“No, but what the actual fuck!”
Sitting back in relief at sharing the burden of this problem with someone I trust, I take my first satisfying breath of air since Eric left the penthouse. “OK, let me know when the shock subsides.”
“Oh, I’m not shocked you had sex with him,” she says into her drink. “Frankly, I’m shocked it hadn’t happened sooner.Andthat you still went on that bloody breakfast date straight after.”
My iced matcha latte nearly comes out of my nose.“One: Weren’t you the woman who suggested I put his face on a dartboard? Two: I needed the real date experience for my presentation—it definitely cleared some stuff up for me...”
“I suggested the dartboardbeforeyou started going on these trial dates with Eric.” She shrugs and sips her iced hibiscus tea, eyes studying me intently. “Ever since you started this project you’ve been... glowing.”
My eyebrows touch the ceiling. “Glowing?” I repeat in disbelief.
“Yeah. You seem, like, more assured in yourself. I honestly was preparing for you to completely burn out with this extra work on your plate... but it’s like you have a new lease on life, or at least your career. There’s fire in your eyes again.”
I twitch my jaw, trying my hardest to hide how much I love that observation. She’s right: the last time I really enjoyed my job was when I was with William. I assumed it was my breakup that had created the ricochet effect on my work—I mean, who wants to promote finding The One when The One just completely screwed you over? But the Christmas party was only a few days later, and soon after that was the end of my friendship with Bancroft. The thought sits there. A seed of a thought, really. That maybe the fire going out really was because of losing Eric, and not William?
“You two light fires under the other.”
Was I the only one who hadn’t noticed how he challenges me, pushes me, and treats me like an equal insteadof seeing me as a threat? I try not to think about how he denied seeing me as an enemy, saying he always saw me as an ally. He always thought of us as being on the same team, despite being pitted against each other at every available opportunity.
I stifle a smile until Yemi sighs. “Or maybe you’re right and this is just the glow of three orgasms in quick succession.”
“Oh my God!” I throw a scrunched-up paper straw at her. “I immediately regret telling you that part.”
“Speaking of, are you actually going to talk to each other like functioning adults or just pretend it never happened?” The ice in her glass clinks as she swirls her straw.
I shake my head, placing my drink on the table with a thunk. “I can’t think about it right now, not until the presentations are over. That seems like the most mature thing to do.” I nod at my own statements for emphasis. “Thank you so much again for the data. It really opened my eyes to what the user would want out of Ditto.”
“You think you’ve got the upper hand now?” she asks in between slurps.
“Not the whole hand, but maybe like two or three fingers,” I say, shoulder blades shrugging against the wooden chair.
“Sounds like that’s all he needed,” she mutters into her glass.
I bash my head against the table.
Forty-five minutes later I’m welcomed back to my desk by a scratchily written Post-it note stuck to my computer. Susie’s calling card is one of my absolute pet peeves, always leaving a sticky residue behind on my screen. I’m sure she does it deliberately. Slapping tasks in the middle of my screen to show what she feels should supersede everything I might be currently doing. Whatever whim of hers it may be it must immediately be given a VIP ticket to the front of Grace’s never-ending task queue. This time, the note ominously says:“My office.”
My stomach drops as I slink into the room; does she know I know about the voicemail? Seemingly not, because she spends the next few minutes berating me about the quality of my work. The expansion data report I gave her yesterday is apparently no longer good enough.
“You need to redo this immediately.” She rubs the top of her nose as though the work she claims needs to be redone is somehow going to causeherstress, not me. It took me an hour and a half to put that report together for her. Redoing it with an in-depth analysis will take several hours. I wanted that time tonight to put the finishing touches on my Ditto presentation and start doing a few practice runs.
I swallow my nerves. “I... I don’t think I’ll have time for that tonight.”
Susie’s eyes blaze as if she was waiting for me to saythe words to spur her into a full-on tirade. She purses her lips and leans forward on her glass desk, her sharp eyes penetrating through any remaining self-esteem I was grasping on to like a cocktail stick through a grape. She speaks low and slow, mulling every delicious word as it hits her lips: “I only had one caveat for you doing this project for Catcher: You continue to fulfil your duties to me. This is a huge disappointment. Huge. You’ll stay late tonight until this is finished to aconsiderablyhigher standard.”
My chest begins a shallow heave; I don’t have time to do this workandstart practicing my presentation. If I roll over this easily now, Bancroft is destined to succeed and I will continue in this never-ending cycle of coffee runs, guilt trips and spreadsheets.
Accepting my punishment, I turn on my heels to leave as the words I’m dying to say pile up on my shoulders. Bancroft flashes through my mind, his smug face when they give him the news of his promotion. How would he deal with this situation? He would say something. This isthe timeto say something. If I don’t get the Ditto job, do I really want to come back to this working relationship? I steady myself, balling my hands into fists and taking what I suspect might be my final breath.
“No... the caveat was I continue to do my duties asMarketing Managerwhile taking on this project, which I have done.” Separate from my brain, spurredon by what I can only think is the “fire” Yemi noticed in me earlier, my footsteps carry me closer to Susie’s desk. “I know something is going on with you at the moment and I’m sorry about that. But what you’re annoyed about is me not having time to be yourassistant: something I don’t have time for and don’t get paid for.”
She huffs an unamused laugh. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
My voice trembles slightly. I can’t believe I’m doing this. It feels like an out-of-body experience. As if someone with some actual self-worth has grabbed the reins and is taking me for a joyride.
“Maybe I don’t, but you being under pressure doesn’t give you the right to treat me like this.”
It’s like the rush of adrenaline I got standing up for Iris at Matilda’s Bar, but better. Standing up formyselfis a whole different ball game. With others, I can see clearly when they are being taken advantage of or treated poorly. When it comes to myself, I can’t see between the lines as clearly—even if the people around me are screaming it from the rooftops. Maybe that’s what happened with William? I finally begin to see the similarities between their two personalities. They called the shots and told me when things were progressing, and I just floated along, carried by their currents instead of swimming to the shore.
