My Life Would Suck Without You

You've got to be kidding me

"Girlfriend! Girlfriend!..."

Ariana's eyes shot open at hearing the irritatingly whiny voice of her personal assistant, Donny. Why had she ever let him touch her cellphone? He'd gotten hold of it one day and programmed his own personal ringtone into her iPhone.

"...It's me, your humble personal assistant."

Ariana scrambled out of bed and clutching the sheet to her body, ran out into the living room where she spied her purse, sitting on the floor next to the front door. She'd once made the mistake of walking out here with nothing on, but quickly realized her error when, the next day she saw a sign hanging from the apartment across the way from hers: "Show us the ta-ta's, again." That was the disadvantage of that spectacular window and her awesome view of Central Park. It was an awesome view ... when you stood as far as you could to the right side of the room and looked as far as you could towards the left. Apparently, it also offered her neighbors a spectacular view ... of her. So now, she covered up.

Donny's annoying voice continued to drone on. "... Ready and able to assist you. Now, just pick up the ..."

"I'm here, I'm here ... just shut up already." She stumbled back into her bedroom.

"Ariana! Oh my God, where are you?!" Donny was in absolute panic mode.

"What are you talking about, Donny?" God, her head hurt. She looked blearily around the bedroom, sure she'd forgotten something important. Not remembering what it was, she shook her head to clear it ... okay, that was a bad idea ... shaking ... moving ... her head was a bad idea. Ariana walked slowly and with as little body movement as possible into the bathroom.

"I'm at the photo shoot, Ariana." Ariana stared blankly at herself in the mirror. "You know, the Elle photo shoot and you need to get here ... like 20 minutes ago."

The Elle... Oh my God, thought Ariana. "What?" She sounded almost as panicked as Donny. "Where's Gisele? Is she there?"

Ariana immediately ran back out into the bedroom and started pulling on clothes as fast as she could.

"Oh, she's here alright." His tone didn't sound encouraging.

"I'm on my way!"

And in three minutes flat she was flying down the hall toward the elevator. It wasn't until the doors opened and she saw the same little old lady with the huge dog from last night that she remembered.

Jai...

Taking a deep breath, she decided she'd worry about him later. Right now, she had to save her job.

ΞΞΞΞΞΞΞ

Stomping into any Midtown Manhattan office building wearing flip-flops, yoga pants and an over-sized t-shirt would never go unnoticed. However, to stomp into the corporate offices of Elle magazine dressed this way, turned more than one head ... and not in a good way. Ariana ignored them all and marched directly to the studio of Eric Cramer, all six foot, two inches of him. He could have been one of his own models, but instead, chose to photograph them. Eric was rock-hard, gorgeous, straight and, to Ariana's disgust, happily married.

The photographer had his back turned to her when Ariana approached. However before she reached him, a small figure blocked her path and quickly pulled her over into another room.

"Donny", Ariana hissed. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Trying to save what's left of my future", he snapped in a bitchy voice. "Gisele's over there", he indicated to a curtained area in the corner of the large room. "The make-up artist is trying to make her presentable. I showed up at her apartment when I was supposed to and found her how she is now ... with a raging hangover, horrible complexion, ... red, ... blood-sho..." Donny trailed off as he began to take in Ariana's own appearance, but she cut him off before he started making any connections.