Chapter 1
The Retirement of Snow White
Mairead stared at the blank screen, thoughtlessly pressing characters and then deleting them. She had sat in front of her computer over the last several months, trying to decide on the topic for her book. She had a journalism degree and had written hundreds of articles during college; one of them was for a rather prestigious paper. She was good at those jobs, but those articles were easy because they were assignments. She had her plot before the story began, and all she needed to do was research the details. Now, faced with the choice of any conceivable subject, she was overwhelmed into inaction.
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In her youth, Mairead had buried herself in her studies. She was the lone child of a single mother from Ireland, and wanted to take full advantage of the opportunities gained by coming to the US. They moved into an apartment when Mairead was eleven, and she worked hard to make her mother proud.
Being the new girl with a funny accent at a tough inner city school, Mairead's freckled face stood out among the mostly brown skinned student population. To make matters worse, she matured earlier than the other girls and their jealousy often manifested itself in nasty pranks. Mairead's one wish during puberty was to be invisible, and in the years since, everything about her had evolved to camouflage her from the world.
Her clothing was the first layer of her defense. Work attire was a dark colored pants suit with the jacket long enough to hide her backside and her blouses never revealed any cleavage. Weekend clothes consisted of layered tops with baggy jeans, but she was most comfortable in an old brown terry robe which she wore around the house.
She stuck to the fundamentals of good personal hygiene, and made sure she was always neat and presentable. Her one touch of femininity was the long dark auburn hair, but that too was part of the design. The natural bright shade of red hair was dyed and its length was used to hide her face.
On the job, Mairead tried to appear confident by following all the rules. She stood straight, always gave a firm handshake, and looked people in the eye and smiled while speaking with them. Yet she was never seen without an armful of papers, clutching them to her chest. Her voice was tight and controlled, despite her efforts to sound carefree. No one in the office knew it, but she was hurting and insecure inside. Mairead had begun to ponder her choices over the years. She had forgone friends and dating, and now at the age of 34, she was realizing the mistake in ignoring the social part of her life. Throughout the years she would begin to feel uncomfortable if a person grew too close.
She had no personal connections with the younger women at work. All or their conversations were either bragging about the sexual escapades of the prior weekend or planning escapades for the upcoming weekend. Mairead had no stories to share and was usually left out. So she mostly kept to her job, punching the clock each day.
Outside the office, Mairead did have two friends. They were mature enough to see the person she was inside, and they didn't make her feel left out, despite her lack of life's experiences. Their busy schedules only allowed them all to get together every few weeks, but they made sure to carve out a girls' night whenever they found the time. It was during one of these girls' nights that Mairead's idea for her book came to life.
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The movie was about a young Asian woman who was given to an older land baron as payment of her family's debt to him. She was scared and resistant at first, but as a concubine, she learned that she could use sex to her advantage, and ultimately used it to gain wealth and status. By the end of the film, the woman saves her father from prison by virtue of her social status. At first he does not recognize her, and when he finally learns the truth, he is disappointed in her. It turned out, however, that she was quite unapologetic and not embarrassed about her past. It was very women's lib for such an old movie.
"Wow," Mairead said as the ending credits rolled. "She was so determined in the way she used sex to improve her life. I don't think I could use sex like that."
"Me either," chimed Angie, a slim fit bleach blonde of 38. She was married to a rising star at a major law firm, but didn't work herself, so she spent her free time at the gym or the salons.
"Oh my God," screamed Valerie, a 40 year old divorcee. "Are you serious? You are such a little whore and you can say that with a straight face? And I suppose you didn't use sex to get that Mercedes you have downstairs?"
"No way," Angie snipped back. "I earned my car, girl!"
"On your knees and your back, you ho!" Valerie lost herself in a cackling fit as the words left her mouth. Mairead could not help but smirk behind the hair in her face. It was always like this between the two of them. No one ever really won the verbal sparring sessions, but the back and forth was in fun.