Free Darn It! by Christine Murray

Darn It!
    Nicki winced at the unmistakeable sound of fabric ripping. A piece of her skirt had got caught in the side of her seat, and hadn’t moved with her as she stood up to get off the bus. Her skirt, which she had thought would look so great in work, was now ruined. How was she going to manage to get through the day looking a state?
    The fact that her skirt had torn so easily wasn’t surprising. Lately she didn’t have much money, and the little she did have was spent on making sure that Katie was taken care of. After her precious daughter, there was precious little left to put towards her work wardrobe, so she bought the cheapest clothes she could afford. They crumpled easily, weren’t very warm, and they tore at the slightest bit of pressure. But it would have been nice if it had happened on the way home from work rather than on the way there.
    It had already been a nightmare of a morning. Katie had been over with her father the night before, and she was always a little bit unsettled after his visits. She’d been clingy at the child-minder’s house that morning; Nicki had to peel off her daughter’s limbs off one by one like a mollusc off a rock and had arrived – tearful and late – at the bus stop. She was almost afraid to glance at her watch in case it confirmed her fear that she was going to be late. While she didn’t look, she still had hope that she might be on time - self-delusion could be a powerful thing.
    The bus reached another snarl of traffic and she finally gave up. There was nothing for it; she was going to have to run. She got off, tearing her new skirt in the process, and ran as fast as she could towards the television studio where she worked. Her shoes had cost her ten euro in a bargain bin, and they had very little in the way of tread. She slid on the film of water left over from the early morning rain, and she had to grab onto the coat of a nearby commuter to stop herself falling arse over tit onto the pavement.
    ‘Do you mind?’ the man hissed before stalking away. Nicki sighed, and put her hand up to her hair, a reflex whenever she was agitated. She could feel her hair freeing itself from the plaited bun she’d put it in this morning. She may not have money for clothes, so she put the effort into her hair, but even the laws of physics seemed to be deserting her this morning.
    By the time she burst into the boardroom, she was hot and flustered. The table was already surrounded by immaculately turned out executives, and there was only one empty chair. Hers.
    ‘Sorry,’ she apologised as she slid into her chair.
    ‘You’re five minutes late,’ said Kenny, the producer.
    ‘I know, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It won’t happen again.’
    He gave a curt nod, and Alva gave a quick smirk in her direction. Alva had cool blonde hair with no highlights, no warmth, and her eyes were an ice blue. In the two years that Nicki had been working alongside her as a she didn’t think that she’d ever seen the other woman give a genuine smile – that was if smirks didn’t count. If Nicki looked crumpled and badly put together, Alva was the complete opposite. Today she was wearing a fitted ice pink sleeveless dress, gravity defying white heels, all accentuated by a golden tan from her latest holiday. Her make-up was expertly applied, and she didn’t have a hair out of place. She certainly didn’t sport the just-ran-for-ten-minutes-in-heels flush that Nicki did.
    Nicki took her folder out of her bag, and repressed a curse as the smooth faux leather slipped out of her grasp. She could feel the eyes of everyone on her, making her clumsy.
    The worst part was that, contractually, Nicki didn’t even have to be there until 9am. This meeting had been scheduled for half eight, at Alva’s suggestion. Alva knew that Nicki had a little girl, but was always making up reasons why the team had to meet outside work hours. A couple of evenings ago, they’d all had to stay late and ordered in dinner to work on