Life Starts Meow: A Rose Valley Mystery: Book One (Rose Valley Mysteries 1), page 1
Life Starts Meow
A Rose Valley Mystery: Book One
J.S. Andrews
Copyright © 2024 by J.S. Andrews
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permission requests, contact jsandrews.writtenword@gmail.com.
The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.
Book Cover by Johan Joubert
1st edition 2024
Contents
1. Everything goes wrong
2. How Much More Can Go Wrong?
3. Everything Will Be Fine
4. Homecoming
5. Spilling the Tea
6. Stirring the Pot
7. Aftermath
8. Flashback
9. Waking Up is Hard to Do
10. Inquiring Minds Want to Know
11. Out with the Old, In with the New
12. Kitties in a Basket
13. Training Montage
14. It’s All a Little Sus
15. You’ve Got to Be Free
16. Truth Hurts
17. Who Are You Going to Call?
18. Caught in 4K
19. Cherry On Top
20. The Spell is Ended, Victory Won
Everything goes wrong
The universe has a way of making sure people are where they need to be, when they need to be there. Which sometimes means everything must go wrong before it can go right.
Hadley shifted impatiently while standing in the elevator; she was running late. "Darn it. Why does this always happen to me?" She tousled her short red hair, causing the bouncy curls to become even more wild. As the tray of coffees teetered precariously, she swiftly regained control, steadying it with a deft hand.
The elevator doors opened, and she almost dashed out before realizing it wasn't her floor. She shifted her weight back and forth as a dribble of hot coffee hit her hand. Hissing in pain, she caught the sympathetic gaze of the mail clerk on the elevator.
"Hey Hadley," Marcus pushed his cart of mail into the elevator. He gazed at Hadley. She worked for a prestigious fashion magazine on the 23rd floor for three weeks and had already made some excellent friends at work, including him.
Hadley's face was morose, as was her voice when she responded, "Hey Marcus, how are you doing today?"
Marcus ignored her attempt at polite conversation. "Poor Hadley, they're in a mood. I just came from there, and they're wondering where you are."
"Oh, no, are you going down?" she looked at the elevator panel in consternation.
Marcus shrugged his skinny shoulders. "The elevator’s direction doesn’t concern me. I just get on when an elevator shows up. I call it my 15-minute break, you know, those things we're supposed to get but we don't," he laughed.
She sighed. "Thank goodness. I thought I'd screwed up and got on the wrong elevator again."
He laughed. "You wouldn't be going up then, Hadley."
She flushed. "Of course, I'm just a little out of it this morning."
"Running late again?" he asked.
"Yeah, I slept through my alarm for the eighteenth day in a row," Hadley slumped her shoulders, and as she did, the coffee tray tipped, and she hastily righted it once more.
The number 23 lit up on the panel, and Hadley dashed through the doors before they’d finished opening. She tossed back over her shoulder at Marcus, "Have a great day, Marcus! I hope your kid wins the spelling bee tomorrow," and she disappeared down the hallway.
Marcus left, shaking his head. Hadley was such a character, but she truly cared about people.
Hadley ran as fast as her four-inch heels allowed her to. She hated heels and usually refused to wear them, but at this job, you had to be fashion-forward, and wearing Converse sneakers would not fly.
Hadley slowed and stopped just outside the doors to the conference room. She perched the tray on the edge of the cubicle next to her and glanced down at her outfit, which was as foreign to her as the heels were.
She wore a tight pencil skirt that ended six inches above her knees and a bright green and yellow checked jacket over a chartreuse silk tank top. The clerk last night had assured her that this outfit was the height of fashion. Hadley reflected that if she hadn't been so desperate for her job, she would rethink her idea of going into fashion, especially if this was the height of it.
She groaned; her shirt already had a coffee stain down the front. Her knowledge didn’t extend to how to remove stains from a silk shirt. She smoothed her skirt the best she could, tugging it over her rounded hips. It was uncomfortably tight. Hadley had plenty of soft curves, which didn’t suit the fashionable pencil skirt at all.
Taking a deep breath, Hadley pasted a smile of sweet confidence on her face. Picking up the tray, she entered the conference room. Katie, who worked in editing, was there with the new client.
Hadley flushed; this new client was a celebrity of the highest order, and Hadley was a huge fan. She loved all of Marina Thurston’s movies! Her hands trembled as she got closer. She wanted to gush and ask for an autograph. Instead, she took a deep breath and gave them both a professional smile. “Good morning, Katie.”
She glared at Hadley. "Where have you been?" Katie was a skinny, tall blonde built exactly the opposite of Hadley. She shook her head in dismay at Hadley’s appearance. The girl was an absolute mess, wearing an outfit that clashed horrifically with her coppery hair. The fit wasn't much better, considering it was for somebody shaped like Katie and not like Hadley.
She sighed. Hadley was a nice girl, but so frustrating. No matter what Hadley did; it went wrong. The last few weeks had been trial and error, trying to find somewhere that the cheerful redhead would fit in. In less than an hour of working in the mailroom, Hadley had somehow messed up Marcus’s organizational system. They were still finding mail that was delivered to the wrong floor. While Marcus adored Hadley, he wouldn't let her come anywhere near his mailroom ever again.
They had tried the layout department. After only one day there, Hadley had somehow deleted three weeks' worth of work. Cornelius swore he would walk on broken glass before he allowed Hadley back into his department. His official recommendation had been, "She's a sweet girl, but maybe she should just be delivering coffee."
So they put Hadley on delivering coffee. In all honesty, other than mixing up the orders a few times, she had lasted longer at this than any of the other positions they had tried her in.
Hadley looked around the room. "Where’s Chance?" she inquired.
"He'll be here any minute," Katie snapped, trying to keep her irritation to a minimum. "Just leave the coffee."
Hadley grinned cheerfully at Katie and Marina Thurston. Marina sniffed haughtily. "Yes, please give me my coffee before it gets any colder than it already must be."
Hadley's grin slid off her face as she realized the women were irritated. She walked over to Marina's chair.
The movie star was wearing a jacket very similar to Hadley's. Instead of being in a checked pattern, it was a zebra pattern.
Hadley smiled happily. "Oh look, we have similar jackets!" She shifted to show her jacket, and when she did, she lost her grip on the tray. Hadley's green eyes widened in utter horror and shock as time seemed to slow. All three coffees flew out of Hadley's hand and splattered all over Marina Thurston's zebra-striped green and yellow suit.
"Oh no, I’m so sorry! I'm so clumsy," Hadley cried. She ran over and grabbed a towel to help Marina.
Marina snatched the towel from her hands and looked at Katie. "She’s fired, or I’m gone." She began dabbing ineffectually at her ruined outfit.
Chance walked in at exactly that moment. He looked at the disaster, blinked once, before smiling charmingly at Marina. "Oh, my dear, I have the absolute best outfits in our fashion department. Let me have Cornelius take you over there, and you can pick out whatever you want. Entirely on us."
Marina snapped, “Of course it'll be on you. That twit over there is the reason my outfit got ruined. She’s gone, or I am. This is your,” and she laughed maliciously, “last chance.”
Hadley’s face paled, the freckles on her nose stood out like a map of the constellations.
Chance ushered her out of the room, murmuring in her ear. "Go pack your stuff up, Hadley. I’m sorry, we need this client."
She sighed, "It’s OK, Chance. Thanks for giving me a chance." She tried to smile at her weak pun.
He rolled his eyes. He had heard these jokes before, but to have them twice in a row was more than he could handle at the moment.
"I’m sorry, Hadley, but favors from college friends can only go so far."
She sighed, "I know, Chance. I had just hoped." She trailed off.
"I did too, Hadley. You’re a good friend, and I will always be a good friend to you, but I just can’t have you working at my magazine."
She nodded, "I know. I’ll see you next time on trivia night. Sound good?"
“Absolutely, Hadley.” He gave her a quick hug.
Chance smoothed the worry lines from his face and returned to the conference room. Hadley could hear him as he entered, his voice smooth with charm. "Marina, darling, this wasn’t your color, anyway. Let’s find you something that you absolutely just rock. The paparazzi are going to drop their jaws when you walk out of here in a different outfit. It will be an amazing scandal, my dear."
Hadley slunk away, her shoulders drooping in her ugly jacket, listening to Marina’s tinkling laughter. The remnants of the coffee order covered the front of her expensive outfit. Yet another job down the drain since graduating college three years ago.
How Much More Can Go Wrong?
College had been fun. Hadley had excelled at college. She had never determined what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. The first four semesters of her college career had seen her jumping from one major to another. In the end, she had gotten a certificate in animal husbandry, a bachelor's degree in art history, a certificate from a local cooking course, her EMT-B certificate, and an associate degree in accounting. She had taken many more classes and interned at a lot of different jobs, but Hadley’s bad luck followed her around like the proverbial dark cloud over her head. No matter what she did or where she went, she could not keep a job.
She had interned at a veterinarian's office during her second year of college. Hadley’s heart had broken when there was a little kitten who mewed piteously throughout the entire night. Hadley’s job had been to just check medications and IV lines for the animals staying overnight. But the kitten had been so sad that she couldn’t resist taking him out of the cage to give him some love. Unfortunately, the kitten had panicked and knocked over a few of the cages, then started chasing the small furry pets—a hamster, two guinea pigs, and five white mice. Hadley had captured the kitten before he caught any of the cute little furry creatures. However, they never found two of the white mice.
All her employers said she was a friendly, cheerful person, just with phenomenal bad luck. And now here she was again, packing up her stuff—not that she had brought much. She was giving up hope of ever finding somewhere that she fit in. A few cheerful voices called out to her, but her sad face stopped them in their tracks, and they made no further attempt to speak to her.
Leticia, or Letty as she was commonly called, met her at the elevator. Hadley stood there quietly until the elevator doors opened. Marcus was still in the elevator; it hadn’t been fifteen minutes, apparently. Hadley stepped in, as did Leticia. When Hadley hit the lobby button, Marcus and Leticia exchanged glances.
Leticia was the first to speak. "Hadley, are you okay?"
Hadley wiped the sad look off of her face. She met Letty’s eyes with a brave smile. “Of course, I’m okay, Letty. Are we really honestly surprised? I think I’m more surprised at the fact that I lasted this long,” she laughed.
Her laughter was infectious; even when she was miserable, it made others laugh as well. Marcus and Letty both grinned, even though they were worried about their friend.
"This just wasn’t the place for you," Marcus said. His solemn black eyes scanned Hadley’s face, reassuring himself that no one had hurt her feelings unnecessarily.
Letty threw a friendly arm over Hadley's shoulders. "Don’t worry, Hadley. You will find your place in life. You are super smart and a jill-of-all-trades. Someday it will all just click."
Hadley gave her a lopsided grin, internally fighting back tears of despair, but externally she would never let it show. Her mother’s advice echoed in her mind: “Put out into the universe what you want to receive in life.” Hadley desperately wanted to be happy, so she exuded happiness into the universe, hoping eventually it would come back to her.
"I will be okay, Letty. I could always try getting a job as a barista again just so I can make rent this month."
Letty’s look of absolute horror made Hadley laugh for real this time.
Letty exclaimed, "Not after last time! You had third-degree burns all over your right hand. You are so lucky you didn't permanently do damage."
Hadley giggled. "But that’s how I met my last boyfriend."
Marcus interjected, "That, out of everything, should be enough to tell you why you should never do it again. That boy was a complete and total tool. You deserve somebody who understands who you are and won’t try to change you every chance they get," Marcus reiterated for the hundredth time since Hadley had broken up with Zach. Marcus had been married for fifteen years to his lovely Olivia. He wanted Hadley to have what he had.
"Fine, fine. I won’t do barista work," she sighed heavily. "I’m not sure where else I can find a job at the last minute. I can’t even get a job at the local Walmart anymore."
Marcus thought about it. "I'll ask around and see what I can find for you. How soon and how much do you need before your next rent is due?"
"Don’t worry about it, Marcus. I’ve got it. I have some money left in my savings."
She thought to herself, "$5, but it’s still something in my savings, right?" She needed to figure out something and figure it out fast, but she couldn’t bear to see the worry in Letty's and Marcus’s eyes.
The elevator opened in the lobby, and Hadley got out. When both of her friends moved to go with her, she shook her head. "You guys keep doing what you’re doing, and I will see you at the next trivia night." She gave them a saucy grin and waggled a finger, almost dropping her box. "In the meantime, you two better behave, since I will not be around anymore. Won’t be here to keep you two in line." And with that cheerful note, she walked away, ignoring their worried looks in her direction.
Hadley tried not to be too worried. Despite her bad luck, she usually pulled her life out of its nosedive just before it crashed and burned.
It was a long and awkward walk back to her apartment in the middle of the day in New York City. On the way back to the apartment, Hadley wound up giving a cardigan and the horrendous checked jacket to a homeless woman at the subway station. A thief inexplicably took her stapler on the subway, so by the time Hadley returned to her apartment, she only had a couple of highlighters rattling around in her empty box along with her lucky cat statue that she had received from her great aunt Alice for her birthday.
She shared her apartment with three other girls who were models. They were pretty successful, but they couldn’t afford anything else despite making good money. New York City was renowned for being ridiculously expensive for crappy apartments. The models loved living with her. Hadley grew different plants, turning the apartment into an oasis in the bustling city. When people walked into the drab New York City apartment building, there was an explosion of scents and color that would transport them away from the smog filled city and to a country garden. Despite cluttering her area of the apartment with piles of books and the remnants of current and previous hobbies, she always kept the floors sparkling clean.
After going up six flights of stairs and sidestepping foul-smelling puddles of bodily fluids, Hadley was finally in front of her door. She entered the apartment, locking all the locks and chains that her roommates had installed. They often teased Hadley about being a small-town country girl from upper state New York.
Jazmeen was lounging on the futon that also served as her bed, watching her phone and giggling at a video. She looked up when Hadley came in and called out to the rest of the girls in the room, "Hey, guys, Hadley’s here. We really need to talk. Hurry up."
The other two girls burst into the room, pulling up short when they saw the box in her hands. The girls glanced worriedly at each other. "Oh no, did you lose another job, Hadley?" It was Tara.
"I did, but it's OK. I promise I will have rent money. Don't worry, I always come up with rent, you know that."
"That’s not why we’re worried, Hadley. We're worried because—" Jazmeen stopped speaking, looking unsure.
Tara continued where Jazmeen had left off. "We have something we need to tell you, Hadley."
Stacy reached out and grabbed Hadley’s hands. Stacy was a sweet blonde with a round face and girl-next-door features. She still had a model's body but could somehow make it look like she had curves as soft as Hadley’s. Jazmeen was a tall, dark princess who looked like she was born in the Amazon but had never been further out of New York City than the Bronx until she’d signed her modeling contract. Then there was Tara, who was a striking redhead with strong features and deep emerald eyes. Hadley had always thought she was the final version of what a redhead should be while Hadley felt like the rejected prototype. All three girls had adopted Hadley as their unofficial little sister, even though she was five years older than the oldest of them. She was short and naïve, with a heart as big as the city. The already jaded models loved her fresh perspective.
