4. McCarthy #2
“And the PR princess has no concept of how much money it costs me to stand here, while she does her little dance: ‘How am I ever going to get in the car? Am I going to try and jump, even though I’m wearing ridiculously high heels and an inappropriate skirt? Will I look up at the sky helplessly and sigh then pretend like I have something important to do on my phone while I come up with no solutions whatsoever to a problem I alone have created?’”
“Hey!” Jenna snaps, cheeks flushed. “It’s hard being a woman in the corporate world. We have to do everything a man does except in a pencil skirt and high heels. ”
“You don’t have to dress like that for me, Cupcake.” I lean on the car door. “I have several software engineers who show up for work in stained animal-themed onesies.”
“Oh, really? That’s interesting in a defense company.” She makes a thoughtful hum, then she’s reaching into her enormous bottomless pit of a purse that would put Mary Poppins to shame.
“We’re going to be here forever while she tries to fish out her pen and a notebook.” I sigh. “The car, Cupcake.”
“Hmm? I have a pen in here somewhere.”
“Get in the car.”
She rests a tentative hand on the door while the dachshund tries to clamber his way to the top of my head.
I can’t take it.
“This has been such a fucking waste of my time. Who is even going to care that there’s a picture of me buying cupcakes or whatever the hell you just spent two hundred dollars on?”
“There’s a theory in public relations that—”
“Don’t care.”
I grab her bag while she protests and toss it and the box of pastries into the car. Then I drag Truman from where he’s trying to crawl down the back of my collar and toss him onto the seat. Not too hard. Those dachshunds are so inbred you have to be careful of their spines.
“Oh, he’ll eat those.” Jenna’s holding her skirt and trying to reach for the box and pull it away from the dog, who has just won the snack lottery.
“Let’s put it in the front seat so that— eep! ”
I grab the back of her dress and toss her onto the seat and climb in after her while she scolds me.
“Don’t touch people without their permission. ”
“Thought I wasn’t supposed to call people a cunt or tell them to suck my dick without permission. You can’t keep moving the goalposts, Cupcake. Sarge. Let’s roll.”
Truman hops up, back paws on the seat back, front two paws on my shoulder, the crumbs from the dessert he’d managed to steal cascading down my dark suit.
“Cupcake…”
“Next we’re going to get your photo op with the senior citizens,” she says, chattering as she fastens her seat belt.
“Your dog…”
“What’s the address, ma’am?”
“This is absurd!” I bellow.
The dog barks at his reflection in the window, spraying mushy crumbs all over my neck.
“Take me back to the office, Sarge. I’ve wasted enough time today, and—”
“The flower shop.” Jenna interrupts me while digging in the little backpack on her Stanley cup. “You’ll show up with several large bouquets, the colors will pop, and the elderly women will love getting flowers from a big handsome man. Here’s that wet wipe!”
I grimace as she reaches over to clean my cheek. “Everyone will love you.”
“This is so stupid. Can’t I just make a donation and go home?”
“People want to see your bright and smiling face.”
“You should take your shirt off, Mac,” Sarge says, smirking in the rearview mirror. “That will earn you a lot of points.”
“Shirt on, please,” Jenna says firmly.
“You sure about that?” My voice drops, and I let my gaze linger on her because I know it will make her uncomfortable. “ Is someone wishing she reconsidered my offer?” I lean in to purr into her neck.
Though it would probably be more impressive if I didn’t have a noisy dog superglued to my shoulders.
Truman licks her nose.
“Truman.” Jenna scolds him, finally wrestling her animal off me.
“The thing smells like Fritos.” I lean back. “Sarge, the office. Ignore her,” I say, ordering the driver when Jenna starts to protest.
The PR Princess is starting to panic as we head uptown.
“Bethany’s going to want me to give her an update tonight. I can’t just show her one photo of you sneering and holding a box of cookies.” Her voice has this screechy tone. “That’s not going to cut it.”
“Your eye is twitching. It’s really unattractive.”
She claps a hand to her face.
“You know,” I say, chucking Truman under his furry chin, “you really should just go find a new job now, because I would bet money that Prism is going to fire you by the end of the week. Or…” I lean over the dog. “There is still my offer.”
“I’m not sleeping with you,” Jenna hisses, holding up her notebook to block us from Sarge.
“Revolting. As if. I’d never consider it. Unlike some people in this car, I don’t have low self-esteem.”
“I don’t either!”
“You let me do what I want, I tell your boss what a fantastic job you did, you get a bonus, I get you out of my life.”
“That’s cheating.”
“It’s business.”
“Sarge, the flower shop, please,” she says .
Sarge meets my eye in the mirror.
I give him a silent headshake.
His eyes narrow. “But your brother…”
“Yes, your brother ,” Jenna says.
“I have no problem planning my own funeral. My brother isn’t going to fire me.”
Jenna’s spiraling. If I wasn’t stuck in the car with her, with my brother’s anger radiating from the Rainier Investment tower darkening the Seattle skyline, I’d relax and enjoy it.
“Sarge, I bought you a whole box of corgi-themed macarons. Please, please, pretty please take us to the flower shop?” Her hair is snarled in her face. She runs her fingers through it as we get farther away from whatever flower shop she wants.
Finally, she says, “I’m calling your brother.”
“He already thinks you can’t handle this job, or me. You want him to call up the Prism CEO and complain about your obvious incompetence?”
She fumes as I mock her.
“Guess it’s a good thing you’re about to get married to a man who clearly only tolerates you and is going to cheat on you the second you give him a baby. Because you’re not cut out for the corporate world. I hate to say it, but the truth hurts sometimes.”
“Pull over.”
The car keeps rolling.
“ Pull over, ” Jenna snarls.
“ Don’t. ” My voice carries a warning, but Sarge is already parking the car.
“I have five sisters,” he says matter-of-factly. “They use that tone? Shit’s about to go down, and I ain’t gonna be around to see it. ”
“Seriously? You did, like, five combat tours and got shot .”
The burly man shrugs a shoulder and opens the box to fish out a cookie.
“So, what?” I say to Jenna. “You made us stop because you need to go buy chocolate and tampons and cry in the bathroom?”
“Are you serious right now? You are such an asshole. Sarge, out of the car, please. Your girls are on winter break, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Why don’t you spend the next few weeks with them? I’ll handle McCarthy’s transportation.” Jenna gives him a sweet smile.
“Uh, no she won’t.”
“You lost your license, McCarthy. Someone has to drive you.”
Sarge gives me a salute and takes the cookie box.
Jenna has lost it, clearly, because instead of getting out of the car, she crawls on all fours over the center console.
I turn away, but I can still see the reflection of the dress high up her thighs as she huffs into the driver’s seat. I dump all her crap in the passenger’s seat, and it complains that the passenger isn’t wearing a seat belt.
People honk angrily as Jenna adjusts the seat. It’s a huge car. Neither Sarge nor I are particularly small. Jenna looks like a hobbit behind the wheel.
“This is fine. Everything is fine,” she says as she snaps the passenger’s seat belt in to stop the shrieking.
I take out my tablet and answer emails while Jenna stalls and fiddles with things up at the front .
“Uh-oh,” I say as I send a curse-word-laden email to Isaac. “Someone doesn’t know how to drive a stick shift.”
“I know how to drive stick,” she snaps. “Cher is a stick.”
“Who the—”
Jenna floors the gas, and the car careens into traffic, narrowly missing a delivery truck.
The dog tumbles off my shoulders. All Jenna’s stuff goes flying. I grab the dog and the tablet.
She’s messing with her phone, pressing buttons on the car’s dashboard touch screen, and honestly, I’m going to rip that fucking thing out if we make it out of here alive because Jenna needs, like, three buttons, not a whole-ass smart TV.
“Watch the road, woman!”
“I want some music.”
“Jenna… the road. There’s a fucking bus… Jenna!”
“I see it!”
The gears of the car grind.
“Fuck.”
“Language.”
“Language? Fuck, you don’t know how to drive, period. Forget stick shift.”
“Okay, passenger princess. You’re the one who lost his license.”
The car almost flips as Jenna takes a hard left. The dog looks pukey as he slides along the seat.
“Also,” she says, practically turning around to look at me while changing lanes, “what kind of billionaire loses his goddam license? My god, you just bribe a judge.”
“This is America. No one bribes people in America. Can you watch the fucking road?”
“Yes, you do. I know you write emails to your lobbyists.”
“That’s different. That’s just business. ”
The dog is barking. He sees his impending death.
I grab onto the door handle as Jenna almost scrapes the cab of a semitruck.
“He’s not supposed to be here.” She rolls down the window. “Trucks over forty tons are not allowed on downtown streets!”
“Pull over.”
“Just sit tight.”
“ Pull the fuck over, ” I bellow, grabbing the door and wrenching it open.
“Child locks, child locks!” She slams her hand on the button.
Too late.
The car is still moving when I swing out, Jenna yelling my name out the window.