Page 120 of How To Plot a Payback

I have all the more reason to be thrilled: I received an additional email from Goodwin himself with a subject line saying “Meeting” (which, to be clear, caused a temporary panic attack), followed by a short message: “Meet me at my office tomorrow at noon. It’s time to talk salary.”

So, in many ways, I am more excited than anyone here, ready to get the Neighbors logo plastered permanently somewhere as well—specifically, onto my laptop. Or perhaps a water bottle.

But there’s Lavender.

I can’t keep my eyes off her.

Nor off the specific thing I read in her face, the thing nobody in the room seems to see: she’s disappointed. No, disappointed is the wrong word. Claustrophobic.

There’s tension at the corners of her eyes. She swallows her breath every few minutes. An unconscious tic worries her bottom lip.

Exuberant words flow from her lips only after a split second of hesitation.

These are all variations of the same thing.

And every minute I watch her, I see the feeling of claustrophobia in her grow.

She is going to go through with it.

Even though she is the woman with all the talent and the world before her—the woman who could quite literally say, “I want a new job,” and field offers for hundreds. Thousands.

Everybody wants her in their court. She could go anywhere. Do anything.

But no, it’s clear as day she’s spinning herself into a cocoon, wrapping her beautiful wings up tight around her body, drawing herself into a dark shelter, so as to please everyone else.

And it makes my chest ache.

Worse, it gives me resolve.

Paula sidles up to me, scratching the back of her head. “Cindy’s saying we ought to cut loose today. She thinks at this rate we’re just going to have to give up the day. Come back tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Whatever everyone wants,” I say distractedly, the wheels in my head whirring as I make a mental grab for courses of action that could fix Lavender’s problem. I try ideas on for size, thinking through the consequences of said actions.

Unconsciously I find the mini Rubik’s Cube in my pocket and pull it out. Begin twisting and turning it, the colors barely more than a flash in my periphery as my eyes stay on her.

“Everyone’s starting to talk about going somewhere to celebrate. Cindy wants to go to Pica Rita’s, but I told her we wouldn’t get through the door with a party this size—and Ken would kill us if he heard everyone went out to celebrate and he missed it on a sick day.”

The yellows click into place. I have a sheet of perfectly uniform yellow squares.

Kill us.

Murder.

A new idea comes to mind, entering as quietly as a mouse, and sits straight in front of my mind’s eye. I ignore it, considering other less dangerous paths.

“Do you think we ought to see about planning an official celebration?” Paula continues.

I flick through a couple of options to their logical dead ends. The mouse idea sniffs.

“PR could coordinate something. Sonya told us we could use her place under the stipulation that”—she pauses—“everyone takes off their shoes and drinks only neutral-colored liquids. Apparently she thinks we’re all toddlers who can’t hold our juice steady on her white couches. I’m game if . . .”

After a few more pale ideas whiz by to their inconclusive, undesirable ends, I finally lock eyes on the mouse and give it my attention.

And in a few moments, I know.

It’s the hard road.

There’s a 90 percent chance (and that’s generous) it’ll flop, and if it doesn’t flop outright, it’ll flop by the end, dragging me along with it.