Chapter 1 In Which I Compose a Presentation #2
“Very well,” he said, and in one moment his entire retinue had signed off.
“Jeff?” I asked, hoping to talk about the art packs. Silence.
With a sigh, I exited the meeting.
I really had to pee, but the second I stood up, Jeff pinged me on Teams. I answered right away.
“You need something,” he said accusatorily as soon as the call connected.
I debated saying You called me, but that wouldn’t be productive.
“How do I add more leaves to the presentation? Do we have access to leaf art somewhere?”
“How the absolute fucknuts am I supposed to know?” he snapped.
“Uh.” I didn’t have my camera on, so Jeff couldn’t see how my eyes were wide with exhaustion and stress. “I don’t know. You agreed to it, so I thought you might have an idea.”
“No, I just don’t want to deal with their moronic bullshit anymore, Miri. They’re the stupidest people I’ve ever dealt with, and that’s saying something.”
“I don’t think they’re stupid,” I said, hunching my shoulders and staring at the computer screen. The Princeling doesn’t need a human girl who can’t throw a punch to defend him went the voice in my head.
Jeff huffed. “Okay, Glinda the Good Witch.” The impassive circle bearing his initials stared back at me.
I flinched at the attempted insult but didn’t reply.
The voice in my head, which is of the dual opinions that violence solves everything and that I am bad at violence, growled.
But the voice in my head had also never felt so defensive of a client, supernatural or otherwise.
Ugh—truthfully, I’d never even thought about anyone so much outside of work before.
I tried to tell myself something magical was at play, that I was falling under some faerie spell—
Exactly the type of prejudiced bullshit I’d have called anyone else out for.
“Don’t we just need to teach them what’s normal for the industry?” I ventured, after some tense mutual silence.
Jeff snorted. “No. Just do what they want. It’s fine. Everyone who sees the presentation will know it’s because the client is a faerie, and faeries are crazy.”
This sounded like a logical fallacy. It also sounded like something he wouldn’t say in the office, where our few faerie and werewolf colleagues could hear him. The vampires would remain blissfully ignorant via the simple expedient of not coming into the office until after dark.
“Okay, but the leaves?” I prompted.
“Just google some free leaf graphics, I guess.” He sounded distracted. No doubt he was, already reading a different email.
“Okay,” I said. “Do you want to see it before I send it?”
“No, I don’t care. The whole thing is stupid.”
I rubbed my eyes. “Okay,” I said again. I felt a lump in my throat, frustration burning hot behind my eyes.
He hung up without another word.
I glanced around my living room, feeling itchy and stagnant. I desperately needed a walk but was afraid to leave the apartment, worried that as soon as I got out the door someone would call me about work.
Sighing, I opened the PowerPoint document titled Faerie Trade Goods and stared at the front page again. The entire presentation touted the sedate colors of our bank, a sea of blues in RGB (0, 0, 255) and (0, 180, 255) and (70, 20, 230).
I thought about the best way to change the presentation.
I could mock up a few slides and send them to the client, but if Jeff saw that email he’d be annoyed that I didn’t ask him to review, even though he’d just told me not to.
I could try to find a style guide for our company (the style guide does not exist; this was just stalling).
I could stuff my face with tofu noodles and then deal with another irritated lecture from Jeff when I didn’t get this done as quickly as he wanted.
With another sigh, I opened the Noun Project on my computer and searched leaf.
A bunch of black and white icons appeared.
I glanced longingly at the sliver of afternoon sunlight bravely reflecting off the windows across the street while the results of my search loaded.
Cartoon maple, clover, and ginkgo leaves filled my screen.
I probably should’ve asked for slightly more guidance from the Princeling.
Doctor Kitten mewled and hopped back into my lap. He looked as annoyed as I felt, which was kind of unfair, because he didn’t have to make any PowerPoints and his ability to sell this stupid company likely wouldn’t impact faerie-human relations for the foreseeable future.
Oh, and I still had to pee, but I couldn’t get up because Doctor Kitten had settled in for a long scratching session, and also if I got up I would possibly be pinged on Teams.
I looped my arms awkwardly over Doctor Kitten, who was smugly coating my shirt in white cat hair, and started to type.
I shouldn’t have gone out with Thea and Jordan.
I should have stayed in my musty apartment and worked.
But Thea had texted me just as I felt the phantom oozing trickles of my own brain fluid down my neck, so I’d shut my laptop and agreed to meet them at the convenient restaurant beneath my apartment.
Thea, my first absolute best friend in the whole wide world, stood waiting in the entrance, wearing her summer uniform of jean shorts and a tank top.
When she saw me, she strode across the almost steaming pavement and swept me into a hug.
“Hey,” she whispered, squeezing me until I lifted onto my toes.
I hugged her back; even just seeing her face improved my mood.
I felt someone barrel into me from behind and realized the arms of my other best friend, Jordan, had come around both of us. I sighed and sagged between them, a boneless noodle being supported by her two besties.
“Let’s eat, I’m starving,” Jordan said fervently into the back of my skull.
“Same,” Thea agreed. “I had meetings all day and had to skip lunch!”
Jordan let go of us, and then Thea and I parted. “You could’ve eaten if you’d texted the group chat less,” Jordan said, leading us into the restaurant. “No one cares about your character’s lists of attacks; this one shot is about a game show.”
I snorted.
“Jordan, I’m spending my entire Saturday playing Dungeons and Dragons with you,” Thea said. “And I don’t even like Dungeons and Dragons. So you will appreciate the effort I put into my character, even if all we do is role-play Jeopardy! as orcs.”
The host, who’d heard the end of this little tirade, hid a smirk behind one hand.
“You’re coming Saturday, right, Miri?” Jordan asked as Thea requested a table for three.
The host led us through the dimly lit low room to a booth at the back, where the worn vinyl seats and exposed brick wall waited in muted reds. I sagged into the booth and leaned a shoulder against the wall for support.
“I… don’t know,” I said, while the other two slid in across from me. I tensed up at the twinned expression on their faces: This was an intervention. I was about to be intervened. Again.
“You need to take care of yourself,” Thea said.
I tried to hide how piercing I found both her remark and her speckled hazel eyes by staring at the menu, where absolutely none of the words resolved themselves into anything recognizable.
Since this was a burger joint, that was probably a function of my currently limited brain power and not a language barrier.
“I am taking care of myself,” I muttered, toying with my ring.
“Miri, this is worse than your old government job,” Thea said. She reached across the table to hold my hands, stilling the frantic motion of my fingers. I stared at her clean, short nails and held my breath. “At least there, you were making some kind of positive difference for supernatural people.”
“Integrating supernatural folks into business is the best and fastest way to reduce prejudice,” I said, mulish. “And at least I can afford my apartment now,” I added, since one of their (fair) gripes with my last job had been the low pay.
I got the impression of a waiter from off to the left; a disembodied voice asked what we wanted.
“Grilled cheese and tomato soup,” I guessed, and that must have been on the menu because no one said anything.
My friends ordered, but I couldn’t really hear them over the buzzing irritation in my own ears.
“Miri,” Thea exhaled. “Financial services don’t make a positive impact.” She squeezed my hands for emphasis.
“In fact,” Jordan added, in the voice that meant he was being clever, “the biggest measurable impact of financial services is that you’ve missed every important life event and several fantastic romantasy books since you joined that company.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I glanced at my friends, whose twinned expressions had turned simultaneously disapproving.
“It’s work,” I said. Thea let go of my hands and propped her chin on her fist. Jordan made a face.
I yanked my phone out of my pocket. It was an email from Jeff, which had the subject line WHY AREN’T YOU ONLINE? and absolutely no other text in the body.
Wordless, I turned the phone for them to see.
“What a dick,” Jordan exploded.
“Has he never heard of dinner?” Thea asked with righteous indignation.
“I’ll get dinner to go,” I said, pushing down the guilt as I slid out of the bench seat and toward the front of the restaurant. “And pay separately.”
Before either of them could voice displeasure, I stalked away.
I finished my draft of the deck around two a.m. I stared at the cover page on my computer for several minutes, now adorned with green, leafy borders that had taken forever to format. But I was finally satisfied that this would please the Princeling.
I stayed seated at my desk, eyes scrunched shut, and wondered whether I should send it to Jeff or straight to the Princeling.
Jeff had said he didn’t want to see it, but we’d played this game before—if I didn’t send it to him, he’d likely ream me out in the morning. I pulled up a blank email and wrote:
Hi Jeff, please see attached the draft for the client. Please let me know if you want to take a turn or if I should send it over.
I attached the draft, confident that it was flawless and also that Jeff would find or fabricate some mistake.
There was nothing more to do, so I stumbled into the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash up.
I was too tired to shower, and when I got into the bedroom I flopped onto the bed, butt-up on the mattress.
I didn’t even have the energy to lie flat.
Doctor Kitten hopped up next to me and mewled, annoyed.
With a groan, I rolled onto my back, my eyes still shut. Glowing green leaves danced behind my eyelids. The conversation with my friends floated up from my subconscious to join the terrible, stupid party in my brain.
My team was the Supernaturals and Preternaturals Banking and Brokerage Group Business Development chapter of Tartarus, the fourteenth-largest financial services firm in the world.
I’d joined four months earlier to help companies with nonhuman founders and inclusive business plans raise money.
On nights like this one, it was hard to see the connection between my work and the world I wanted to build.
But business was fast, and government was slow, and I’d hoped—well, at two thirty a.m., it didn’t matter what I’d hoped.
It mattered that I got four hours of sleep.
Doctor Kitten stepped onto my stomach, making biscuits with his front paws. It hurt. I sighed and put my hand out, feeling in the darkness for his head. I scratched behind his ear until he settled on my chest. We both fell asleep on top of the covers.
My dreams were restless, full of the Princeling, broad and cold.
He sat at the foot of my bed and watched me, his green eyes glowing in the dark, just like those damn leaves.
When I kicked out, he put a hand on my ankle, holding me in place.
“Human girl,” he said. “You do not yet know what you will give me.”
I woke up exhausted, having slept through four separate alarms.