Chapter 4
Chapter
I must be losing it. When I search for the screenshots on my work computer the next day, they’ve vanished. And when I pull up the photos on my phone, they’re so shaky and blurry, they don’t look like anything at all.
Did I imagine it? I’m thinking about Mom so much, hearing her voice in my head, now it’s manifesting in Slack-based hallucinations? Maybe this is a sign of a psychotic break. I do some frantic Google searches for symptoms before I catch myself and close the tab.
It’s fine. I’m sure it will pass on its own. I’ll handle it the way I deal with most unsettling things in life: I’ll ignore it.
But I’m nervous about using Slack, so I avoid it as much as possible. I answer DMs only by punting to some other form of communication.
Oh can you email that to me?
Sure let’s hop on a quick call!
Oh yes I’ll text you that real quick.
Do you have a fax machine by any chance? hahaha kidding (unless you do though)
At one point, Erica shoots me a pointed DM reprimanding me for being unresponsive in the public channels.
“Well?” Erica says, suddenly beside my cubicle even though she just messaged me.
Jesus! Extremely unnerving, when she does that.
She starts to walk away but glances back like I’m supposed to follow her. “Come on, you’ll be late for our eleven o’clock.”
What is this meeting, again? I pull up the email on my phone and nearly eat shit after I stumble into an errant wastebasket someone left in the aisle.
Oh, hello! It’s a meeting with the new Associate VP of Sales, Marketing, and Customer Experience. He’s getting together a bunch of teams that roll up to him so he can get to know our workflows and processes.
I take a seat at the conference table, and Sarah settles next to me. She’s wearing a perfectly fitted navy blazer, tastefully cropped white top, and swishy gray midi skirt.
“Are you excited to talk about our workflows and processes for forty-five minutes?” she asks.
I desperately want her to like me, and normally that means I would avoid speaking to her at all costs unless it’s directly work related. But she’s talking to me like we’re both in on a joke already, so…
“Oh yeah, I live for this,” I deadpan. “Gets me up in the morning, talking about workflows.”
Sarah’s phone chimes repeatedly, and she gets absorbed in writing back. It seems like her group chats are blowing up. She has a sparkly clear pink phone case with Polaroids of her friends slotted underneath it, and whatever she’s reading makes her scoff.
I was born nosy—knowing Mom, it must be in my genes—so my eyes stray over to see what’s funny. There’s a stream of messages popping up, heart and laugh reacts appearing in close succession. A wave of envy washes over me. I’ve never really been in a group chat.
My three roommates in New York had one where we messaged one another occasionally about being out of toilet paper. But it wasn’t the same as the other group chats I’d see them talking in sometimes, smiling at their screens, phone buzzing every few seconds with notifications.
I think Ruby has a hard time connecting with people, my third-grade teacher told Mom once, pulling her aside after class.
I’ll make sure she makes more of an effort, Mom said, tugging me firmly away.
No, I mean, the teacher said, that’s not exactly what—
But Mom probably looked so intense and filled with purpose that the teacher realized it wasn’t worth arguing.
And then, like I conjured her, a Slack notification slides onto the top of my phone screen.
sampaguita72:
Were you flirting with Greg earlier?
I scrolled up and saw!
Aren’t you over that by now?
Every part of my body resting against this conference room chair clenches, and I resist the urge to write back: I wasn’t!
It has to be an elaborate scam. A way to extort me. Truly sick and twisted.
sampaguita72:
Why not Sam from Sales? He seems like a nice boy. Makes more money.
God, this cannot go on.
ruby.ocampo:
Look, I don’t know who you are, but this is cruel and unusual, impersonating my dead mother! Hope you’re ashamed of yourself!
It feels like her, though. I might as well be fifteen again.
I scroll back up in the DM with myself, and unlike this morning, all the messages from yesterday are back again, clear as day, like they never left.
Right then, a message from Greg rolls in.
.leon:
ruby, are you okay?
Goosebumps rise on my arms. That old psychic link, again.
But I’m too overwhelmed to deal with him, so I write:
ruby.ocampo:
I am very busy right now
Erica is glaring at me, so I put my phone in Do Not Disturb and tuck it under my notebook.
“Okay!” she exclaims, clapping to punctuate. “Our guest is running late, but let’s get started.” She sweeps a hand in my direction. “I know we’re all so glad to have Ruby here with us, after the tragic events of a few months ago.”
I fight the urge to slump down in my seat, or maybe limbo straight under the table.
“She’s so hardworking,” Erica adds, and I get a moment of that sick full-body relief that follows any crumb of external validation. “In fact, the other day, she stayed late to help me finish our strategy deck for the TKMART resort collection campaign.”
Wait. I didn’t do that.
Erica’s going into so much detail about what I did and didn’t do—this must be a thing that actually happened. The realization creeps over me like a caterpillar crawling on bare skin. She’s talking about a whole-ass other person. She just thinks it was me.
Slowly it dawns on me: Erica must be thinking of Sarah. She’s younger and shorter and rocks bangs in a way I never could, but we have roughly the same skin tone and the same long, dark hair. She’s Malaysian, and I’m Filipino with a white dad I don’t know, but apparently to Erica, it’s close enough.
When I glance over, Sarah does indeed look pissed off—but subtly, daintily, like she’s trying not to show it. She taps out a quick message on her phone and lets out a sharp sigh.
Then the Associate VP of Sales, Marketing, and Customer Experience pushes his way through the glass conference room door.
“Sorry to keep you waiting!” he says with a winsome grin—and man, I guess the headshot wasn’t AI-generated, because he does look like that. He’s so handsome, it’s uncomfortable. His crisp brown suit seems tailor-made.
He surveys the room, and his eyes linger on me a beat too long. I’m suddenly extremely aware of the way my work shirt pinches under my armpits.
He’s the kind of person my mom would want me to impress, and when I see him, a strange, contrary impulse seizes me. If the universe is taunting me, I want to taunt it right back.
“Oh, you’re right on time!” Erica says brightly, tucking her hair behind her ear. “We were about to share some fun facts.”
“Not the fun facts,” I mumble.
“Ruby, do you have something to share with the group?” Erica stares at me for long enough that I realize I actually have to say something.
“Oh, it’s just…I get so in my head about whether the fact is fun or not,” I say. “Like…what is fun? How do I know I’m having it? Why is there something instead of nothing?”
Mark Winterson makes some very direct eye contact. “Yeah, the premise has always been a bit weird to me. Are facts ever that fun?”
“All right, let’s save the existential crises for after work hours!” Erica looks a bit murderous. “Who wants to start?”
Hi, I’m Ruby and my mom died in this office two months ago and that’s probably the only thing you know about me! What could I possibly say to blot that out?
The couple dozen people here from other teams take turns introducing themselves and sharing a smattering of facts—hobbies, hidden talents, past run-ins with celebrities.
One person reveals that their unflattering selfie was the basis for a popular mid-2010s meme.
Morgan volunteers that she did logrolling when she was younger.
“It’s a sport!” she clarifies quickly when Mark Winterson’s eyebrows go up.
Sarah adds that she’s been teaching herself to play the ukulele. Al reveals that he sings in a barbershop quartet on the weekends, and everyone meets this news with a faint oooh.
My heartbeat speeds up as it gets closer to the time I’ll have to say something.
“Ruby?” Erica prompts with a too-tight smile.
“Hi! I’m Ruby. Started a couple weeks ago in Advertorial/Content Studio. I just moved back from New York, but I grew up around here. As some of you know, my mom worked at TKCORP. And…”
Oh God, what do I say?
“And when I was four years old and my mom couldn’t find someone to watch me, she brought me in and asked the receptionist to keep an eye on me until her friend could come pick me up.
” My palms are sweating and I’m not sure why I decided to go this route, but now that I’ve started, I have to see it through.
“I didn’t know how to read yet, but when the receptionist looked up, I was holding this copy of Forbes open and staring at it, all serious, like I was reading it. She took a photo.”
“Oh, well, now you have to show the group,” Mark Winterson interjects, and my armpits feel even sweatier. My face burns as I pull it up and show it around—and then the executive plucks the phone from my hand and studies it, smiling.
“Anyway, they were all like, ‘Wow, Adela, your baby reads Forbes!’ She loved to tell that story.” I grab my phone back after a few polite seconds have elapsed. “Whew, long fact!” And, channeling Erica, I clap too. “Next person?”
When the meeting ends at long last, I’m the first out the door.
“Surprisingly,” Mark Winterson says from behind me, “I did think your fact was fun.” When I turn around, he puts a hand to his chest. “Sincerely.”
I laugh breathlessly. “Oh good.”
He points at me. “Just a hunch, but—you seem like a straight shooter. Someone who tells it like it is.”
“I do?” I ask so incredulously, he chuckles.
“I’m still getting the lay of the land here. I’d love to ask you a couple questions.” He gives me a high-wattage smile that should come with a health warning. “You getting lunch? Maybe we could keep talking.”