Read Online Totlandia: The Onesies, Book 1 (Fall) by Josie Brown - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Josie Brown
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SUV while Ellis Conway, the chief executive of the online shoe company, Foot Fetish, droned on and on about the finer points of the latest inventory procedures.
To make matters worse, Ally was missing half of what he was saying because Zoe, her fifteen-month-old daughter, kept tossing her Baby Stella dolls into the front seat. Each time Ally retrieved one, Zoe would squeal, then send yet another doll over the headrest.
“Okay, Zoe, game over,” Ally whispered. Her cell phone was on MUTE, but she hoped that leading by example would silence Zoe.
As if that would ever happen.
“No! Babas! BABAS! ” Zoe shouted as she motioned toward the front seat, where her dolls had flopped, like drunken sailors after a beer binge.
“Shhhh!” Ally warned her daughter. So that Zoe could be buckled into her car seat, Ally handed her a sippy cup.
Not a smart move. Zoe slapped it out of her mother’s hand. The top popped off, and Ally’s chest was hit with a wave of milk.
“Bad girl! Bad , bad girl!” she hissed as she scrounged in Zoe’s diaper bag for a cloth to wipe herself off.
If she thought it would shame her daughter into silence, she was sadly mistaken. Instead, Zoe screamed gleefully as she climbed out of her car seat.
Ally had just grabbed hold of one of Zoe’s plump little legs when she heard Ellis say through her cell phone’s earbud “—which I presented to the board a list of proposed options to be granted to company employees and its advisors, for their approval. Ms. Thornton had previously mentioned a concern regarding the initial stock split. Ally, would you care to elaborate?”
Ally quickly tapped her cell phone’s MUTE OFF button so her corporate board members could hear her.
Big mistake. At that very second Zoe let loose with a banshee cry. Then, with her tiny fist, she grabbed the cell phone and tossed it out the window.
“Ally! Are you there? Are you all right?” The last voice Ally heard before the moving truck ran over it was that of Barry Simon, her corporate attorney.
Well, thank God he had attended the meeting on her behalf. He’d make something up so the board wouldn’t think she’d been eaten by an anaconda or something.
Barry had been her best friend since high school. He was also Zoe’s sperm donor, and in Ally’s will, he shared the responsibility of Zoe’s legal guardianship with his lover, Christian Cordell.
Not that the Pacific Heights Moms & Tots Club would ever know that. On her application, Ally and Barry had presented themselves as a happily married couple.
Nor would the club find out that Ally Thornton hadn’t completely stepped out of the workforce to care for Zoe: she was still working part-time as the chief strategy officer of Foot Fetish. Her reconnaissance of PHM&T had warned her that the application committee frowned upon working moms. By putting down “board member in an advisory capacity,” she sidestepped the issue of how much time she was obligated to spend at the company.
Ally had mentioned that she had been accepted to the club only the day before, during Barry and Christian’s weekly Sunday dinner together with her and Zoe. Barry had laughed so hard he’d spewed his martini. “Ally, my sweet, tell me you’re kidding!”
Ally, who had been mixing the salad, put down the tongs with a thud. “And why is that funny? All anyone on the playground talks about is how PHM&T is the club to join.”
Barry winced as the last drops from the martini shaker trickled into his glass. “I don’t know about that. One of the biggest jokes around Christian’s hair salon is all the hoops that club makes its members jump through. If you think the Bracknell lackeys are giving you grief with their macho corporate games, just wait until you meet that woman—Christian, what’s her name again?”
“ Bettina Connaught Cross.” Christian shook his head gravely. “All my customers gossip about her. They say her name is apropos: you ‘
To make matters worse, Ally was missing half of what he was saying because Zoe, her fifteen-month-old daughter, kept tossing her Baby Stella dolls into the front seat. Each time Ally retrieved one, Zoe would squeal, then send yet another doll over the headrest.
“Okay, Zoe, game over,” Ally whispered. Her cell phone was on MUTE, but she hoped that leading by example would silence Zoe.
As if that would ever happen.
“No! Babas! BABAS! ” Zoe shouted as she motioned toward the front seat, where her dolls had flopped, like drunken sailors after a beer binge.
“Shhhh!” Ally warned her daughter. So that Zoe could be buckled into her car seat, Ally handed her a sippy cup.
Not a smart move. Zoe slapped it out of her mother’s hand. The top popped off, and Ally’s chest was hit with a wave of milk.
“Bad girl! Bad , bad girl!” she hissed as she scrounged in Zoe’s diaper bag for a cloth to wipe herself off.
If she thought it would shame her daughter into silence, she was sadly mistaken. Instead, Zoe screamed gleefully as she climbed out of her car seat.
Ally had just grabbed hold of one of Zoe’s plump little legs when she heard Ellis say through her cell phone’s earbud “—which I presented to the board a list of proposed options to be granted to company employees and its advisors, for their approval. Ms. Thornton had previously mentioned a concern regarding the initial stock split. Ally, would you care to elaborate?”
Ally quickly tapped her cell phone’s MUTE OFF button so her corporate board members could hear her.
Big mistake. At that very second Zoe let loose with a banshee cry. Then, with her tiny fist, she grabbed the cell phone and tossed it out the window.
“Ally! Are you there? Are you all right?” The last voice Ally heard before the moving truck ran over it was that of Barry Simon, her corporate attorney.
Well, thank God he had attended the meeting on her behalf. He’d make something up so the board wouldn’t think she’d been eaten by an anaconda or something.
Barry had been her best friend since high school. He was also Zoe’s sperm donor, and in Ally’s will, he shared the responsibility of Zoe’s legal guardianship with his lover, Christian Cordell.
Not that the Pacific Heights Moms & Tots Club would ever know that. On her application, Ally and Barry had presented themselves as a happily married couple.
Nor would the club find out that Ally Thornton hadn’t completely stepped out of the workforce to care for Zoe: she was still working part-time as the chief strategy officer of Foot Fetish. Her reconnaissance of PHM&T had warned her that the application committee frowned upon working moms. By putting down “board member in an advisory capacity,” she sidestepped the issue of how much time she was obligated to spend at the company.
Ally had mentioned that she had been accepted to the club only the day before, during Barry and Christian’s weekly Sunday dinner together with her and Zoe. Barry had laughed so hard he’d spewed his martini. “Ally, my sweet, tell me you’re kidding!”
Ally, who had been mixing the salad, put down the tongs with a thud. “And why is that funny? All anyone on the playground talks about is how PHM&T is the club to join.”
Barry winced as the last drops from the martini shaker trickled into his glass. “I don’t know about that. One of the biggest jokes around Christian’s hair salon is all the hoops that club makes its members jump through. If you think the Bracknell lackeys are giving you grief with their macho corporate games, just wait until you meet that woman—Christian, what’s her name again?”
“ Bettina Connaught Cross.” Christian shook his head gravely. “All my customers gossip about her. They say her name is apropos: you ‘
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