To be a Wildflower

Chapter 3

The birthday revelation stuck around Elizabeth longer than her sobriety had expected and Maya's constant reminder, where she muttered the positivity of Elizabeth's birthday with a pinch of exaggeration, eventually made Elizabeth suppress her stubbornness and saddle up that horse.

Hence the following week, Elizabeth decided to attend the interview from Designer's Den for that position of a planning director. One thing Elizabeth excelled was at interior designing, and although ironically her room was the plainest of all, the vintage palette décor with a touch of chic modernism she had decorated for Maya's room was outstanding that Maya had been insisting that Elizabeth give Designers Den a chance.

Elizabeth donned up one of Maya's pantsuits and observed herself in the mirror, her wild brown curls tamed down with spray into a neat bun and her lips outlined with the coffee macchiato liner she never used- she never outlined her lips. she almost laughed. It was hard to picture her or see herself in Maya's appearance: creased, crispy suits and a don't-you-even-think-about-raining-on-my-parade vicious glow. Elizabeth's wardrobe had nothing suitable for an interview, unless sweaters, summer dresses, Doc martens and that usual shimmery lip gloss were preferable office wear.

Elizabeth smoothed over her beige pant suit and made a small pep talk for herself on how this time she was not going to walk over the interview, roll her eyes at the interviewee and instead stay put on her best attentive behaviour. After all it was the best interior design house of Manhattan that awaited her.

Minutes before Elizabeth was about to head out she gorged on her usual sugary cereal while peering over a dusty grey cardboard box left on the counter by Maya after she had cleaned out the storage room the night before. When Elizabeth moved into the apartment three years ago, it had been the last apartment on the list which was available and since the realtor let it out in a hurry the storage room had been a mystery room of dust and god knew what else, that both the girls procrastinated cleaning, until last night where Maya had flown into an impulsive rage after staring at the storage door during dinner. Elizabeth had watched in amazement how Maya stayed up half the night in there. Maya forbade Elizabeth from joining her, as cleaning was therapy for her, and she did not want anyone around during her therapy sessions.

Elizabeth kept her bowl aside and lifted the grey lid of the box and saw that that box had quite a few items in it. Her eyes caught a few wooden animals, like trinkets— a wooden horse, an elephant and a creepy looking octopus with distorted eyes. Apart from the odd animal farm, there were a few worn out books with leather padded covers. The topmost thick black leather covered book had golden letters scrawled across it. Elizabeth pulled out the book, the leather flaking slightly under her fingers, and turned the pages ever so lightly, and as she turned them her eyes shot up in excitement. That very moment Maya walked into the apartment from her morning jog.

"Well look at you all prepped to grow up," Maya laughed praising Elizabeth's attire. Elizabeth nodded her head distracted at the box and it was then Maya saw Elizabeth's eyes focused on the box.

"Oh, you found the box," she said unfazed.

"Maya, there's a first edition of Vanity Fair in here!" Elizabeth said in shock.

"Thought you might be interested," Maya smirked victoriously at her cleaning attempt and headed up to the fridge.

"How come none of the past tenants didn't notice this?" Elizabeth said her voice rising excitedly as she dug into the box and pulled out two more tattered first edition novels of The Rainbow and Age of Innocence.

"That storage room is smaller than a janitor's closet, Liz, all it had were some old dusty rugs, cobwebs and that box stashed in a corner." Maya stated pulling herself onto the counter beside the box.