Chapter Text
Jen’s really trying to be positive about her day when she walks into work.
Charlie actually ate breakfast this morning, and Henry barely needed coaxing out of the car to go into school, slowly releasing his hesitations about leaving his mother on her own since his father died.
He’s been slightly better about it since she started working with his grandmother. Apparently, he thinks that Jen and Lorna can help look after each other or something. Jen would rather poke her own fucking eye out than spend a second with her mother-in-law if she can help it. Being at home alone is about a million times more fucking appealing.
Trying to concentrate on the small victories isn’t easy.
Jen’s been working for Lorna at her art gallery for about a month now, and she fucking hates it. It’s one of those art galleries in the middle of a big hipster-y gentrified area, the type that sells paintings for thousands of dollars yet has a pretty much constant stream of people coming in from the street all day that Jen and the two other staff members have to entertain. Lorna, of course, never shows her fucking face until the second someone actually expresses an interest in one of the higher-end pieces, appearing from fucking nowhere to steal Jen’s commission like the fucking vulture she is.
Anger, Jen. It’s a fucking problem, remember?
She takes a deep breathe and tries to get settled into work, putting her bag and phone in the back so she can go and greet Mrs Wallace, who is here for the third time this week to look at the same painting. Jen doesn’t think she’ll ever actually buy it, but she gets to spend the next hour trying to convince her to anyway. Yayyyyy…
The hour’s almost up, Mrs Wallace gathering her things together to leave without buying anything once again, when the door opens, and a woman walks in. There are a couple of other people in the shop, all the normal horrific arty types or people who clearly have way too much money to know how to act like actual human beings, and so the rest of the staff is too occupied to greet her.
Leaving Jen to do the honours.
“Hello, may I help you?” says Jen, putting on her very best smile that might almost come off as genuine if she wasn’t already glaring at the new woman in the room. She has a full-on fringe and a long flowy dress with far too colourful flowers all over it, yet she wears a bracelet that Jen knows is worth more than the down payment on her house was.
Fucking perfect. Arty and rich as fuck. Everything I hate about this place in one.
And then Jen sees her smile, how absolutely ridiculously large it is, like she can’t help but smile at everyone, and Jen sort of wants to strangle her for daring to be so positive in her gloomy vicinity.
Maybe let her talk first?
“No.”
Jen’s face scrunches up.
Oh.
Well fuck you too then.
The woman looks a little apologetic, nervous even, “Well, erm, maybe. Is Lorna Harding here?”
“She’s in the back somewhere.”
“Do you think I could talk to her?” there’s that fucking smile again…
Jen cringes. She really doesn’t want to go and have to disturb Lorna, preferring to keep as much distance as possible when they work in the same building.
“I, umm, she’s quite… busy? Can I help with anything?”
“I’ll wait till she’s free.”
“Well okay then,” Jen says, perfectly prepared to just walk off and leave this woman standing there until Lorna decides to deem everyone with her presence again. She’s interrupted.
“Wait, umm, the woman who was fired from here last week, she hasn’t been replaced yet, right?”
“Are you looking for a job?”, Jen asks incredulously, glancing down again at that bracelet, which the brunette quickly nervously covers. Obviously, there’s a story there, she passively thinks, but honestly, she couldn’t care enough to try and find it out.
The woman laughs, much too loud for a quiet art gallery, then awkwardly utters “I guess you could say that, yes”, smiling again.
“Well, I’m sorry,” says Jen, not sounding sorry, “but we’re actually not replacing her right now.”
“Oh.” A frown appears on the woman’s face, and Jen thinks it looks so unnatural, so wrong for someone so smiley and happy and gross. “Are you sure? I’m really good.”
“Definitely sure. If you’re only here for the job, you should probably leave” Jen says a little unkindly, hoping the woman will get the message and go quickly.
“My, Jennifer, telling customers to leave, you’ll never do well here if you keep doing that” Jen hears and fuck, fucking Lorna is right behind her.
Jen turns abruptly, shocked, but quickly adjusting and putting a smug look on her face. She might be able to knock both of these women down a little here. “This woman is looking for a job.”
Lorna looks at the colourful dress, horrified, and almost screeches, “absolutely not!”
“I’m really good, I promise, and I know a lot about art, I paint a little, I love it, I promise I’ll be able to help a lot” the woman starts, but upon no response from Jen or Lorna, she tries a different tactic. “Look, I’ll show you. That woman over there was almost buying something right?” she says, pointing at where Mrs Wallace is somehow still standing and storming over.
Good fucking look with that, that bitch is only here to torment me and waste my fucking time, she’ll never buy anything.
Jen can’t hear what is going on, but she sees the brunette’s body language change, become so friendly and loose, smile plastered on her face looking so much more genuine and friendly and inviting than the blonde could ever master, and it’s barely a few minutes before the brunette is back with them.
“She’s going to buy those two” she says, waving at two of the most expensive paintings in the entire building. Lorna looks impressed. Jen looks like she’s trying to figure out if there’s a knife lying around she can use to stab her with. How dare she fucking show me up like that, AND steal my commission, and all while acting like the loveliest person on the fucking planet.
“You’re hired, miss- “
“Hale. Judy Hale.”
“Miss Hale. You start tomorrow. But don’t expect to get commission on that sale, you aren’t working for me yet. Jennifer here can supervise you for your first few weeks.” Lorna says, and Jen is barely containing a scream. Lorna turns to Jen to add, “although, Jennifer, maybe you should learn some things from Miss Hale here. You took far too long trying to get that sale.”
Oh, Jesus fucking Christ, someone hold me back…
*
Jen’s still angry when she finally gets home that night. Thankfully, this new Judy-person left soon after she was hired, but she’s already feeling heavy knowing just what fucking hell tomorrow is going to be, having to be stuck with that ball of sunshine all day.
Her grief support group meeting is tonight, her sons with their grandmother, so she quickly goes onto her laptop to join in. Ah shit, I’m going to be so late.
After Jen’s husband died about six months ago now, Jen was a fucking wreck. She was so angry, so hurt, that she didn’t really know what to do, how to express it. She would take it out on anyone near her, would happily smash the car of a guy that pissed her off by driving too close or scream into a pillow at any given hour of the day.
Eventually, one of the few people she still considered a friend in her life, Christopher, told her to get help, because her anger was ‘an issue’ now, whatever the fuck that meant.
There was no fucking way Jen was going to be able to talk to someone face to face though, like a therapist or something, knowing she’d probably smash their office up if she didn’t like what they had to say (which, lets face it, she probably wouldn’t). And a group in person would be however awful therapy was times like 8 for all the people in the group, so that wouldn’t fucking work either.
She eventually found an online group, where people use a username to have an organised chat about their problems for a couple of hours a week, and she actually sort of liked it. No one knew who she was, other than as @winemommy, so she felt she could really speak without judgement, without any fear she could walk into one of them on the street and have everything she’s said come back on her.
It’s been about 3 months of these sessions now and Jen really thinks it is helping. Sure, she still has some anger problems, that is very much fucking obvious, but she didn’t throw that hippie woman through the glass door today like her whole body was itching to do, so clearly she is a little more in control.
The group session passes like normal, Jen contributing only a couple of things, but actively listening to what the others are saying for the most part, which she figures is enough for now. Really, she’s too eager for her favourite part of the night to start to want to participate more.
The favourite part always comes after the group chat, when one of the other members, @thegirlwithnoheart, messages her privately.
It’s been about a month since they first started talking. Jen was actually the one that started it, wanting to make the other woman feel welcome and check to see if she was okay after a particularly emotional group session. @thegirlwithnoheart had revealed in it that her fiancé had left her a couple of months ago after a series of miscarriages, and Jen felt so awful for the other woman – after all, at least Jen still has the boys to help her through her loss – that she actually paid interest in another human being, albeit really an anonymous name on a screen.
As she’s come to expect from it takes less than a minute once the group session has ended before a notification pings with a private message.
@thegirlwithnoheart - Hi dear friend
Jen doesn’t really know why they call each other that, but somehow all of their conversations begin with ‘hi dear friend’. @thegirlwithnoheart used it at the beginning of their second conversation, and it just stuck. She knows she should probably find it super gross, but for some reason Jen really kinda likes it.
She’s even been referring to @thegirlwithnoheart as ‘Dear Friend’ in her head lately. They haven’t exchanged real names or pictures or anything yet – Jen isn’t really sure that she wants to; she’s really comfortable taking to this other woman and that’s all she needs right now. And sure, ‘dear friend’ might be a little cutesy for Jen to ever admit to liking, but it’s not like she has to say it out loud, so she lets herself enjoy it a little.
She sure as hell isn’t going to keep calling her ‘the girl with no heart’, when her new friend seems to have the biggest heart of anyone she’s ever known.
@winemommy – Hi
@thegirlwithnoheart – how are you today? I noticed you didn’t say much in group. How was your day?
@winemommy – it was okay. Work was a fucking nightmare though.
@thegirlwithnoheart – oh? Wanna talk about it?
Jen laughs. She never wants to talk about work. She does really think about it, sometimes, but their conversations are so heavy half the time anyway, so often filled with their mutual grief and understanding. There’s also that she really doesn’t want to show that she’s a fucking evil person that snaps at everyone all the time, so she tries to keep that side of her hidden from this woman she spends such long times talking to.
@winemommy – nope.
@thegirlwithnoheart – wanna get drunk and watch facts of life together instead?
@winemommy – now we’re talking
Jen quickly gets up to grab her wine and settle herself in front of the tv, switching over to her phone.
@thegirlwithnoheart – how are the boys today? was Henry any better going into school?
@winemommy – They were pretty great this morning. Char actually acted like a real human being and ate something, and Hen wasn’t so clingy, didn’t take too much coaxing.
@thegirlwithnoheart – that’s good, I’m glad they’re starting to do a little better. And that they’re being easier on you.
The amount of care that Dear Friend always shows, for both her and her boys, always makes Jen’s heart swell. It’s nice to know that there’s someone out there that genuinely is concerned about them, and not in that weird judgemental way that Jen so often feels from the people around her, like they’re concerned that she’s doing everything wrong, not just worried about her.
Even if Dear Friend is a total stranger that could be 1000 miles away.
Another message appears before Jen can respond.
@thegirlwithnoheart – I love this episode
Jen looks up at the tv.
@winemommy – Ha, of course you do, it’s all about Tootie.
There’s nothing back for a few moments, both sitting enjoying their tv show. And when Jen eventually does hear a notification, it’s her new friend rehashing the argument they seem to be having twice a week.
Jen thinks they both need the easy laughs.
@thegirlwithnoheart – you know just because you’re from Brooklyn, really doesn’t mean you’re a Jo. I bet you don’t even have the accent anymore.
@winemommy – wouldn’t you like to know
@thegirlwithnoheart – See, you’re a total Blair, a season 1 Blair, maybe, when she’s all rebellious, but a Blair.
@winemommy – you know what? fuck you
@thegirlwithnoheart – nah, you’d enjoy that too much
Jen can’t help but burst out laughing. This is exactly what she needs – someone she can talk to and joke around with and maybe even flirt a little, someone that doesn’t know what a total bitch she is almost all of the time, someone she can be real with when she needs to but who won’t judge her for it.
Eventually, once it is far too late, Jen starts to feel tired. She might actually be able to get some sleep tonight now the anger has gone and she’s feeling more relaxed. She’s smiled and laughed more tonight than she has since long before her husband’s death.
Jen’s head hits the pillow thinking how fucking ridiculous it is that some stranger (who could be on the other side of the world for all she knows) can make her so happy. She barely thinks about how awful tomorrow at work is going to be with that annoying new girl to look after.