41
When we emerge into the sunlight, I take as many photos for Mom as I can—selfies of our reflections in the Gucci window, in the Prada window, multiple views of the street. Mark Winterson humors me and snaps a tourist picture of me flashing a peace sign in front of Saint Laurent. When he hands my phone back, chuckling, he says, “One day you’ll get used to this,” and goosebumps rise on the back of my neck.
He laces his fingers between mine and tugs me into one of the boutiques, the kind I always felt too nervous to enter. It makes me think of watchingPretty Womanon the couch with Mom while she folded laundry, bowl of popcorn on the coffee table in front of us. She loved that movie, watched it again and again.
And now Mark Winterson is leading me around a fancy clothing store, and a saleswoman wearing a matching black knit skirt and top with white piping approaches us. “Mr. Winterson, pleasure to see you again,” she says brightly, and I wonder how many of the girls with contracts in their inboxes—nullifiedexcept for clauses one, four, and five—he’s dressed for an event before.
“Please,” he says, chortling. “Call me Mark. Mr. Winterson is my father.”
I raise a finger. “Could I use your restroom?”
When I get inside, I realize this has to rank among the nicest bathrooms I’ve ever been in: bright tile, mood lighting, sleek wooden end table with a diffuser sitting on it. Wait, is that…a TKCORP aroma diffuser?Maybe my copy worked on someone!
My head is spinning, running back the events in the copy room. Mom can see Zoom. She got into the Xerox machine and the security cameras somehow. What else does she have access to?
I sit on the closed toilet seat and write:
ruby.ocampo:
When you said it would be better for me to date Sam from Sales because he makes more money—how did you even know that?
sampaguita72:
I can see it
ruby.ocampo:
What do you mean?
sampaguita72:
I noticed it
I was trying to tell you and Wendy! You don’t listen!
In here there are all these long hallways and doors and more and more rooms, and I get bored sometimes, go walking
And in one room—you wouldn’t believe it
Everyone’s pay information! Right there in one place!
I can just picture how her eyes would light up at gossip this juicy.
And this means…maybe, theoretically, she could be the key to finding something on Mark Winterson. Something that could help the union, if I ever work up the nerve to ask her.
It’s not like it was easy to ask her for help in life, to begin with—and how could I explain what I’m doing and shatter this illusion for her?
And what if a Slack admin sees?
Until this moment, I thought if someone peeked into the haunted DM, they’d think I was crazy—that I’d created a bot with my mother’s personality as an elaborate coping strategy, maybe. But now I’m tripping over into breaking some serious company data-policy rules.
I guess we can start with that problem first.
I open Signal, panic growing between my ribs, and start writing to Greg.
Ruby:
i just realized my mom has access to all the company systems
