Read Online Breaking Into the Business by Hadley Knox - Free Book Online

a bad night. I don’t
see what you’re so upset about.”
    “I
trusted him. I thought he was interested in me, but it turns out that he was
only interested in my money.”
    “Are
you being serious?” Betsy asked, tilting her head sideways and scowling at me.
“You meet a guy in a bar, and within an hour you are sleeping with him. And you
are concerned about trust of all things?”
    “Of
course. I don’t see the problem with that.”
    “Because
someone you are trying to have a one night stand with isn’t interested in trust
and neither should you. It takes more than a half hour to really begin to trust
someone.”
    “I
get what you’re saying,” I nodded. “But there has to be a certain degree of
trust when something like sex happens.”
    “Bullshit,”
Betsy said. “It’s not like you were on a date or anything. You went to bar,
made out with a guy, and went back home and slept with him. The only trust you
should be worried about is the very basic trust that he’s not a serial killer.
Other than that, you’re looking for the wrong thing here, dear.”
    “What
do you mean?” I asked.
    “I
mean that you need to stop being so emotional if you’re going to have another
fling like this,” Betsy said. “Trust and all of that other emotional stuff is
reserved for a relationship and unless you are ready to get back into another
one of those, you shouldn’t worry about all of that baggage.”
    “I
might be ready for another relationship.”
    “I
don’t think you are,” Betsy said. “Unless you can have meaningless sex with a
stranger without having to worry about emotional baggage, then you would never
make it in a relationship.”
    “I’m
not sure I buy your theory. But you think I should sleep with more people?”
    “Of
course, I do,” she said. “But I don’t think that sleeping around is necessarily
going to fix all your problems. You need to get to the source of your emotional
issues and squash them like a bug.”
    “What
are my issues?”
    “That’s
a conversation that would require another pot of coffee,” she laughed.
    “Then
give me the summary.”
    “First
of all, you are a control freak,” Betsy said. “Frank leaving you left you so
rattled, and you felt so completely helpless that now you are so scared that
you won’t have any control about other aspects of your life that you try to
force everything else to fit what you think should happen. Dating and sex
doesn’t work that way.”
    “So
I’m just a control freak?”
    “It
doesn’t stop there,” she said as she set her coffee down. “The fact that you
are a prude probably stems from your fixation on control, but it’s still a
problem. You have to let go of your inability to be naked in front of a man
without folding your arms over your breasts. You need to go to a bar and talk
to men without blushing or stuttering.”
    “I’m
just so self-conscious.”
    “Being
self-conscious is a state of mind that you can do away with as easily as an old
pair of panties,” Betsy said. “You just have to stand up one day and say enough
is enough.”
    “You
make it sound so easy,” I said.
    “You
want to hear some more truth, Lana? You are an extremely beautiful woman. So
beautiful, in fact, that when you and I were in the bar, nobody looked at me
once. They all stared at you. That’s one of the reasons I couldn’t wait for you
to go talk to a man, so that maybe I could get a little attention. I’m jealous,
but I’m actually happy for you. I just wish you could see yourself the way that
everyone else sees you.”
    “I’m
not all that.”
    “Yes,
you are. You have the looks, you’re intelligent, and you have a great job that
pays decent. You have everything.”
    I
still hadn’t told Betsy or Pearl about my dire financial situation. The cost of
maintaining my home and my family, even at a reduced lifestyle, were draining
both the savings and the checking faster than my paychecks were coming in.
    “So
what should I do?”