“Scout?”
“Hm?”
“There’s a young woman in your office. I’ve hired her to replace Jared.”
Jesus, Clara. Again?
“That was fast,” I said, when what I really wanted to say wasAnd you didn’t even consult me on hiring someone for my own damn team?
She did this all the time. I loved Clara like she was family, and she’d done more for me than my actual family, but for all the ranting and raving she did about me taking the back seat on decision-making, she sure did love to requisition the wheel at work.
Clara nodded and clucked her tongue. “She’s really been put through the wringer. Her medtech start-up folded when her now ex-boyfriend embezzled the company’s entire savings. She’s brilliant, though. Aside from giving over her books to such a wanker, obviously.”
“Is BuzzCorp just a rehab for wayward women in STEM now?”
“Someone’s got to look out for you ladies. Might as well be me.”
Five minutes later, I had an employment dossier, a huge tumbler of Diet Dr Pepper, and a Miss Leelah St. James at my desk.
Leelah was tall, stacked like a tennis player, and clearly terrified.
“Hi there,” I offered by way of greeting.
“Hi,” she replied, voice shaky. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“You, too. So. I’m sure Clara warned you that this was going to be a very rigorous entrance interview.”
“She made me sharpen my pencils just in case.”
Once again, I glanced over Leelah’s résumé and Clara’s notes. There were all the important things there—she was a Rhodes Scholar and UT Austin graduate, had founded a company before she turned twenty-one, was a few years older than me, had been featured inForbes…
Her medtech company had made a name for itself by creating portable devices that could be taken anywhere—war zones, natural disaster areas. An EEG that weighed less than the average Stephen King novel was her signature invention.
Shit, I thought,what the hell is this girl doing at BuzzCorp?
A small voice in the back of my head, one that sounded like Hudson’s, replied:What the hell areyoudoing at BuzzCorp?
I shook the thought free, though. I liked working at BuzzCorp, and not just because I’d been blacklisted everywhere else. Not because it was my last resort after the GalacticSolutions disaster. I found my work fulfilling. And not just because the dildos I took home to test after work were long and generously girthed.
Again, the little voice came back.But maybe work and dildos shouldn’t be the only fulfilling things in your life. Maybe it’s a good thing that Jared’s gone. Maybe you could open yourself up a little bit more. After all, you’re about to have sex for the first time. Maybe finding friends is next.
I scanned the rest of her intake forms. She ran dance classes on Saturdays in the park and spent a not-inconsiderable amount of her former fortune buying up original Britney Spears tour costumes. And her nails were painted like little Monet lilies.
She seemed fun. This office needed fun.
So did I.
But…
Problem: I don’t have any friends.
Proposed Solution: Find some.
Test: Try befriending the new girl. She seems fun.
Could I do that? Surely one friend wouldn’t distract metoobadly from work. Besides, she would be aworkfriend. And work friends get shit done.
Look at me, engaging in some personal growth. I guess that’s just what crisis does to a person—makes them do crazy things like make friends and have sex.
