“But those are recurring expenses, right?” Kelly asked, with timid courage. “So wouldn’t that overstate the available cash flow?”
“Technically, yes,” Rae said. “But that’s how they want us to show it.”
Kelly nodded with theI’m just the cog who needs to do what she’s toldlook Rae knew too well. “Can I ask you something?” Kelly asked.
“I know, the run-rate revenue calculation seems like an exaggeration too,” Rae said. “But that’s just industry standard for software companies.”
“It’s not about this,” Kelly said. “It’s …” She paused, adjusting her messy bun. In the months Kelly had been here, her hairstyle had devolved from sleek curls to messy buns. Rae had found her feelings toward Kelly become more friendly once her hair became as flyaway filled as her own.
“How do you have time to date?” Kelly asked. Her face pinched as she said it, like it went against all the things she’d heard about how women shouldn’t bring up their personal lives at work.
“I don’t.” Hearing how the syllables slapped the air, Rae added, “I had a boyfriend for a while. But not now.”
“Did you break up because your hours were so bad?”
“No,” Rae said, though she’d wondered many times if they’d still be together if she’d had more time to devote to him, to physically be there on his bad days. “Other reasons.”
“Oh.” Kelly stared back at the grid on the screen.
“Are you dating someone?” Rae guessed.
Kelly nodded glumly. “But it’s wrong to prioritize a relationship over a job.”
“Not necessarily,” Rae said, recalling Ellen’s insight that it was easier to find a good job than a good man. “Don’t get so lost in the weeds of work that you miss out on the trees of life.”
Kelly jotted down the advice in her notebook, and it gave Rae a melancholy sense of accomplishment.
“It’s my birthday today,” Rae heard herself announce.
Kelly’s eyes widened with that look that Rae saw around here only when people learned they’d just beaten out a competitor for a high-profile deal. “Why’re you still at the office?”
“I’m not a big birthday person,” Rae said, and it didn’t even feel like lying. “What’s your boyfriend up to tonight?”
“He cooked omelets for us. And toast!” Proudly, Kelly showed Rae a photo on her phone of scrambled eggs and charred bread, as if presenting a Michelin-star meal.
Rae smiled and flipped her tone. “Go eat with him. I’ll finish the pitch book.”
“No,” Kelly said. “I’m more junior than you, so I stay later than you. It’s the hierarchy.”
“Fuck the hierarchy. And fuck the patriarchy.”
Kelly blinked, then beamed.
“Get out of here,” Rae said. “Stale eggs are gross. Believe me, I know.”
Color surged back into Kelly’s face. “You’re the coolest boss ever.”
“I’m not technically your boss,” Rae said, though she sponged up the praise and hoped Kelly might share it with the girls in her group chat.
On her way out, Kelly stopped by Rae’s desk with a half-eaten pack of chocolate-covered espresso beans, adorned with a yellow sticky note that saidHAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
Kelly skip-sprinted out of the office, and Rae was alone on her twenty-eighth birthday in a graveyard of tombstone trophies.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
STAGNATION
“Stagnation. My life is in stagnation,” Rae told Ellen on a Thursday night in mid-November, in Rae’s apartment, which was tidy only because it was so bare. No dishes in the sink, no books on the desk, no art on the walls. “No growth.”
