Most of the time, Anna absolutely loved her job. Unfortunately, it wasn't turning out to be one of her better days.
Restraining herself from slamming down the phone, she took a deep breath and counted to ten. Then she counted to ten again.
Everyone knew that not all the clients would be satisfied all the time. It's just that Sam Davis was the crushed walnuts on her fudgy, chocolaty brownie.
And she was allergic to walnuts.
She had always loved photography and writing. Her blog,
Picture This
, was a way to combine both interests. A couple of writing sites gave her an additional outlet for her creative short stories. It was the photography that was getting her down that day.
In order to supplement the income she received from her free-lance work, she had set up shop as a portrait photographer and sometimes took on work for weddings and anniversary parties. Sam Davis hired her for his daughter's wedding and gave new meaning to the phrase, "doting father."
"Son of a bitch," she muttered through clenched teeth.
Apparently, Davis wasn't happy with the proofs from his little honey's dream wedding and insisted Anna either re-shoot everything, at her cost, or re-touch everything again. "If I'm paying for my apple dumpling to have the fairy-tale wedding of her dreams, she'd better have the pictures to prove it," he had sworn over the phone.
It wasn't her fault his little "apple dumpling" had absolutely no fashion sense and had chosen a dress which made her look as though she were wearing sausage casing. Not to say the young bride was overweight; she had simply purchased a dress that was two sizes too small, and didn't care. "I'm a photographer, not a miracle worker or animator with Disney," was what she had wanted to tell the irate father.
She had to get out of the studio.
Within ten minutes, she was on her bike and pedaling toward the dance studio run by her friend, Julie.
"Hon, what's the problem? You look like someone beat on you with a cheap bitch-stick."
"You could say that," Anna grumbled as she hugged her friend. "Are there any classes going on right now?"
"If you tell me about it, I'll let you have the small studio in back for half an hour."
With a slightly over-dramatic sigh, Anna told her friend about the three stories, architecture project and two toddlers who had to be pushed back so that she could deal with an irate father of the bride. "I came here because this asshole's got me so stressed out. I have to get some of this worked off."
"Wait a minute, I'm confused about something. What do you mean all these other things got pushed back? Are you seriously missing out on work because of this guy?"
"No, I'm not losing any jobs over this." She paused to take a drink from her water bottle. "It's more that I had things to do on each on these, and Mr. Davis' call just fucked my schedule three ways to Tuesday."
"And you decided to come here to dance?" Julie teased her friend, knowing she needed the boost. She didn't normally swear as much as she was.
Anna laughed. "Yeah, as a matter of fact, I want to dance. Do you have a problem with that?"
"You know the way."
Once she was in the small studio, she pulled out the old cassette she still relied on for some of her more rigorous dancing. Thankfully, her ride to the studio had stretched and warmed her muscles sufficiently, so it wasn't long before she was able to work up a good sweat from writhing about the dance floor.
As the final song finished, she heard an amused voice tell her, "Oh my god, you need to get laid in the worst way."
"Mmm, I can only hope," she teased, not even looking at Julie.
The two women sat on the floor to go through their stretching and cooling exercises. They talked about Anna's work troubles and Julie's boyfriend issues, trying to help each other make light of each other's situation. When they were finished stretching, Julie offered Anna the use of the studio shower.
"That sounds great, but I'm on my bike today, so I'd just have to shower again."
"Are you feeling any better?"
"Yeah, Jules, I actually am," she sighed, smiling. "Thanks for letting me use your place."
"Oh, try harder to convince me." Julie laughed at her friend and added, "C'mon, we're going out tonight."
Anna laughed and agreed to dinner, drinks and lots of talk.
With a seriously reduced stress level, she headed back to her apartment to clean up a few stories and update her blog. It might be an accepted practice among some bloggers, but she didn't like venting that way. Not knowing who was reading her words, she preferred finding more physical ways to release stress, hence the bicycling and dancing.
"Honey, I'm home," she called to her empty apartment as she opened the door. It amused her, what could she say?
After removing her shoes, she headed over to her work nook and turned on the computer. She busied herself with putting a few things away while the computer warmed up. When she was ready, she returned to her table and went online, only to find she'd been hacked.
"Shit."
She reached for the phone and hit auto-dial as she walked into the kitchen for a glass of water.
"Hello?"
The deep, masculine voice at the other end of the line thrilled her every time she heard it.
"Hi, Brad. It's Anna."
"Hey there, sexy lady. How's my favorite redhead today?"
She knew Brad through her previous office job. She'd been working in public relations in a state-level politician's local office, and he was head of the IT team the office had contracted with for all their computer and internet needs. They'd enjoyed a professional yet mildly flirtatious relationship, and when she finally left to set up shop for herself, he had slipped her his phone number if she ever needed tech help.
