The Mountain Girl Ch. 02

She unlocked her car.

"Now kiss your mor," she offered up her cheek.

Zoe was flicking her finger down her tablet as she stepped back inside. She glanced up as Heidi sat down and picked up the purple pussybow blouse.

"Look, if you want anything here, now's your chance," she started.

"Thanks," Zoe stopped scrolling, "well that's interesting," she glanced at Heidi, "how serious are you about getting a better paying job?"

"Half hearted," she replied, "sometimes I'm all for it but then I look at what they're asking and realise that I'm missing some vital qualification and lose interest. It's like they put barriers in front of you just to keep you away."

"It's the way of the world," she replied, "when I went for this job, one of the guys wanted to know if I could write XML and PHP. I just asked what the hell for? I was administering a database not writing web pages for fuck's sake."

She held the tablet out to her.

"It's a position for a brand design officer where I work, but it's a graduate position. You've done a graphics design course and the work is pretty easy, trust me I know and the pay is pretty close to double what you're getting right now."

"It is, but I haven't done much video editing."

"Listen to yourself," Zoe smiled, "you're already shooting yourself in the foot. Read the advert again, video editing preferred but not essential. If you want the job I'll coach you in how to make the right approach. I know the guy who'll be interviewing you, I can't give you the reference but when they ask if you know anyone who works at the campus you can give my name."

Thus it was that a week later Heidi did something she'd never done in her life. She took a sickie, claiming she had a migraine from hell. She felt guilty doing it, she never called in sick unless she was at death's door but Zoe's cavalier approach to life had indeed changed her in ways she never thought possible. Her outfit that day consisted of the purple pussybow blouse, a tan pencil skirt and a darker brown jacket. She'd spent the previous night after work going over her portfolio, thankful that one of her hobbies was constructing layouts of magazine covers just to keep in practice. And in keeping with her Northern European heritage she had hard and digital copies.

Zoe surveyed her work and approved. Peter did the same but also approved of the outfit she'd be wearing for the interview.

"I'd hire you if you wore that," he joked, "sorry but someone had to say it. What time is the interview?"

"Quarter to eleven," she replied absently.

"I've got an afternoon shift at the bindery," he replied, "I'll drop you off."

"Thanks," she smiled, "and thanks for the compliment."

Nonetheless, she experienced a distinct moment of déjà vu that next morning when he dropped her off at the campus in Croydon. She'd done a couple of units here in her second year but even so it took her a while to find the right office.

Stan was a balding man with a neatly trimmed beard and moustache who seemed to possess an almost unending supply of enthusiasm. He asked lots of questions and she answered them as best she could but he didn't seem to pay much attention to her portfolio. He smiled when she said that Zoe was her housemate, but eventually the interview was over and he showed her to the door.

"We'll be in touch."

So that was it? Heidi frowned as she pulled into the carpark at Woolworths. Getting dressed up just for fifteen minutes? It seemed as if she was about to run into another brick wall. After she'd picked up a few grocery items she decided to sit down for a coffee in the café outside Woollies. She was halfway through her cappuccino when her phone rang and she squinted at the name.

"Zoe, hey," she answered it a moment later.

"How'd you get on?"

"It was all of fifteen minutes," she replied, "not exactly a stellar performance but he said he'd be in touch so there's still hope."

"Where are you? Are you in a café?"

"Yeah, the one outside Woollies."

"What a coincidence," she replied, "be with you in two minutes, I'll have a latte."

Zoe swanned in about two and a half minutes later just as the waitress was putting the latte on the table. She looked dressed to impress, as always with a white blouse tucked into a pencil skirt and matched with a designer jacket.

"Wow, looking good," she slung her handbag over the back of the chair and sat down, "so, what's a nice looking girl you doing in a place like this?"

"Waiting for the call to tell me I haven't been successful."

"Hmm," she smiled slyly, "well you might want to check your email and try not to scream."

She stabbed the icon on her phone a few seconds later and stared at the email that had just come through to her webmail account.

"Oh fuck," she looked up, "they want a second interview?"

"The first one is just to weed out the dickheads, the second one is where you demonstrate your skills on the computer. They'll sit you down at a computer and put some instructions beside you, if you can't produce the goods within half an hour or so then you're out, but if you can then they'll do the second interview then and there."

"I'm nervous."

"Hey," she kicked her gently under the table, "I'm here to help. So, once you've finished your cappuccino you're going to follow me back to the campus and I'll set you up in one of the labs with a dummy project."

"Is that legal?"

"Who knows?" Zoe propped her chin on her palm, "but I'm Zoe the Merciless according to my colleagues. If I put you in front of a computer there isn't a man or woman who's going to bat an eyelid. It's called balls, sweetie, grow a pair or hit the road. Stan was impressed by the way that you actually dressed up for the interview, he liked your attitude, and he thought your work was the best he'd seen for a while but I didn't tell you that."

Heidi blushed.

"You're expanding," Jodie told her a few hours later as she watched Heidi preparing dinner, "it's what women do, we expand and evolve to blend in with our surroundings."

"It's just that it feels so foreign," she shot her a wry smile.

"So, what did you do when I turned up half an hour ago, just out of the blue?" Jodie planted her palms on the bench.

"I just added more food."

"Exactly, we just adapt what we've got on hand to suit the situation. This job is going to be a steep learning curve but don't try to be perfect. It's human to make mistakes, we make bad decisions, marry the wrong person, or fall into a rut. The important thing to realise is that while we own our mistakes we don't have to keep repeating them over and over. Just learn your lesson and move on, it's a journey not a destination."

"Tell me something, honestly," she frowned, "do you and Kelly ever look at each other and you know, get tired of each other?"

"At least once a month, more or less," she smirked, "right now she's in the bad books because she ran over my pot plant, but I could be in her bad books soon enough. We're only together a day at a time, it's all I can cope with and she seems cool with that but if or when we do reach a point where we can't go on then so be it. Why? You thinking of asking Zoe out?"

"Maybe, although it's kind of complicated."

"Because you live together? Why is that complicated? It only gets complicated if you decide to make a big deal out of it. I kept her waiting for a while because I wanted to see if she'd just lose interest and find someone else. As it happened she kept chasing me and I stopped running."

"So you think I should just stop running?"

"It might help," she tucked the white blouse further into her trousers, "you've been skirting around the edges of the gay scene for the better part of a year. Even Melanie was saying we should just put our money together and get her a sex worker for a night and you know her, she's just not like that. You're not unusual by the way, lots of women do that but for various reasons, loyalty to a partner, lack of opportunity or just fear of rejection, they just keep on the outskirts."

"Rejection is a word I'd use, especially when it comes to her."

Jodie looked past her as if remembering something before replying.

"You know that she and I have been friends for a few years, right?"

"Uh huh," she wiped her hands on a towel and glanced at the clock.

"Zoe had it bad for me, I don't know if she's ever told you but," she stopped as Heidi's eyes shifted, "okay so she did tell you but I was too much into men and she just backed off. Zoe comes across as being butch at work and even socially, but when it comes to more intimate arrangements, she's very conscious of boundaries. She will never step across the line unless she has a clear signal, especially in a situation like this. She might be wet for you but she won't jeopardise her living arrangements for a night of wild sex, it goes against her survival instincts."

"So, she's waiting for me?"

"I can't say, she hasn't mentioned anything to me and if she had it would be in confidence, but if you want her then you'll have to make the first move," she stopped as Zoe's car pulled into the driveway, "I'm not telling you to throw yourself at her either. She's been there and done that but let her know that the door is open and see what happens next."

The front door opened and they heard Zoe's voice as she spoke to someone on the phone. Her keys jangled as she dumped them on the coffee table in the living room and then she appeared in the kitchen with the phone in her hand and a bluetooth headset on her head. She entered the kitchen, saw Jodie and held up a hand in greeting as she finished her conversation.

"Sounds like a plan, okay I gotta go, sweetie, catch you tomorrow."

She put the phone down and peered at the casserole dish and then ran an eye over Heidi, who was still in her interview clothes.

"Okay, I get the picture, it's dress up Tuesday, excuse me while I wriggle into my outfit," and with that she left the room with a definite wiggle in her hips, "let me show you how it's done, ladies."

Jodie managed a smirk as she glanced at the casserole dish.

"Like I said, it's not going to cook itself," she nodded at the oven, "you need to warm it up."

Heidi blushed for the second time that day.