Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
ASH
I rouse to someone tickling my cheek.
"Wake up, sleepy bones," Rusty drawls.
I blink several times as I try to get my bearings. We're still in the town hall meeting room, and people are starting to stand. There's a dull hum of noise as people talk to each other. I lift my head from Rusty's shoulder. I have a crick in my neck and a spot of drool coming out of the corner of my mouth.
"Well, that's lovely." I wipe my chin and face with the back of my hand. "Good thing I'm not looking for a date. Not that anyone in this town would be interested after we went up in flames."
Rusty's eyebrows tug together, and I shake off my tired stupor and my dark thoughts. Well, I try to, at least. Neither are going anywhere anytime soon. Shoot, I've hurt Rusty's feelings by lumping him in with me, by saying we went up in flames, when he didn't do anything wrong.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. You were great up there, but I couldn't convince a dying man to drink my water." I grimace just thinking about how disinterested everyone was. We’ve worked on this proposal for weeks, and our delivery was solid. The energy in the room wasn’t what I expected, though, and that threw me off. I thought I worked around it.
But it wasn't enough.
Why can't I be like Lou, who can dismantle any argument or like our friend Jane, who can sweep anyone up into her vision? My material was good! What did I do wrong that made them not like it?
Or was it just me they didn't like?
"You could convince a man who lives on the beach to get a swimming pool," Rusty says. "You were great up there. You were vibrant. Engaging. Bill's always carried a lot of weight in town, and he threw every ounce of it to convince people not to listen to you, yet you still got them to wait."
"I was scattered."
"You weren't either. Teddy and Bill are in cahoots, I guarantee it. And even together, they couldn't best you," he says. Rusty has a great voice. It's not Johnny Cash low, but it's silky and magnetic. And almost, but not quite, persuasive.
"That's nice of you to say. But I have my McLadyPants on. I can take this," I lie.
I can't take this, especially when I’m running on zero sleep.
Members of the chamber of commerce start to come over to us. At first, I'm confused why they'd vote against our proposal and then come over to chat afterwards. My head is foggy from the brief nap. But then my memory catches up with me.
Crap on a cracker.
"I don't know what you think you can do for a fishing supply store on the interwebs," Chick Parkinson says. He’s older than the hills but tougher than them, too, "But if you're looking to do free work, you may as well come in and stock shelves for me." He hoots .
Free work? I internalize my groan. Did I really promise to do a two-week social media campaign to increase tourism? For all of them?
Nearly every business owner in this room is lining up to talk to me.
What have I gotten myself into?
I don't have this kind of time! No one has this kind of time! If I never had to sleep or work my day job again, maybe I could do it.
That's what I'll have to do — stop sleeping.
Stop working on anything else.
Stop talking.
Stop doing anything else except blitzing my butt off for the next fourteen days.
How stupid am I?
Rusty mercifully takes all their names and numbers, even answering questions for me, as my brain is caught in a loop. This is a big ask. He has his own job! But I'm too grateful to stop him or to insist I can do it myself. Besides, he grew up here. It's not the same as being an outsider. A female outsider. With a streak of blue hair for fun.
Stop , I tell myself. So many people here have opened their arms to you.
Just not enough of the people in this room.
I am such a mess. This presentation should have been a slam dunk. Maybe if I were more like my friends, this wouldn't have happened. I look nice today. My blouse is crisp and my cigarette pants are professional, but even if I were neurotypical, I would still dance to the beat of my own drum. I match my streak of hair to my glasses, pants, and shoes, for Pete’s sake. I love it, but a lot of people don’t.
I usually don’t care, but then, I usually haven’t had multiple sleepless nights over a period of a couple of weeks, leading up to a crushing defeat .
Being neurodivergent has been a blessing in so many ways. Beyond my creativity—my favorite trait about myself—it’s helped me find my squad. My friends are all put together and gorgeous, yet they make me feel like I bring something unique that they love and value to the table.
And then there are the people who don’t see me that way. The ones who make me feel like I put the “atypical” in neuroatypical. Like my ex. Like my own dad.
My watch vibrates with a text.
Shoot, Mom and Greg wanted me to text them as soon as the presentation was over. They wanted to hear all about it. None of us imagined it would go up in flames like this. Mom won't see me differently, but I don't want Greg to think of me as a failure.
Rusty keeps collecting information from people and casting worried sidelong glances at me. I scrunch my nose and shrug like it's not a big deal, but he doesn't seem to buy it.
Who could?
Lou and Parker come over and crouch next to me.
"Two weeks, huh?" Parker asks, and embarrassment squeezes my throat. "That's ambitious, but we can do it."
"You can't. None of you can. We have more work than we can handle as it is. This should have been a sure thing!"
"Hey," Lou says, putting her arm on my shoulder. "Anyone with two functioning brain cells could have figured out how smart the proposal was."
"Or enough fake tanner to paint a desert," Parker says, glaring at Teddy.
"So it didn't go the way you wanted right off the bat, but it's not over. You have two weeks,” Lou says.
"What can I do for this many businesses in two weeks?"
"Pfft. You're Ashley Jane Moore. What can't you do in two weeks?" Her phone alarm rings, and she tsks. "I have to go. Auditions wait for no woman. "
"Thanks, bae," I say when she hugs me. Parker hugs me next. "You two should go. You have work. I'll figure something out."
" We'll figure something out," Lou says, and I nod like I plan to take her up on that when I absolutely do not.
Rusty keeps getting more and more information, and my brain moves a hundred miles a minute. This isn't a single account, it's dozens. A lengthy to-do list forms in my mind, but every single item fights for first place. Where do I start? Who do I prioritize ? How do I prioritize?
I look at the various people talking to Rusty — owners of businesses I don't know the first thing about — and the overwhelm hits harder and harder.
"I can't breathe," I whisper.
Rusty holds a hand up to the man he's talking to. "What? Are you okay?" he asks with a quiet urgency.
"It's too hot in here." I pull at my collar. It's too tight around my neck. Everything is too tight, too constrictive, from my glasses all the way down to my shoes. "I have to get some air."
I rush out of the room and through the hallways until I see an emergency exit. I push it, not caring if it sets off an alarm (it doesn't) because I’m suffocating. The mounting pressure is too much, too heavy. The weight of the building crushes down on me until I burst outside into the muggy, oppressively sunny day.
I undo my top button and gulp air.
What have I done?
The question plagues me as I wander from the town hall through the park and across the street. Once I'm on Maple Street, I keep walking past the buildings until I reach the riverwalk.
I walk and think and think and walk until the exhaustion of the all nighter hits and I drop to the earth.
The riverwalk is beautiful. It's something out of a movie set, and despite being just beyond the town's main street, it's a hidden gem of the entire region. I've always loved the water. Swimming, kayaking, bubble-bathing, you name it. It calms my racing thoughts more than almost anything.
And my thoughts are racing, all right. They're sprinting against Usain Bolt, and they're winning. This isn’t just a job, this is an organizational tsunami wrapped in a hurricane of priorities. And organization and priorities are my nemeses.
That’s why I ran. If I'd have stayed, I'd have lost it, and I can't do that to Rusty. He risked his reputation by being there today. I could tell how much it hurt his feelings to be called the B Team. I wince remembering the term.
It's nicer than what I heard from kids in school growing up, but it cuts just as deep.
I can't blame Teddy for calling Jane "the hot one," though. My bestie is a real life Margot Robbie. (I know Margot Robbie is a real person, for the record.)
I'm the B Team, not because I'm not pretty enough but because I'm not put together enough. Someone like Teddy looks at someone like me with the “Talk Nerdy to Me” sticker on my knockoff Stanley water bottle and starts sneezing.
Some people worry they're not enough for the people around them.
Not me.
I'm too much. Too extra. Too eccentric.
"I thought I'd find you here," a voice says from behind me.
I turn around and see Rusty, looking all cute and disheveled. He wore a button-up shirt today, and I know the act of buttoning up his flannel is as much effort as he would ever put toward his appearance if he had his way. At some point, he ran his hand through his blond hair. It had been slicked back presentably, but now part of it is flopping across his forehead. It's almost long enough to get in his eyes.
Rusty squats next to me.
"What was I thinking? "
"You were thinking you were right and the bozos in that room couldn't see it."
"But I just took on another twenty accounts! I can't possibly run an effective campaign for all of them in that time. What was I thinking? "
He puts a hand on my shoulder, and the touch is reassuring. I wouldn't break down like this in front of almost anyone, but he's seen behind the curtain, and he hasn't run yet.
No, I don't mean "yet." Rusty isn't a runner. He's the most solid, decent man I've ever known.
He's like my stepdad in that regard. Greg is the best. He accepts me for who I am.
At least, he's always acted like he does …
“Ash, it's gonna be okay," Rusty says slowly, warmly. "You want to know what you were thinking? You were thinking you have an army of people who'd follow you into battle."
"Not likely. I would never ask that? — "
"You're right, you wouldn't, and you didn't. But we’re all here anyway, and you couldn't help but know it in the moment. You didn't write a check your butt can't cash, because you've got a lot of people willing to cash it with you."
"There’s no way Carolina National Bank will allow that many butts to come in and cash checks. I'm not even sure it's legal.”
The corner of his mouth raises. "Says the girl who ran a viral abs ranking page in college."
"Exactly. It was a tummy waffles page, not a sticky buns page, if you know what I’m saying."
He grimaces. "Why are the buns sticky?"
"Ew!" I laugh and push him off-kilter. He drops his hand from my back to catch himself, and in spite of the muggy day, the loss of contact makes me shiver. I sigh, feeling my chest deflate. "What am I going to do? "
Rusty blinks quickly the way he always does when we're working on a campaign and inspiration strikes.
" We’re gonna market the heck out of this town and everyone’s gonna pick your plan. Now, can you wait here for me? I need to do something real quick." He opens his leather satchel, a gift from Tripp's grandpa when he got his first real job out of college. It's a nice satchel, but the fact that Rusty is so sentimental about a gift from his best friend's grandpa makes it downright adorable.
Rusty hands me his sudoku book and a bag of trail mix.
I frown and peek in his bag. "Oh, sure, you keep Pookie’s treats on hand, but not Ash’s?”
“It’s Prairie, not Pookie. And no. I would have to raid a second grader’s Valentine’s box to keep Ash treats on hand.”
"Um, excuse me? Fun Dip is a delicious treat for any occasion."
"If you're seven," he says.
"No, it's always good." I show him my left hand. "Someday, the man I love is going to put a Ring Pop on this finger."
Rusty's laugh shakes his shoulders, and the sight makes me smile. He doesn't laugh easily, so earning a shoulder-shaking chuckle makes me feel less doom-spirally.
His warm hazel eyes hold mine. "I'll be back in ten minutes. And then we're gonna figure this out. You with me?"
A smile finds its way to my lips. "I'm with you."