Chapter Eight
The mood on the drive back to the office is…mixed, to say the least. Our group’s joy at getting the support of local businesses is muddled by confusion as to why I would pledge money we don’t have.
As Randy pulls out of the parking space, I see him eye me in the rearview mirror, but he doesn’t speak.
Marina does.
“What was that ?” she asks sharply, turning to face me. We’re tucked in the back seat of the minivan, and when she speaks, four sets of eyes—Tessa and Arun in the middle row, Jen in the passenger seat, Randy through the rearview mirror—fall on us. “Where’s that money coming from?”
“I—” I shake my head. “We needed vendors. Now we have vendors.”
“Not if we can’t come up with the money.”
“We will.” I fiddle with the strap on my seat belt.
“Ryser is worth billions of dollars. In the communications department alone, our budget is…ridiculous,” I say, thinking about the money Amanda has been willing to shell out for splashy ad campaigns, unnecessary AI tools no one knows how to use, Bill .
“You don’t work there anymore, dear,” Jen reminds me.
“I know.” My voice comes out small, unsure. I play with a button on the sleeve of my blazer, trying to think. “Arun, how much would we need? How much does it cost to throw a festival, if we can’t rely on vendor fees?”
Arun lets out a low chuckle. “If you want the most ballpark of ballpark figures, I would say a bare minimum of at least ten thousand dollars.”
My breath leaves my lungs in a subdued sigh. “Oh.”
“We still have our claims budget,” Tessa offers, which makes me perk up a little.
“I’m saying ten thousand in addition to the claims budget,” Arun says.
“Oh,” I say again.
“You could do it for cheaper,” he says. “But…it would be a much smaller festival.”
“Maybe we go smaller,” Marina says, staring at her hands in her lap. “Some tourists are better than none, I guess.”
Scaling down feels wrong. This festival is supposed to generate excitement, bring people to Greenstead, save the community center. It’s supposed to be big enough to make Amanda take notice.
“No,” I say. “We’ll get the money. Just…
let me think about it.” Tessa and Arun exchange a doubtful glance as they face forward, but I don’t dwell on it.
Ryser pulls in revenue by the billions. There has to be a way to convince them to allocate a drop of their profits to their charity division.
Charity does wonders for PR, doesn’t it?
My phone vibrates in my pocket, the triple-pulse notification I’d set for work emails. Out of habit, I pull it out and check my email.
Announcement: Massage Mondays are back!
My shoulders slump. I’m so glad the DC office is living it up while we’re packed in a van sulking over a festival we may never get off the ground. If anyone could use a massage, it’s us.
I scroll through the rest of the unread emails that came in while I was distracted with festival planning today. Nothing from Amanda, as usual. Just another slew of DC office alerts.
Leftover sandwiches on 12
Reminder: All fridges will be cleared on Friday
Don’t forget! Ryser Inspire Awards Night happening tomorrow!
At first, my eyes gloss over them all, these reminders of more things I’m missing out on.
The Ryser Inspire Awards were pretentious and self-congratulatory, but I still went every year.
Mostly because Amanda encouraged attendance and I thought showing up might increase my chances of getting a promotion—or winning an award myself.
At least the food was a highlight, plentiful and delicious.
I must have eaten at least six truffle risotto balls at last year’s event, not to mention half a plate of mini fruit tarts from the dessert bar.
But I’m not part of the DC office anymore. Although…
I double-click the email, scroll through it.
What’s stopping me from showing up anyway?
It’s not my fault they’ve forgotten to take me off the DC email list. I submitted my RSVP two months ago when the invitations went out. I can still show up, can’t I?
I think back to awards shows past, which were always held at a hotel a few blocks over from the office.
Someone in HR mans the doors, checking names off a list. My name would probably still be on there.
The demotion was only recent. I could talk to Amanda, remind her I exist, tell her about the festival and its value for PR, ask if she can allocate some money from the communications budget toward the festival. It’s not begging; it’s strategizing.
My heart flutters with hope. This isn’t over yet.
“I know how to get the money,” I announce. “I’m going to the Ryser Inspire Awards tomorrow.”
Tessa tosses me a skeptical look. “Are you invited to that?”
“I was . Before the transfer. They probably haven’t taken me off the list.”
“What are the Ryser Inspire Awards?” Marina asks reluctantly.
“Bullshit,” Tessa says, just as Arun says, “Really good coconut shrimp.”
“I don’t remember any awards coming with ten thousand dollars,” Randy chimes in from the front.
“No, but I can talk to my boss and try to convince her to divert some money from her budget. It would be good PR.”
“Good PR is all Ryser cares about,” Marina mutters. I ignore her.
“I feel bad that you’re going on your own,” Jen says. “I feel like one of us should go with you.”
“That’s okay. I’m fine.”
I hold back from admitting how excited I am at the thought of getting in some face time with Amanda after the brick wall of silence I’ve gotten from her.
I’ve sent her a few emails over the last couple of weeks, sharing some thoughts and ideas about campaigns I was working on at the time of the elevator incident.
Those emails all went unanswered. But she’ll have to acknowledge me when I’m there in person.
Surely things have subsided now that Dan’s had some time to calm down.
Amanda will see me there looking cool, collected, and capable, and she’ll ask herself how she could have ever let Dan demote me.
“Why don’t we go?” Arun suggests. “All of us?”
My eyebrows shoot up. “All of you?”
The image I’d conjured in my head of impressing Amanda did not involve the entire Ryser Cares office trailing after me.
I picture Arun stuffing coconut shrimp into the pockets of his swim trunks, Tessa sarcastically slow-clapping for every award winner, Jen dancing a bit too enthusiastically to the music, Randy hiding behind the curtains to read.
Not to mention the logistics of trying to scrounge up invitations for four extra people.
Tickets run out quickly—even if the awards are dull, free food and an open bar go a long way.
If anyone hasn’t submitted an RSVP by the deadline, the tickets become available for plus-ones so people can bring their spouses.
“Yeah,” Arun says. “Jen’s right; you shouldn’t have to go alone. Weren’t you just telling us earlier today that we should stop being afraid of things?”
Damn him for using my own inspiring words against me.
“Yes,” I admit.
“I’m not sure I’m afraid of the Ryser Inspire Awards,” Tessa says. “Afraid of how boring they are, maybe.”
Arun gives Tessa a playful shove with his shoulder. “You know what I mean. Not the awards, but…being back there, around our old bosses. The people we failed in front of. The people who told us we’re screwups and sent us to Greenstead. We have to face them sometime, don’t we?”
“Not if we don’t want to,” Randy mumbles.
“But maybe we need to,” Arun says. “We’d have a better shot at getting the money if we all split up and ask our old department heads for it, right? Five chances are better than one.”
And now he’s weaving math into his argument. It’s hard to argue with the cold, hard logic of numbers. I stay silent, waiting for someone to disagree.
“That’s true,” Jen says. “We might even have a better chance than Lauryn. Not that I don’t think you’ll do a wonderful job,” she adds, turning to face me, “but it’s been years since we were transferred. Our…mishaps…won’t be as fresh in everyone’s minds.”
No counterarguments, just more logic. Wonderful.
“You’re in?” Arun asks her.
“I am,” Jen says. “Randy?”
Randy sighs. “Fine.”
Now Arun and Jen turn their eyes on Tessa, who groans. She sweeps her microlocs back and releases them, letting them cascade over her shoulders as she thinks. “Most of those people haven’t seen me in almost five years.”
“I know.” There’s a gentle understanding in Jen’s expression.
“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” Arun says.
“Maybe it would be good, if I go. The longer I go without seeing them, the more I’m gonna feel like I’m…
hiding. I don’t want to hide.” She tosses a glance toward Marina and me in the back seat.
“I transitioned after I was transferred to Greenstead. No one at the DC office has seen me since. But…they should,” she decides, turning to Arun with a decisive nod.
Arun beams. Jen bursts into quiet applause. I selfishly think it’s rather annoying that Tessa has given me yet another reason why I can’t say no to bringing four extra people to the awards night.
“Are you coming?” Arun asks Marina.
I have to suppress a sigh. Another party crasher, sure. So Marina can judge me and my employer some more.
“Me? I don’t work for Ryser.”
“Yeah, but you could be our Greenstead representative,” Tessa says, inspired. “Our secret weapon. You could talk about the community center, why Greenstead needs the money—”
“A few tears wouldn’t hurt,” Arun adds.
“And they’d have to say yes,” Tessa finishes.
“Plus the food is awesome,” says Arun.
Marina laughs. “I don’t know.” But she’s smiling, clearly interested in the idea. Slowly, almost self-consciously, her gaze falls on me. Like she’s waiting for me to weigh in, expecting me to say no.
I could say it’s not a good idea. I could point out the logistical nightmare of sneaking yet another person—a nonemployee, no less—into a stuffy awards ceremony.
But there’s a spark of interest in her eye.
Arun seems to have his heart set on all of us going as a unit.
Or…team? Are we all a team, Marina too? Despite the distance between Marina and me, we did still spend the day working on the presentation together.
We did all show up to the Chamber of Commerce and convince a room of business owners to exhibit at our festival.
And though I’ve only been at Ryser Cares for a week and a half, I do feel a strange sense of camaraderie with these people that I’ve never felt with the communications team I’ve worked with for the last decade.
We just might be a team. And teams leave no man behind.
“The food is really good,” I say, glancing at Marina. “You should come.”
Marina breaks into a shy smile. “Okay. I’ll come.”
Arun lets out a cheer. The conversation turns to what time we’ll head out tomorrow, how we’ll get there (Randy volunteers to drive), what persuasive strategies to employ to ask our old colleagues to finance the festival.
The initial thrill I feel at making them happy is quickly replaced by the same trepidation that’s been building inside me for the last few minutes.
I chew on the inside of my lip and stare out the window. Sneaking my ex–best friend and a gaggle of self-professed screwups into a swanky event is a long shot. And I have less than twenty-four hours to hatch a plan for how the hell to pull this off.