Chapter 21
PITTSBURGH
JUNE 13, 2022
AGE: 35
HUMAN NATURE IS SO PREDICTABLE. JUST AS YOU ALWAYS WANT THE thing you can’t have, you only appreciate the thing you do have when you’re about to lose it. Or, as Pittsburgh’s golden boy Andy Warhol put it, “As soon as you stop wanting something, you get it.” Now that my days in Pittsburgh were numbered, I was starting to see my life in a new light. This might have explained the bounce in my step as I approached SteelHaus for one of the last times ever.
My optimism instantly vanished when I spotted Deck pecking away on his laptop, pretending to be working, hours before he usually showed up at the office. This could only mean one thing: Alice was on the scene. So much for enjoying a long lunch with Sophie at the Mexican spot that handed out unlimited guacamole. I noticed Deck had on a polo shirt and loafers with braided tassels. He always attempted to up his game when his ex-wife-boss popped by the office. He grunted to acknowledge that he saw me, but didn’t do anything drastic like say hello.
Then I saw Sophie charging across the workspace with a cardboard box in her arms. She scurried past the freelance event planners, art directors, and computer coders who toiled away in the common area. As she came toward me, I grasped the full picture. The neck of her goose lamp stuck out of the box, and mascara was running down her cheeks.
“What’s going on?” I asked her.
“We’re going bankrupt,” Sophie said. “And suddenly it’s all my fault.”
“But we’ve always been going bankrupt,” I said. “We’re a non-profit.”
“Well, she’s ‘seeing patterns,’ is what she said.”
It was hard to make out exactly what had transpired from the jumble of expletives and gasps that tumbled out of Sophie’s mouth, but it seemed that Alice showed up at the office unexpectedly that morning and picked a fight with Sophie, probably because she was still angry about not being celebrated as a Changemaker. She berated Sophie for not reporting one of Alice’s social media impersonators to the Instagram authorities last week. Sophie told me that Alice got it in her head that a vaguely fat-shaming caption on the imposter’s grid was the reason Moment left her off the Changemakers List. I started to feel guilty. Could it be possible that this was my fault, some misstep that I wasn’t even aware of making? After all, Sophie had always been Alice’s favorite. I was supposed to be the office punching bag.
“She said she’s the victim of cancel culture,” Sophie said. “And that I let her down.”
“So she canceled you? Nice.”
Sophie sniffled.
“Seriously, Soph. You’re the only one around here who gets anything done these days. How could she fireyou?”
“I have some dignity, thank you very much,” Sophie replied. “She told me I was a useless, entitled moron. Maybe I am, but I still have some self-respect. So I quit.”
“Does she not remember that I was the one who was supposed to get her on that list? That’s not your job,” I said.
“What can I say?” she said. “Rage is blind.”
“And stupid is stupid.” I sighed. Alice was always freaking out about perceived slights on social media. When a local mayonnaise brand had posted something about women’s empowerment, she’d made Sophie write to request that they tag Alice, as if our fearless leader held the trademark to first-, second-, third-, and fourth-wave feminist thought. When Sophie pointed out that a #MindTheGap hashtag was inspiring British subway riders, not American gender-equity activists, she blamed Sophie even though the campaign had been Alice’s idea.
“Alice has no memory. She’ll get over it,” I assured her, thinking of all the times she had threatened to fire me before forgetting about it. “Please. Don’t do this. We need you. I need you.”
The idea of a workplace without a friend was too much to bear. Then I remembered that I was going to be here only another few days. The quality of my work life wasn’t the priority. Sophie’s well-being was what mattered.
Sophie started for the door. “This was probably meant to be. The law firm where I used to work is opening a Philadelphia office, and I’ve been low-key talking to them about a marketing position.”
I grabbed Sophie by the arm. “Hold up. The law firm where your ex works? Roger?”
The last story Sophie had told me about Roger involved him reading all her emails and getting mad about every correspondent who was male, including her second cousin and a gay friend from college.
“You’re kidding me, right? The guy who wouldn’t let you wear lipstick if it wasn’t nude?” I stared at her. “You’re not seeing him again, are you?”
Sophie looked down and tucked a stray tendril behind her ear.
“We’ve been talking. He’s been doing a lot of teletherapy. People can change, right?”
I took a deep breath and stood there, looking at this rosy-cheeked sweetheart in cropped clothing, and wishing I could step in and undo the mistakes she was about to make. I’d heard enough about Roger to know he was very bad news, and always would be.
“Sophie,” I said. “Please reconsider. Stick around a little while. I’ll take the blame. Alice will forget everything by cocktail hour.”
She gave me a glassy-eyed stare. “I appreciate your momsplaining. But if I was going to stick around somewhere, I’m not sure this would be the place. I don’t think you get how toxic it is here.” She snuggled the box to her chest. “I’ll be in touch.”
My heart ached as I watched Sophie walk out of SteelHaus. I did get how toxic it was to remain at the foundation, but everything’s relative. Even I, the biggest failure in history, could tell that working with Roger was a bad idea for Sophie. Maybe I could take her case up with the Consortium. If Desiree could make an exception for me fifteen years too late, surely she could help a deserving non-Coleman grad.
Fired up, I barreled down the hall to Alice’s office, imagining how to begin this conversation without lashing out in red-hot anger.
There she was, Pittsburgh’s golden girl. Her flaxen hair was blown out in barrel curls and her enhanced lips were coated in pixie gloss. She gestured for me to come in. My boss was in the middle of a call, little surprise there. Talking on the phone was pretty much the only work Alice ever did.
I took a seat on one of her floral-pattern poufs and looked at my phone, pretending I was not engrossed in the conversation she was having.
“Are you coming to Ibiza?” a man’s voice sailed out of her phone’s speaker. He sounded American, but he pronounced “Ibiza” as if he were Castilian.
“Of course, babe,” she said. “I wouldn’t miss DJ Mikael’s listening party for the world.”
“You should fly with me,” he said. “There’s always space on my Gulfstream.”
“I would love to—you are such a stinking cutie!”
Alice’s life was like this, flitting from one event to another, draining her trust fund, and the foundation’s coffers, in the process. She loved to lord it all over me, but while I envied the ease with which she moved through the world, I didn’t aspire to be the type of person who bopped over to “Ibitha.”
Alice looked up and gave me the blah-blahhand gesture, her thumb and forefingers opening and closing like a bird beak, and looked at me wide-eyed, as if she couldn’t wait for this guy to shut up. But it was obvious she didn’t want him to shut up at all. He was shamelessly flirting with her, asking her about who she was dating, and bragging about his open relationship with a woman who worked “not exactly in but adjacent to” his office, whatever that meant.
“You’re going to have to slow down one of these days.” Alice’s tone was indulgent.
“I know, I know. I’ll reform. Soon.”
“Who’s the lucky lady?”
“Just this wellness maven. A total MILF. We’re doing some business together. I’m flying her to the Bermuda compound for a meeting.”
“Nobody closes a deal like you,” Alice said, forcing a laugh.
“She’s a rising entrepreneur of color. A bona fide changemaker. You should align with one of them yourself. Easy way to get some good press,” he said.
His repulsive words ricocheted around my head. MILF changemaker. Wellness maven. And the tokenizing cherry on top, the “of color” bit. It couldn’t be Geeta, could it? Anything was possible.
“I’ll take any press.” Alice gave me a pointed look. I seethed with rage.
“I’m all about diversifying my portfolio.” He managed to say “diversifying my portfolio” in a way that sounded positively pornographic.
“Don’t forget, there’s always an export tax,” Alice said. “Ciao.”
“Who was that?” I asked as she got off the call.
“An old friend, Levi Fischer,” she said.
“The SpaceFisch guy?” I asked.
“The one and only. As wild as his reputation. Maybe even wilder.” I thought about that pretty poetry major from Coleman, Lyndsey Bogatsky, regaling Leigh with stories about how Levi screamed at people in big meetings to humiliate them into submission. I wondered if she had a Memo. If I was wondering, I basically had my answer.
“A woman I know from college works at his company,” I said. And another woman I know from college might be headed to his Bermuda compound, I thought to myself.
I tried to steady my breathing and talk myself down. I was jumping to wild conclusions. There were hundreds of MILF-y tech entrepreneurs of color, possibly thousands. The chances of the person he was talking about being Geeta were small, but not zero. No matter the answer, the tone of the conversation still revolted me. That Alice considered herself to be a warrior for women was truly laughable.
“So, did you ever hear back from Moment?” she asked. She was now flipping through a magazine. “There’s got to be a way to fix their oversight.”
I told Alice that Jade, the editorial assistant, had answered me. This was not a lie; Jade had, in fact, finally written. She wanted to know who’d given me her email address. “She said she’s seeing what she can do. There might be some wiggle room,” I added, picturing Jade wiggling around the bottom of a shoe rack. “I wanted to talk to you about Sophie, though.”
She rolled her eyes. “These Gen Z-ers are cute but they’re so entitled. They aren’t tough like us.”
The word “us” made my insides clench. I did not want to be lumped into any category whatsoever with Alice.
“Is it true you called her a ‘useless, entitled moron’?” I waited for Alice to deny this, but she just laughed. “She seems to think you’re pinning the foundation’s entire financial health on her ability to police all of Instagram.”
Alice leveled her gaze at me. “Jenny, a word of advice. Have you heard of the Law of Attraction? Everything is connected. The energy you put out will be returned to you. We’re on a downward spiral. And Sophie’s clearly got other priorities. Her energy isn’t exactly helping us.”
“But I always thought you loved Sophie’s energy,” I said.
“Past tense.”
“She needs some guidance. A mentor! Feminism starts at home, right?” My voice was getting louder, and I felt an unfamiliar spike of courage. I had to stand up for Sophie. “Alice, can I let you in on a secret? Sophie’s ex-boyfriend was a really, really bad guy.”
“And.” Alice didn’t say it like a question.
“He was super-controlling. He only let her go out with friends one night a week and he gave her a curfew.” I waited for her reaction, but there was none. “He wants her to come work for him again.”
“That doesn’t sound like a brilliant idea.” Alice frowned. “And neither does meddling. Jenny, why don’t you focus on fixing your own problems?”
“If only she knew.”
Alice pulled a face. “Remind me not to order venti-size anything. I’ve had to pee all morning. Stay where you are.”
A moment after she slipped out the door, I heard a chirp, then saw that a text message had popped up on the phone Alice had left on her desk. It was from Levi.
P.S. I dreamed you and I were swimming in a fish tank. Naked.
I wanted to throw up. I sprang away from Alice’s device and repositioned myself on the pouf just in time for her return.
“On the plus side,” Alice said as the glass door to her office swung shut behind her. “Sophie quit so we don’t have to give her any severance. You know as well as anyone how we’re doing on funds.”
“But I’m on track to surpass last quarter,” I shot back.
“Our expenses have increased substantially.” Mine certainly hadn’t increased. The few receipts I had amassed were stuffed in the back of the utensil drawer in my kitchen. Maybe Deck was threatening to sue Alice again for child support. He was such an idiot for signing that prenup.
“Why don’t I set up a call with Levi Fischer?” I blurted out. “Sounds like he has more than enough money sloshing around?”
“That doesn’t mean he’s generous. I’ve tried.”
“You may have tried but I haven’t,” I said. “If I can get the funds, you will convince Sophie to come back, okay?”
Alice frowned. At least she wasn’t saying no.