Jenna:IDK honestly, it feels like it’s going to last a while, but maybe that’s just my pessimism talking ...
I’m about to reply when the sound of a sharp keyboard note pierces through the wall. My head jerks up, my whole body tensing. It’s Terry, banging on his keyboard with what sounds like even more vengeance than usual. I scramble to find my headphones, but even with the noise-canceling feature turned on, I can still hear the vague sounds of his keyboard. God, am I really going to be stuck in this apartment, with a neighbor who thinks he’s the next Beethoven? I bury my face in my hands and pray to the universe that the virus will be cured soon and that before I know it, things will go back to normal. They have to. Right?
Chapter 13
The first day that New York City officially goes into shutdown, I wake up to three irate voice messages, two emails, and five texts from Annette. I scroll through her texts, each one angrier than the last, and with my stomach twisted into painful knots, I call her back. She picks up on the first ring—my god, has she just been sitting there fuming, waiting for me to call back? She doesn’t bother saying hi.
“You messaged my clients?” Annette hisses.
It takes a long while for me to realize what she’s talking about. I have to sift through the fug of sleep, the daze of the past few days, and my anxiety-ridden brain, and even then, what I manage to come up with is a confused “Uh ...”
“Melanie and Alex,” Annette snaps. “You emailed them?”
“Oh!” I sit up, shaking my head, trying to clear it. “Yeah, I did. I thought I’d send them an email to reconfirm their booking. I thought it might be a good thing to do because we’d gotten so many cancellations because of, uh ...”
“Because of the pandemic?” Annette says sarcastically. “Oh yeah, you bet I know. Doyouknow there’s a pandemic going on right now? Why would you ask them to reconfirm? The entire city is shut down!”
“But it should only be for a month—” I warble, my voice coming out pathetically thin and high.
Annette laughs, and it sounds so nasty, so unhappy, that I pull the phone away from my ear while she cackles. “Oh, just a month,huh? God, have you always been such an idiot or did the virus affect your brain?”
“I don’t—”
“Melanie’s dad passed away from COVID the day you emailed her.”
Everything around me screeches to a stop. My lungs stop working, the air catching midway down my windpipe. “I—”
“Yeah. She is livid. Heartbroken. Every awful emotion you can think of, she is that. And she’s taking it out on me, because my idiot assistant sent her an email asking to reconfirm in the middle of the pandemic which killed her father. She’s talking about a lawsuit, she—”
“A lawsuit?” I squawk. “On what grounds? She can’t just—”
“Don’t tell me what she can or can’t do. She’s grieving, Fern! She just lost her dad. She’s lashing out, and sure, yeah, she might not have actual grounds to sue me, but who cares right now? She could post about it on social media. It would destroy my reputation. I built my business on client referrals. Do you know what this is going to do to my company?”
Shame is no longer running through me in waves. It’s completely engulfed me, swallowed me whole into its dark mouth where there is no light, no sips of air for me to take. I’m suffocating with it. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t think—”
“Exactly. You didn’t think. Maybe you thought I wouldn’t notice, but this isn’t the first time you’ve done something careless. Ever since you got that publishing deal of yours, your head’s been in the clouds. You swan into the office late. Your work has become sloppy—I often have to retouch the photos you edited. Not to mention the numerous complaints I’ve received about you.”
“Wait, complaints?” I feel like a hunted rabbit, all my senses dialed up to a hundred. I feel like the entire world is looking at me. Judging. Annette’s received complaints about me? But how is that possible? Memories of all the photo shoots I’ve assisted in rush through my mind like a machine gun,rat-tat-tat. No, nothing has happened that would make anyone lodge a complaint about me.
“Yes. I’ve received a handful of messages from prospective clients who said that you were rude to them and that’s why they’re not hiring me as their photographer,” Annette says.
“What?” I cry. “That’s impossible. I was never—”
“I kept you on because I liked you, Fern. Despite all these problems. But it’s clear to me now that your head isn’t in this business, so I’m going to let you go.”
I don’t say anything. I can’t. There are no words. I sit there, phone clutched in a sweaty hand, staring into my lap as Annette fires me.
“And if Melanie does end up suing me, I won’t protect you,” Annette says by way of goodbye. Then she hangs up.
I lower the phone slowly. I stare at it, cradled in my hands. I look at the camera, and it seems to be laughing at me, spying, knowing every wrong I’ve done. With a shudder, I shove it under my duvet. Complaints from prospective clients? I haven’t been rude to anyone, I know it. Whenever we receive an inquiry, I’ve always responded with my usual canned response—a hyper, cheerful reply with information regarding the numerous packages we offer. It has five exclamation marks peppered throughout the message and ends with: “Again, congratulations on such an exciting time, and we look forward to working with you to making your engagement shoot as unique and beautiful as your love story!” Nobody can possibly be mad about that. Unless ...
No. Surely not.
But now that the thought has surfaced, I can’t push it back down. Could this be Haven’s doing? Unbidden, an image of Haven sitting in front of her laptop, typing out the words “I’m writing to lodge a complaint about your assistant, Fern Huang. Fern was extremely rude when I emailed asking for more information, and ...” It is so vivid that I can imagine the smirk that she would have worn while composing this email. The smug glee that must have felt like a shot of joy as she clicked “Send.” Yes, I can imagine it all too easily. This is right up Haven’s alley.
Rage leaps like a fire in my stomach, licking all my insides. After all these years, Haven hasn’t changed one bit. I need to do something. I need to—
Stop, a small voice in my mind says. You don’t know for sure that it was Haven. Haven doesn’t even know what your day job is. Annette’s website doesn’t mention your name at all. Figuring out what you do for a living would be tricky for most people. You’re just spiraling because you feel guilty over what you did do.
