3. Emma
3
Emma
“ W hite water rafting in the Grand Canyon. Mountain biking in Moab. Surfing in California. Spelunking in Oregon. And then a five-day backcountry hike in Yellowstone.” I read off my itinerary to Margot over drinks at the bar across the street after work.
“What’s spelunking?” Margot asks.
“It’s like purposely falling ass first into a dark cave. I looked it up.”
She scrunches up her nose and frowns. “Who would actually want to do that?”
“Garrett North, apparently.”
“Have you told him that this isn’t really your thing?” Margot asks.
I tilt my head into a doubtful glare and make a sweeping motion over my dress, which I made from scratch this weekend while binging The Great British Bake Off with my cat and ordering take-out so I wouldn’t be forced to leave the cozy confines of my apartment. “Do you think that really needs to be said? Even if it did, do you honestly think Garrett would listen?”
Margot takes a small sip of her wine and presses her lips together like she’s mulling something over before saying it out loud. “What if you told him?” she asks eventually. Her voice grows even quieter when she clarifies, “You know, about what happened at camp when you were a kid?”
Shifting uncomfortably in my seat, I shake my head. Margot is one of very few people who know that story. And no, I don’t want to add Garrett North to that list.
“I have no desire to tell him about the time that I fell into a ravine at summer camp and broke my arm.” I try to laugh but don’t quite pull it off. It may sound like a funny story, but it’s actually not. “I doubt it would make any difference to him anyway,” I add.
Margot gives me a sympathetic smile and drops it. She knows I’m right. Garrett absolutely would not care that most of my childhood trauma boils down to one very horrible camping trip. Besides, it’s not my fear of camping that worries me so much as my crippling anxiety about spending the next few weeks practically living with a man I hate.
“Maybe it won’t be so bad,” Margot says.
I huff out a laugh. “Easy for you to say. You’re friends with your boss.”
“Yeah, but Ethan’s friends with everyone. He’s the nice brother.”
“True, but it’s different between the two of you. You guys have that thing going on…”
“What thing?”
“You know…a thing, a spark.”
“There’s no spark,” Margot says with a dismissive laugh and a wave of her hand, as if she’s trying to bat the thought away. “Ethan is just easy to get along with. He’s no different with me than with anyone else around the office. Plus, I’m crazy about Jeremy. You know that.”
I do know that Margot is fiercely loyal to her boyfriend, so I smile and nod. A small sip of my vodka tonic washes the objection off the tip of my tongue. Truthfully, I’m happy for Margot as long as she’s happy, but I can’t shake the feeling that something’s off about her boyfriend, Jeremy.
Margot is right about Ethan though. Despite all of their weird conversations and laughing fits, I’ve never witnessed anything remotely flirtatious or salacious between them.
One time, I walked in on them calculating how many penguins each citizen of Ireland would have to fight if Antarctica staged a hostile takeover. The answer, apparently, is three million.
Another time, they were both laughing to the point of tears about cheese. What about cheese? I have no idea. Whenever either of them tries to explain, they start laughing so hard again that they’re rendered speechless.
I’ve never seen them flirt. I don’t think it’s even occurred to either of them. They’re perfectly happy to just count penguins and laugh about cheese together.
“So, when do you leave?” Margot asks, redirecting the conversation.
“Monday. I figured it’s best to just get it over with,” I sigh. “Can you check on Purrnando while I’m gone?”
“Not a chance,” Margot shakes her head with a mischievous smile. “If you’re leaving me for three whole weeks, I’m kidnapping your cat and bringing him over to my place.”
“I’m sure he won’t object to that,” I laugh.
Working for True North hasn’t been all bad. Without this job, I never would have become best friends with Margot, and she never would have become best friends with my cat.
Just when I thought things couldn’t get much worse, Tuesday comes along and proves me wrong.
Garrett is in one of his moods. That man will never win any awards for his sparkling personality, but some days are far worse than others.
I have a theory that Garrett’s bad moods directly correlate to his diet. Eating the same grilled chicken with broccoli and brown rice for lunch every day would bum anyone out. Unfortunately for the rest of us, Garrett would rather stomp around the office like a donkey with a cactus stuck to its ass than admit that maybe his diet is an unsatisfying nothing-burger.
That’s where I come in.
Early on, I learned that a little bit of sugar goes a long way in taming my beast of a boss. He would never ask for it. He won’t even acknowledge it. But whenever Garrett’s mood soars from his baseline level of grump to full-fledged asshole, I make an extra stop at the bakery during my lunch break and buy two warm, gooey chocolate chip cookies. One for me, and one for Garrett. Then, without a word, I set the cookie on his desk and cross my fingers that he’ll eat it and let the sugar work its magic. So far, I’ve had a one-hundred percent success rate.
It's not kindness. It’s self-preservation.
I’ll gladly spend two dollars every couple of weeks in exchange for a more tolerable version of Garrett.
We never speak of it. I know the minute I say anything out loud, the objections will start flying. Garrett would say that he doesn’t like cookies. That he doesn’t eat sweets. That he’s the devil incarnate and can only properly digest tequila and hellfire.
When Garrett snaps at me during our morning meeting over a tiny problem that I took care of weeks ago, I know that today is an emergency cookie day.
Unfortunately, there are some problems that cookies can’t solve, and today is rife with them. While I’m walking back to the office from the bakery down the street, my phone rings. I dig it out of my purse and see my mother’s name lighting up the screen. A familiar sense of dread claws at my stomach. After years of therapy, I’ve learned to deal with her, but I just don’t have it in me today. I decline the call with a heavy sigh and anxiously await her angry voicemail, which pops up on the screen a minute later.
I stare down at the screen for a few seconds, debating whether to listen to it or not. Might as well get it over with, I guess.
As soon as I type in my passcode, my mother’s shrill voice pierces my eardrum. I wince and pull the phone a few inches away from my face as she launches into a tirade about my poor sister who can’t seem to find any bridesmaid dresses that suit her very specific needs. My mother begs, then demands, that I reconsider making the dresses myself.
“She’s your sister,” my mother chides. “This is the most important day of her life. Don’t be selfish, Emma.”
With that, my mother disconnects the call – or at least, she tries to. While she’s fumbling with the buttons, I hear her and my sister discussing how difficult I’m being. My mother can’t believe I outright refused to adhere to her batshit cabbage soup diet until the wedding so that I don’t look chubby next to the other bridesmaids. As if I would ever willingly subject myself to that soup again. The childhood memory of it sits bitterly in the corners of my mouth as I continue to listen to the accidental recording. My sister, Keri, agrees that I’m definitely going to look chubby next to her and her friends then continues to whine to our mother about my refusal to make her bridesmaid dresses.
I’m not sure how many times I need to explain that I don’t have the time or the space in my small apartment to make eight very elaborate bridesmaid dresses from scratch. All for a woman who barely speaks to me. My sister and I have never been close, not as kids and certainly not now. I’ve tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. Being my mother’s golden child undoubtedly came with a lot of pressure. I excused my sister’s bad behavior for years, writing it off as a byproduct of her upbringing. But as the years passed, I realized that I was wrong – Keri is just an awful person.
I shove my phone back into my purse and step into the lobby of my office building. My heels click a little harder than usual across the marble floor as I make my way to the elevator and press the button. By some small miracle, the elevator is empty and I find myself with a moment of solitude, a rare occurrence in True North’s bustling ten-story office building. Leaning against the rear wall, I tilt my head back and blow out a deep, calming breath.
But it’s not that kind of day. I should have known better than to think I would be afforded a single moment of peace.
Long, rough fingers wrap around the elevator door just as it’s about to close, obviously intent on prying them open with brute force if the sensors fail to do their job.
The doors begin to part, and I shoot an annoyed glare at the culprit.
It’s Garrett.
Of course, it’s Garrett.
As usual, he acknowledges me without actually looking at me. It’s an almost imperceptible movement of his chin that says, ‘I know you’re here, but I don’t really care.’ His eyes linger on the bag of cookies for a split second then snap back to the phone in his hand.
I almost offer him the cookie, but then I remember the first rule of cookies: we don’t talk about cookies.
The doors close, leaving Garrett North and I alone in a small elevator full of uncomfortable silence. After eleven months of working together, we should be able to muster up ten floor’s worth of polite conversation.
But surprise, surprise – we don’t.
When the doors open on the top floor, Garrett hangs back and lets me exit first. I’m not sure if he’s being polite or just too busy staring at his phone to realize that the elevator stopped moving. My money’s on the latter.
I walk back to my desk with Garrett on my heels. His presence looms large behind me. The thud of his shoes against the low-ply office carpet makes me walk a little faster than usual, assuming that he’ll gladly trample me if I slow down.
When I reach my desk, Garrett pauses there as well.
“I let Taylor know that you’ll be stopping by this afternoon to get some clothing and supplies for the trip,” Garrett says. “Make sure you take care of that today.”
I nod stiffly at him.
Garrett takes another quick glance at the bag of cookies before retreating to his office.
Perfect. Just what I was hoping to do this afternoon: wiggling in and out of spandex clothing with Taylor, the relentlessly perky head of the clothing division.
The bag of cookies beckons to my weary soul from across the desk. I pull one out and set it on a napkin, breaking off small, dainty pieces instead of cramming the whole thing in my mouth like I’d prefer as I catch up on emails.
An incoming message from Taylor chimes on my screen: Hey! Garrett told me about your trip. If you send me your sizes, I’ll pull some items that I think might work.
Most of the time, I’m pretty comfortable with my weight, but discussing my size over company email sends a ripple of anxiety through my chest. I clench and release my hands once before responding.
Thanks, Taylor. I’m not very familiar with our women’s clothing sizing. Would you mind if I just stopped by in a bit?
The only thing I’ve ever used my employee discount to purchase from our stores was a nice reusable water bottle, which I ordered online. I have no idea how women’s athletic clothing is sized, or whether our brand runs small or large. It’s hard enough to shop for regular clothing without having to factor in spandex and drawstrings and cargo pockets.
Shopping for clothing has always been difficult for me. When I was little, my mother would take my sister and I back to school shopping every year. And every year, I needed a larger size than my older sister. Keri took after our maternal side of the family with a petite frame and delicate appetite. Everything looked good on her, and our mother loved to spoil her with expensive and trendy clothes.
I, on the other hand, took after my dad – big boned and sweet toothed – much to my mother’s dismay. After several failed attempts to slim me down using diet shakes, cabbage soup, and a very questionable assortment of pills and powders, she eventually gave up. Instead of cute, trendy clothes, I got baggy jeans and t-shirts from an outlet store on the outskirts of town.
When my parents finally split up and I went to live with my dad, the first thing I asked for in my new room was a sewing machine. My grandma taught me how to use it properly, and soon enough, I had a whole new wardrobe of cute clothes that fit me perfectly. To this day, I make way more clothes than I buy for myself. Ideally, I would like to use that talent to work for a designer who specializes in mid-to-plus-sized clothing.
Being mid-sized and pear-shaped comes with a unique set of challenges. I can squeeze into a regular sized pair of jeans with a bit of sucking in and hopping around, but I’ll spend the rest of the day in agony with the waistband carving a deep red line in my stomach. Plus-sized clothing, on the other hand, makes some very bold assumptions about my ability to properly fill out a top.
Another email from Taylor pops up on my screen: Sure thing! Stop by whenever.
After I finish the cookie, I make my way down to the third floor and knock on Taylor’s office door. She waves me in with a bright smile and wastes no time leading me to the storeroom at the end of the hallway.
Taylor and I don’t know each other very well. Garrett has never taken a big interest in the clothing division, so I rarely schedule meetings between the two of them or need to reach out to her for clarification on anything.
Seeing her now though, I can’t help but imagine that Taylor is the type of woman Garrett probably dates. Perpetually dressed head-to-toe in high-end athleisure wear, she seems equally ready to start jogging or brunching at a moment’s notice. Her hair and makeup, on the other hand, look like she just stepped off a photoshoot. Her heavy-handed application of highlighter gives her skin a newborn dolphin glow, while her winged eyeliner and pointy acrylic nails give off strong feral cat vibes. Even her ponytail is sleek and polished, her caramel highlights bouncing in perfect unison as I follow her into the storeroom.
“So, as far as sizing goes,” Taylor says, turning to flick her eyes down to my waist and hips, “our clothing tends to run a little small. What size do you normally wear?”
“Um, maybe an extra-large then?”
Taylor nods as if she agrees and leads me back to a rack of gray hiking pants. She flips through the hangars, eventually pulling out a pair of pants and handing them to me. I hold them up to see if they might work.
They’re small.
Like, really small.
I check the tag, and yep…it says XL in big, bold letters.
“Oh, you weren’t kidding,” I say, trying my best to laugh it off. “These do run small. Do you have them in a larger size?”
Taylor winces sympathetically. “Sorry, that’s the largest size we carry. Maybe we can try a different style. Something with a little more stretch.” She takes the pants from my hands and returns them to the rack.
The next few items she hands me are equally undersized. Normally, I wear a size fourteen or sixteen in pants, so it’s a little surprising that an extra-large – the equivalent of a size sixteen to eighteen – doesn’t even come close to fitting me. It’s equally surprising that True North doesn’t offer extended sizes, considering that most clothing retailers are moving toward more inclusive sizing these days. Maybe Garrett’s hands off approach to our clothing division isn’t doing the company any favors.
“You know, I don’t think any of these are going to work for me,” I tell Taylor, handing back the pile of clothes that she’s chosen for me. I can tell she’s getting flustered, and honestly, I am too. “I think I can probably manage with the clothes I have at home.”
“Are you sure?” she asks. The flash of relief in her eyes is at odds with her disappointed tone.
No, I’m actually certain that I don’t own a single article of clothing that’s appropriate for this trip.
“Yeah,” I lie in a cheery tone. “I’m sure I have something that will work, but I appreciate your help.”
Taylor beams a smile at me and nods. I turn to leave before my anxiety over this whole situation gets the better of me.
Back at my desk, my concentration is shredded. Not only was that ordeal mildly humiliating, but now I have to buy an entirely new wardrobe before we leave in less than a week. A quick peek at a few of our competitor’s websites assures me that they offer better sizing options. Then I notice the prices. My eyebrows shoot up to my hairline and a curse word tumbles out of my mouth.
Without thinking, I grab the cookie that’s sitting on my desk and take a big bite. I’m almost done with it when I realize what I’ve done.
I’ve eaten Garrett’s bad mood cookie.
That wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the fact that he’s already seen me with the bag and is expecting a cookie to magically appear on his desk at some point this afternoon. Stress eating has always been an issue for me. Being forced to explain that to Garrett, of all people, makes my stomach churn with regret.
Luckily, the first rule of cookies is: we don’t talk about cookies.
I can only hope that today isn’t the day that Garrett decides to break the rules.
Half an hour later, the familiar sound of Garrett’s footsteps draws near and stops just short of my desk.
“Will you email Frank’s assistant and get a copy of her notes from today’s meeting for me?” he asks.
“I’ll do it right now,” I say, closing my web browser and opening a blank email.
Garrett pauses and glances at the empty space behind my desk on both sides of me. Apparently, he was expecting a mountain of shopping bags. He runs a hand over the scruff on his jaw before speaking.
“Did you go see Taylor?” he asks.
I nod without looking at him, as if I must summon all of my concentration to compose a simple email.
“So, you’re all set for next week then?” he presses impatiently.
“Yep,” I chirp back at him.
This is usually when Garrett would retreat to his office, but when I glance up, he’s still standing there looking slightly confused. He glances at the spot on my desk that previously held a bag of cookies then to the empty corner of his desk where I usually set his cookie.
Something wells up inside of me. Annoyance. Anger. Embarrassment.
“I ate it,” I snap at him. Heat creeps into my cheeks as I wait for a response that doesn’t come. Instead, Garrett simply clears his throat, nods once, and walks off toward his office.