Chapter 8
Jade
The doors slide open.
Carlos is already inside.
Of course he is. I have eight floors to survive and the universe, which apparently has a vendetta against me specifically, has put Carlos Olivas in this elevator. I step inside. I press myself against the far wall. I stare at the floor numbers like they personally owe me something.
The doors close with a soft whoosh, sealing us into this small, carpeted box.
The elevator music is some bland instrumental version of a song I don’t recognize. Neither of us speaks. I watch the numbers descend. Eight. Seven.
Carlos clears his throat. “We should talk about Vienna.”
I don’t look at him. “Okay.”
“The presentation is tomorrow. If we’re going to—”
“I know when the presentation is, Carlos.” My voice comes out flatter than I intend. Defeated. I’m too tired to put any inflection into it.
He shifts his weight. I can see him in my peripheral vision, wearing another all-black ensemble. Black suit, black tie, black mood to match mine. That Asshat, I think, with great feeling. The name fits better today than it has in weeks.
“If you want,” he continues, “we can meet this afternoon. Go over what went wrong, figure out how to—”
I finally look at him. “I was boring, Carlos. I stood up there in front of three hundred people and recited data at them for forty-five minutes. I was a human slide deck. I know exactly what went wrong.”
Six. Five.
“I’m trying to help,” Carlos says, and there’s something almost gentle in his voice.
“Are you?” The question comes out sharper than I mean it to. “Because last night felt like you were cataloging all the ways I’m not Mercedes.”
His jaw tightens—I can see the muscle jump. “I was being honest about what the presentation lacked.”
“You were being brutal.”
“I was being professional.” There’s that edge again, the one I heard in the training sessions. “Which is what this tour requires. Professionalism.”
The word lands wrong. Professionalism. Like I’m some amateur who wandered onto this tour by accident. Like I didn’t earn my position here.
“I am professional,” I say.
“Are you?”
The question hangs in the air between us. The elevator music plays on, oblivious.
I turn to face him fully. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Carlos looks like he regrets starting this conversation, but he’s in it now. “Professional people show up prepared. They don’t fall apart under pressure. They certainly don’t—” He stops himself.
“Don’t what?” My heart is starting to pound. “Finish the sentence, Carlos.”
“Nothing. Forget it.”
Four. Three.
“No.” My voice is louder now. “You don’t get to start that sentence and not finish it. What else am I doing unprofessionally? Please, enlighten me.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. Then, so quietly I almost don’t hear it: “They don’t steal other people’s lunches.”
I stare at him. The elevator continues its descent, but I feel like the floor just dropped out from under me.
“What?”
“Forget it—”
“You think I’ve been stealing your lunch?” My voice rises. I can’t help it. “That’s what you think of me?”
Carlos won’t meet my eyes. “Someone was taking my food. Every week. It started right after you—after the coffee thing—”
“The coffee thing.” I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “You turned me down for coffee and then someone took your lunch, so naturally you assumed it was me? Getting revenge like some petty child?”
“I didn’t—”
“How long?” I cut him off. “How long have you thought I was your lunch thief?”
He doesn’t answer. Which is answer enough.
“Months,” I say, realizing. “You’ve thought this for months. This entire time we’ve been training, this entire tour, you’ve been looking at me and thinking I’m some vindictive woman who steals food because a man turned her down.”
“Jade—”
Something else clicks in my brain. “Did you not do a single bit of investigating? Because now it’s obvious to me that it’s Andrés from accounting.
” My voice is shaking now. Not from fear—from rage.
Pure, white-hot rage. “I just thought you both had the same orange-lidded containers—but it’s your container he’s eating out of, isn’t it? ”
Carlos’s face has gone very still.
“But sure,” I continue, the words tumbling out now. “I’m the unprofessional one. I’m the lunch thief. I’m the one who can’t be trusted. I’m the one who asks colleagues to coffee and then wages a months-long campaign of lunch theft when they say no because I’m just that unstable and petty.”
“That’s not—”
Two.
“Is that why you’ve been so cold to me? Why you look at me like I’m constantly on the verge of doing something inappropriate? Because you thought I was stealing your fucking tortilla?”
“I was wrong—”
“Yes, you were!” I’m almost yelling now, and I don’t care.
“You were wrong about the lunches, and you’re wrong about me, and you’ve been wrong this entire time.
But you decided who I was the second I asked you to coffee, didn’t you?
Some unprofessional American who doesn’t understand boundaries.
Who shops at sex stores and can’t handle a simple presentation—”
One.
“I never said you couldn’t handle—”
“You didn’t have to say it! It’s in every look, every comment, every correction during training.
” My chest is tight, and I realize with horror that my eyes are stinging.
I am not going to cry in this elevator. I’m not.
“I have worked my ass off for this position. I’ve published papers.
I’ve led teams. I’ve spent the last year of my life running trials, arguing with regulatory bodies, redesigning protocols at midnight when the data came back wrong—all of it to develop a treatment that could spare cancer patients from losing their hair during chemo.
That’s not a small thing. That’s my actual job.
And I’m good at it. But none of that matters to you, does it? ”
Ground floor.
The elevator dings, cheerful and oblivious. The doors slide open to the bright, bustling hotel lobby.
“Because somewhere along the way you decided I was too much. I’m not going to lower myself to your standards, Carlos, so go fuck yourself.”
I step out, needing to escape this box, this man, this entire situation. But I turn back, just for a moment.
Carlos is still standing in the elevator, his hand on the door to keep it from closing. His expression is something I can’t read—shock, maybe, or guilt, or both.
“For the record,” I say, my voice steadier now but still shaking around the edges, “you never gave me a chance.”
I turn and walk away, heading not toward the restaurant but toward the hotel exit. I can’t eat breakfast. I can’t sit in that dining room knowing Carlos might walk in. I can’t—
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out without stopping.
It’s a text in the group chat with my friends.
Tessa
Can’t wait to see you in Vienna! We’ll take you out for the best schnitzel of your life and you can tell us all about the tour. Love you!
Something in my chest loosens slightly. One more day. Just one more day until Vienna, until my friends, until people who actually know me and love me.
My family.
I can survive one more day.
I have to.
I spend the rest of the morning walking around Berlin. Not sightseeing—I barely register what I’m seeing. Just walking, trying to clear my head, trying to figure out how I’m going to get through Vienna without completely imploding.
I’m so distracted, I forgot my Polaroid.
It’s one of my favorite things to travel with and on this whirlwind tour schedule, I will rarely have time to myself to explore.
I almost go back to the hotel to get it, but I’ve already been wandering for too long.
I guess I won’t have any shots from this Berlin trip to add to my collection.
Berlin is exactly the kind of place that rewards the slow look—the gap-toothed buildings where the Wall used to be, the graffiti that’s been there so long it’s become architecture, the Turkish bakeries and the record shops and the staircases that lead nowhere.
I would normally have three alleys bookmarked for later and a coffee from somewhere I found by following my nose.
Instead I walk in a straight line and don’t see any of it.
Eventually I sit in a local park. I put my earbuds in and let a podcast wash over me. A forensic accountant is explaining how a killer laundered money through a chain of dry cleaners. It’s very soothing.
My phone rings around eleven. Carlos. I decline the call.
He texts.
Carlos
We need to talk about this.
I don’t respond.
Carlos
I was wrong. I know that now. Can we please discuss Vienna?
I turn my phone on silent and shove it back in my pocket.
I get back to walking. After another ten minutes I stop on a bridge and look out at the water, and instead of opening Carlos’s texts I open Emma’s contact.
She’s in Edinburgh right now, probably mid-morning, and I know she has a presentation for her internship that she’s nervous about.
I type: How are you feeling about your meeting?
and hit send before I can talk myself out of it.
Three dots appear almost immediately.
Emma
Terrified. Distract me. How’s Berlin?
Jade
Long story. You first. Tell me everything. Start with what you’re wearing.
I lean against the railing and read her answer, and for a little while I’m not in Berlin anymore.
By noon, I’m exhausted and hungry. I find a small café and order a sandwich I barely taste. My phone shows three missed calls from Carlos and two more texts.
I open my email instead. There’s one from Rebecca with the subject line: Vienna Logistics.
I click it open, my stomach sinking.
Jade,
Hope Berlin went well! Attached are the final details for Vienna.
The venue is larger than Berlin (350 attendees), so please be prepared for a bigger crowd.
I’ve also confirmed that several major pharmaceutical executives will be in attendance, along with press from three medical journals.
This is a high-visibility event. I’m counting on you and Carlos to deliver. Let me know if you need anything.
Rebecca
Three hundred and fifty people. Major executives. Press from medical journals.
I close my eyes and rest my forehead on the cool table.
I can do this.
I have to do this.
Even if Carlos thinks I’m unprofessional.
Even if he’s right.