The Meridian Gamble Read Online Free

executive,
or at least a junior one, while I’m stuck as a lowly assistant in the Human
Resources Department.
    It’s so ironic, I work in the place
that fills the jobs at the company, yet I can’t find the right position to help
spur my climb up the corporate ladder. Which might be in part because I’m good
at what I do, and my boss won’t want to see me leave. I know he’ll block any
move I try to make. So I end up making subtle inquiries when jobs open up that
I might like, or worse, not making any moves at all for fear of alienating him.
And at times, I feel like my life is being defined by the risks I’m too afraid
to take. It can all be so overwhelming. It feels like I’m stuck in a dismal
fate that I’ll never change, like I’m a modern day Sisyphus pushing a boulder
up a hill.
    “So tell me what you think of this.
I’m picturing a series of print ads and TV spots showing Bijoux Jeans in
classic movies, like a Saturday night at the cinema kind of thing,” she rambles
on.
    “Gosh, that sounds so neat,” I say,
trying to feign enthusiasm.
    “You could have ‘Star Wars,’ but
with Luke and Han Solo wearing Bijoux Jeans as they fight the stormtroopers. Or
‘Saturday Night Fever,’ but with Bijoux Jeans instead of the iconic white suit
…”
    And I pinch my thigh, so I won’t
fall asleep while she’s talking.
    I try to tell myself that everything
happens for a reason. Maybe I’m stuck in HR because I’m not meant to move ahead
in advertising. Because what I really want to do is write. Writing has always
been my thing. Even though I lack motivation at times, on another level, I feel
a certain compulsion to write my little stories down. I feel like they’re
important in some way, even though they’re just silly, romantic trifles.
    I’m secretly working on a Victorian
novel, a tawdry tale about a rich girl named Caroline who is forced into
marriage to save her family’s fortunes. Her father hatches a scheme to unite
their company with that of another affluent family, and Caroline finds herself
torn between a growing love for her new suitor, and a forbidden attraction
toward his dark-haired scoundrel of a younger brother. But something is missing
from it. There’s a darker twist to the story I haven’t quite figured out. Something
about the rival family, and their sinister interest in absorbing the business
that Caroline’s family owns.
    I’m thinking of adding in a magic
subplot, but it seems out of place in a romance novel.
    And maybe I really am the one who
is a bad friend, because I’m basing one of the characters in the story on
Staci. In a very catty way. In my novel, Staci is Marjorie, the heroine’s
beautiful older sister who becomes insanely jealous when she isn’t the one
chosen for marriage by their rival’s handsome son.
    I’m not really sure why Staci
reminds me of Marjorie, because they aren’t really much alike at all. Marjorie
comes from the rich upper crust of society, while Staci is a working girl
struggling to get ahead. Marjorie is a beauty with the perfect figure who all
the boys chase after, and though Staci is an attractive girl, she has a more
generous shape she constantly complains about. She goes to the doctor to find
new prescriptions that might help her conquer her weight problem, which she
swears is all chemical, and wears lumpy dark suits to cover her frame. Staci’s
hair is full of scorched blonde locks that tumble to her shoulders, which she
claims are the hottest new color, yet Marjorie has long brown tresses that hang
straight to the middle of her back.
    But, on a deeper level, they are
more similar. Both are boy crazy, and both have a competitive spirit, which
some might even call petty. And there is something more, which I find hard to
explain. Sometimes, I feel like Marjorie is the girl Staci would have been if
she’d lived in the Victorian era, and came from a family of means.
    Sometimes, I feel like Staci was
Marjorie in a past life. But the idea