I make myself a promise as Molly goes over the particulars. Visionary Wunderkind and all their entrepreneurial experience be damned. I’m the one who’s going to make this vertical shine like the fucking sun.
CHAPTER THREE
On the way to my cubicle, the vibration of my phone, buried deep inside my black Michael Kors tote (another sample sale find; one handle strap was cut clean through, but I superglued it back together), announces a text. As I walk into the Hive—my affectionate nickname for the cubicles sitting outside our chief financial officer’s glass office—I’m thankful no one up here besides my own boss knows I interviewed for something else.
Fari, my work counterpart, looks up from her desktop as I stroll past. “Morning, Case.”
“Morning,” I reply as I settle into my swivel chair.
Fari is two years younger than me, Black, a three-months-ago Stanford grad, and originally from Seattle. We have the same job title, but since I’ve been with LC for two years longer, our boss likes to call me her mentor.
I’m pretty sure Fari hated me at first, which tracks, because my best friends have told me I don’t make great first impressions. In Fari’s defense, on her first day of work, I grilled her in what I cannow see is a bizarre way about Washington’s native horticulture. It’s just that I’d never met anyone from Seattle before, and I’ve got this book from my stepdad where you try to collect a native flower from all fifty states and press them onto a page. Fari semireluctantly brought me a snowberry flower when she came back to New York after her mom’s birthday weekend, and I did all her accruals that month.
Two months later, we’re sort of friends now. She came around to the fact that I’m just really into plants.
“Guess what?” I say.
“What?”
I throw her a grin. “Molly and Don got accruals pushed to Accounting.”
Her mouth drops into a perfect O. “I almost feel bad for them,” she mutters.
“Almost,” I repeat.
“We paid our dues.” She nods to herself. “It’s their rightful turn to wrestle with accruals.”
My tote bag lands on my desk with athunk,and when I pull out my phone, there’s a text from my roommate, Miriam. She threw Brijesh in the chat, too.
How’d it go?
I blow out a dramatic breath.Of courseBrijesh already texted her that I was hearing back about the job this morning.
I made the B-team,I type back.They gave the job to someone else, but I get to do finance stuff for BTH. Consolation prize.
Miriam’s response comes through right away:dang, sorry. Better than the bench tho, right?
I tilt my head from side to side in consideration.Right,I send back.
We could just kill whoever got the job,Brijesh sends.
A laugh slips out of me, but I cover it with a cough. Fari gives me a weird look, but I brush off the question in her eyes and take a sip of my stale Diet Coke from yesterday.
My cubicle is a wreck, but what else is new? I keep myselftogether just fine—clean hair, fresh clothes, charged phone, enough sleep to get me through the day—but the caveat is everything around me remains in a constant state of chaos. Pink sticky notes litter my whiteboard. The trash can, which gets scooped only once a week (on Wednesdays) by the Facilities department, is already overflowing with take-out containers. Highlighters, notebooks, report printouts, and cups of various beverages blanket my desk—including a half-dredged coffee mug that saysBITCH I MIGHT!
On the corkboard between our desks, Fari and I have erected a physical meme wall.Be strong, I whispered to my Wi-Fi signalis superimposed over the Wi-Fi logo with one bar. On a workplace translation guide:Per my last email = Can’t you fucking read?There’s even a picture of our CFO Tracy Garcia with a thought bubble coming out of her head:I dream of EBITDA <3.(Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization. Duh.)
My gaze catches on the dusty, framed photo of me and Dad, shoved behind my double-monitor setup. In it, we’re lounging in beach chairs on the coast of the Florida Panhandle.
God, I really need to call him back.
I’ve only just booted up my computer to check through morning emails when Don materializes beside my desk, frazzled as always. He never fails to remind me of a suburban dad who gets roped into coaching his son’s peewee soccer league every year. I’m pretty sure he’s in his midthirties, but he’s nearly bald already. Not sure if the job has anything to do with that.
Don sits on the plastic stool I bought from Target just for him. (Before, he would kneel by my chair, which always made me feel like he was about to propose.) On a winded exhale, he says, “I need you to do that thing where you make the data beautiful.”
My lips purse into a smirk. “What data?”
“Just shot you an email. Last-minute meeting with the big boss in twenty minutes.” He shakes his head. “She loves the way you make numbers look.”
