyone, namely Jared, not that it would matter. He’s no-doubt already seen my man-lip. Maybe that’s why he’s always smirking at me. Maybe it’s not about the stapler at all, but my mannish appearance.

  The place is called “Mimi’s Nail.” Yes, that’s right, “Nail,” as in just one nail. I don’t know what I was picturing it to be, but I’m pleasantly surprised by the spa-like feeling inside. I check in, grab a seat, and pick up a copy of Cosmo from five years ago, which is probably right up my alley since I’m about five years—or maybe ten years, behind in anything stylish. I’m sure my sister would say a lifetime behind.

  The magazine is full of the usual—clothes that no one should ever wear in public. One of the models is wearing a plaid scarf-type-thing across her chest and a skirt about as short as underwear. There’s no shirt underneath, just the scarf. The adjacent article says, “What to Wear to the Office: It Doesn’t Have to be Boring Anymore.” Are they insinuating that one could wear this barely-there scarf and skirt to work? Really? That’s pretty ridiculous if you ask me, but what do I know?

  Oh! The next article is interesting. “Dating 101: How to Date a Coworker.” This is definitely more appealing than the other article.

  It says forty percent of workers have dated someone on the job during their career. Ha! Well, none of them has ever worked at Spectraltech. The dating pool has left much to be desired, until recently that is. And even then, it’s only up by one.

  This part is intriguing: “Before making a move, it's a good idea to suss out whether your work crush has the hots for you, too. Some tip-offs are if he starts hanging around your work space frequently, or asks you to grab lunch or after-work drinks.”

  Well, I think I might have to read this entire article. I look around carefully to see that no one is looking at me and quickly rip it out and put it in my purse.

  What? Everybody does it. I need it just in case the offer ever presents itself. You never know, Brian the Troll and I could be destined to be together, and I would, therefore, need to know how to properly date a coworker.

  A small Asian woman approaches me, asking me to follow her. We go to the back of the spa to a small, dimly-lit room. She tells me to lie down on the massage table that’s taking up most of the tiny space. I’m feeling the not-so-good kind of butterflies in my stomach. Have I mentioned before that I seriously hate pain? Well, I do. I avoid it at all costs.

  I lie down on the table and close my eyes. Maybe closing my eyes will make it all better. Or maybe it really isn’t that bad, and I might even fall asleep during the process. I’m feeling quite comfortable right now.

  “You ready?” She asks me, and I give her the go ahead. I can do this, I can do this …

  Oh! Okay, the wax is kind of hot. Is that normal? I’m sure it is. But it feels pretty hot. Really hot. I think I smell something burning. Should I say something? No, that’d be stupid. Okay, it’s kind of cooling off now. That’s probably what it’s supposed to do.

  Now she’s putting some sort of paper on the wax. She pulls the corner of my mouth down and taut and here it comes, here it comes, here it comes!

  Rrriiiiiiiiiipppp! Oooooowwww! Okay, that freaking hurt. What the heck was Brown talking about? I feel like my upper lip was just pulled entirely off. People do this? Seriously, I’m not exaggerating. It’s burning! My entire upper lip is on fire.

  I can’t believe people do this on a regular basis. This is my first time, and I already know that there’s no way that I’m doing this again. I’m just going to have to find an alternative for next time.

  Okay, okay, now she’s putting some soothing cream on my lip and it’s feeling a little better. Wow, that was crazy-painful.

  She helps me up from the table, and we walk to the front of the store. She asks me if I want to get a pedicure, and although I totally need one (surprise, surprise), I decline. Maybe I’m being a bit of a wimp here, but my upper lip is hurting pretty bad. The cream she put on is no longer helping and now it’s throbbing.

  Geez, what we women do to ourselves to be more appealing is ridiculous. If my upper lip hurts this bad, I can’t imagine how a bikini wax would feel. I shudder at the thought.

  I pay her and quickly exit. The cool evening air stings my lip as I head out. I make a call to Brown on my cell phone as I get into my car.

  “What’s up, Jules?” She answers after the third ring.

  “Oh my gosh, Brown, why didn’t you tell me getting my upper lip waxed hurt this bad?”

  “What? What are you talking about? It doesn’t hurt that bad,” she says sounding confused. I thought she’d be laughing like “the joke is on you,” so I’m confused as well.

  “No, seriously! It killed!” I say, pointing to my lip, although she can’t see me.

  “Geez, Julia, you’re ridiculous. You have, like, the lowest tolerance for pain of anyone in history.” She starts laughing a little.

  “It’s not funny! I’m telling you, the whole waxing thing hurt really bad. And now my lip is still hurting! Can I put something on it?” The burning intensifies even more when the cool air starts moving through the car vents, so I turn them off.

  “I guess you can put some aloe on it or something. You really are ridiculous.” I can imagine her eyes rolling at me, just by the tone in her voice. “But think, now you’ll no longer have upper lip hair.”

  “Yeah, at least I got it over with.” It’s still burning! Seriously, this can’t be normal. Who does this?

  “Anyway, I’m glad you called because I have some good gossip,” she says in a little sing-song voice that she gets sometimes when she’s excited about gossip.

  “But … my lip!” I say because I’m not done whining about it.

  “Oh geez, Jules. Get over yourself. Now listen up,” she says, and I do because I like gossip and, at the very least, it can help me forget about my lip, even if for a second.

  She tells me that she left work a little later than usual, and as she was walking out to her car, she saw Mr. Calhoun walking Martha to her car, and it looked rather intimate. No hand-holding or kissing or anything, but it certainly didn’t look all business, either. I tell her how I’d recently had the same suspicions.

  “So, Mr. Calhoun and Martha, huh …” her voice trials away.

  “Yeah, don’t picture it,” I say, and smile to myself.

  “Oooh, Julia! Nasty! I hate it when you do that,” she says, clearly having pictured it.

  “So now, back to my lip, which is still throbbing, by the way.”

  “Oh, brother. I have to go, Jules. You’ll be fine, I promise,” she says. She then quickly says goodbye and ends the call.

  I don’t have much to do tonight. When I get home, I just throw on some sweats, take my hair out of my normal ponytail, and sit in front of the TV. I did find some aloe, which is definitely helping the upper lip situation. After an hour, it’s still hurting, though not as bad.

  I surveyed it in the mirror, and despite a lot of redness, there’s not a hair there. So that’s good. I look a little bit like a clown, but I’m hopeful that’ll go away, at least before tomorrow. I really don’t need to go to work looking like a clown. I’ve acted like one all week—no need to look like one.

  CHAPTER 4

  Remember when you were in high school, and it was more exciting to go to school when there was the off chance you might run into a cute boy? Remember that feeling? Now imagine having that feeling in your thirties, only it’s not school, its work, and you’ll see why I need to be committed.

  Yes, so I’m finding myself a little excited about going in to work today. It’s totally ridiculous and baseless. But after so many years
of dragging myself into the office, never wanting to be there, it’s not a totally horrible thing, right?

  Here’s what I know about Jared: first, he stole my job, but I’m starting to get over that. I mean, I don’t even know if I’d have gotten the job, even had he not popped up and stolen it. Second, he’s incredibly good-looking. And third, and most important of all, the cupcake I made him is the best cupcake he’s ever had. Ever.

  Here’s what I don’t know about Jared: everything else. Seriously, this guy could be a psycho stalker for all I know. I’m being totally ridiculous.

  This is what I keep telling myself, and yet, here I’m actually feeling a bit of excitement to go to work today. I’m probably the most pathetic person in the world. At least I can admit it. Most people who are pathetic don’t know it.

  After my shower, I put on my one pair of black slacks and a dusty-rose colored polo because I’ve been told it looks good with my skin. This morning, I’m finding myself wishing I had more to wear than what I have in my closet, and let me tell you, this is a first for me. Maybe I’ll have to go shopping. However, I wouldn’t know where to begin. We’ve already established that I have no sense of style. As a spinster, it’s my duty to know nothing about the fashion industry.

  Just for fun, I picture myself wearing the sash and extremely short skirt from that Cosmo article. How hilarious would that be? I mean, I seriously couldn’t pull that off. Brown couldn’t even pull that off.

  I give myself a once-over in the mirror, my first of the day. Unlike most women, I don’t stare at myself in the mirror forever, primping and such. I know, surprise, surprise. But I don’t wear makeup, I normally pull my hair back so I don’t have to round-brush it, and I wear nearly the same thing every day. So, what is there to see? I already know what I look like.