I cover my face with my hands. My cheeks are burning hot, and is that any wonder, given how intensely stupid I’ve been? Annette was right. What was I thinking when I sent that email to Melanie and Alex? Why did I send it? I recall now, with another stab of shame, how I felt so proud when I sent it off, like a little child who’s found a dead frog and is proudly showing it off to her parents.
Hot on the heels of the shame is dread. It doesn’t wait for the shame to ebb away. It pounces, claws out, before I even have a chance to catch my breath. I’m out of a job. No more pay. It’s okay, I squeak silently at it, I have savings. I—
No, I don’t. I’ve spent the bulk of my money on the down payment for my publicist. The realization knocks me over like a punch straight to the gut. I feel sick. I think I might actually vomit. My mind skitters back to the past once more, and I’m floating, watching myself make the transfer with such confidence, no unease whatsoever, just complete and utter joy at the knowledge that I’m investing in myself. “Investing in myself”! What a joke. I want to pounce on my old self and punch her over and over in the face, tell her what a dumb bitch she was and that she needs to save her money because there’s a freaking pandemic on its way.
Maybe Sarah will give me a refund. Right. She should, because she hasn’t started working on my book. That money I transferred to her was a down payment to reserve her time. She said she only starts actively promoting the book three months prior to publication. It’s not too late. I grab my phone and tap frantically at it. I delete my first three tries ata message, then finally write:Hi Sarah, I’m so sorry to disturb you, but a financial crisis came up and I can no longer afford your services. Would it be possible to have the down payment that I made six weeks ago back as a refund? Thank you so much.
There. That’s reasonable. Of course, my heart cracks as I hit send, crying out: What about my book?
I unsend the message, plucking it back from the ether. My breath comes out in ragged sips. There’s a reason I hired a publicist, and that is because I want—no, I need—my book to do well. It is the only good thing I have going on in my life, and am I really so ready to give up on it just because of Annette?
No, there’s no “just” about it, the sensible voice in my head hisses. You don’t have a job, you don’t have any money. What are you going to live off?
But, I argue with it, I’m an author. My books are my job. The photography thing was merely a side hustle to get to publishing.
A “side hustle” that was paying you a living wage! the voice shouts. Publishing is all fine and good, but how are you going to live off that? Your advance, after taxes and agent fees, will barely cover two months’ rent,andyou get paid over the course of two years. It is not sustainable. Send that email. You need the money now.
I squeeze my eyes shut, my thumb hovering over the send button. No, I can’t do it. I can’t justify giving up on my book, my dreams, like that. And anyway, who’s to say that I won’t be okay? I might find a new job. This is New York, after all, the city where dreams come true, as long as you work hard enough. Actually, come to think of it, chances are Annette will come to her senses and ask me to come back and work for her again. After all, I’ve been responsible for basically running her business for the past few years. How is she going to survive without me doing everything—making her schedules, sending out all her correspondence, keeping the books, not to mention the artistic side of things, like helping her out during shoots, carrying her backbreakingly heavy gear, and editing the photos? Annette may be the woman behindthe camera, but I am the woman behind the scenes, and I would love to see her try to replace me. She’ll be back in no time, I’m sure.
I get another vision of Haven sending anonymous complaints to Annette, and I swat the thought down with ferocity. I don’t have any proof that Haven was the one who did this, I remind myself. My therapist, Aliyah, pointed out that I often jump to the worst possible conclusion in any given scenario, and it was something she and I worked hard to minimize. I take a few deep breaths and do a grounding exercise by looking around me and listing five objects I can see in my room. I’m okay. I’m safe. Everything will be okay.
Somehow, I manage to make myself climb out of bed. I take my time washing up in the bathroom before padding out into the kitchen. As I make myself some coffee, I open up my Slack app. It’s become a habit now—it’s the first thing I check most mornings. The debut group channels are all full of unread messages. They are mostly about the pandemic and how they can’t believe that they’re going into lockdown. The group has members from all over the world, and it’s very weird to know that countries like Singapore and England are heading into lockdown mode. In a way, it’s making me feel both lonely and connected.
I sip my coffee and mull over what I’m going to bake today. Now that I don’t have a job, I have all the time in the world to bake, so I might as well go full hog and make the most time-consuming thing I can think of. I decide to make puff pastry. I made it once before, and the process was so labor intensive that I decided frozen store-bought puff pastry was good enough for me. But hey, nothing’s stopping me now! In fact, I come up with yet another way of keeping me even more connected to the Slack group. I create a new channel. #Culinary.
Fern:Now that we’re in full lockdown mode, I’m going to have a hell of a lot of time to cook and bake, so I thought this channel would be a great way for us to show off our culinary skills just for fun!
There are quite a few people online this morning, probably because everybody is either working from home or laid off like myself, and immediately I see a few people typing at once.
Yuna:I love this channel! I’m actually about to make a batch of radish kimchi. I’ll upload pics later!
Jenna:Yasss I can already tell this is going to be my favorite channel. What a great idea, Fern! And here is this morning’s coffee: A dirty chai latte!
Attached to Jenna’s message is a photo of a delicious-looking drink. It has layers of colors—brown and white—and it looks so rich and creamy I could practically taste it.
Fern:Omg that looksAmazingJenna!
Alicia:WOW, Jenna! That looks sooo yummy. Definitely puts my shitty instant coffee to shame, lol!
More messages come in, and I set aside my phone with a smile, take out Doughlores, and begin working on my dough. I’m so proud of myself for starting this channel. Talk about making lemonade out of lemons. I’m kneading the dough when Terry starts banging on his keyboard—and I really do mean banging; he’s no longer even pretending to play it properly. I fantasize about marching over to his place and kicking him in the shins, but let’s face it, there isn’t a version of me in any multiverse that would do that, so I force myself to focus on kneading the dough. I might have kneaded it a little harder than necessary. Baking bread is definitely right up there with running on my Top Five Healthy Coping Mechanisms.
By the time I’m done, I’m perspiring ever so slightly, and I feel better. I give the dough an affectionate little pat and set it in the fridge before moving on to making the filling. I’ve decided to make someDanish pastries today, so I get to work making a cream cheese filling, along with some homemade blueberry compote. It’s only when I’m rolling out the dough and cutting it that I realize I’m actually smiling. Despite everything—getting fired and having to deal with Terry’s noise in addition to an actual pandemic, I like that I’ve started something worthwhile in the debut Slack group. The #culinary channel is something I think is going to help a lot of us in the coming weeks, and I’m so proud of being its creator. I can’t wait to post my pastries on there.
It takes me much longer than usual to get the pastries done; I find myself spending a lot of time and effort to make them as pretty as possible, making sure the cream cheese is piped into the little pastry boats just so. When they’re out of the oven, I put a dollop of blueberry compote on each one and finish them off with a dusting of icing sugar before arranging three of them carefully on my prettiest plate. I take the plate over to a window to get the best possible lighting and take dozens of photos of them from various angles. I end up with two beautiful photos, which I edit to really bring out the colors and textures, then, unable to wait another second, I post them both to #culinary with the caption: “Whipped these up today! They smell gorgeous.” The replies come in almost immediately. I guess everyone is glued to their screens.
Jenna:Oh myGod, did you really make them yourself?? They look perfect! Omg I want!!
Yuna:WOW Fern! Are you a professional baker?
I don’t bother trying to stop the huge grin from taking over my face. A professional baker? I giggle to myself as I put the pastries into a plastic container. No, I am not a professional baker, but maybe I should be. Maybe I could be one of those home bakers who sell their goodies on Instagram. That could be a good way of earning money, especially now that Annette’s fired me.
I check Slack again to see how many people have responded to my Danish pastries post. There are twelve hearts and five more comments about how good my pastries look, but then I scroll farther down and find that Haven has posted too. And she’s made a beautiful rustic loaf of sourdough bread. She’s posted two photos, one where the loaf is whole and you can see the prettiest leaf scoring pattern on the top of the perfectly browned crust, and in the other picture, she’s sliced it open, revealing the airy, soft crumb, which is a surprising shade of blue. Her caption reads:I made sourdough today! It’s blue because I used pea flower water, isn’t it just the most beautiful thing ever??
Her post has thirty-two hearts, twenty-seven head explosions, and twenty-four heart eyes. There are over twenty comments, and more still being typed, all of them gushing over how stunning her loaf of sourdough is.
No, this can’t be happening. I created this channel. I’m the one with the sourdough starter I’ve kept alive for years. Haven is—well, I’ve never seen her so much as even mention sourdough on her social media accounts, and yet here she is with a picture-perfect loaf of bread. Peevishly, I wonder if she’s lying, if she actually bought the bread from somewhere and then posted about it to get attention. I can see her doing that.
Stop it, I scold myself. It doesn’t matter. So what if she did? It’s none of your business.
