Chapter 16
Jade
I’m still nervous leading up to the presentation on Tuesday, especially since my boss will be there.
But the week was more relaxed than I’ve had in months.
We’ve had a few days in the office, “regular” workdays, where I’ve been playing catch-up.
Instead of over three thousand emails in my inbox I’ve whittled it down to about two hundred that I actually need to do something about.
Most of those will be filled into the “read while I have time” category, which I’ll try to do while sitting in planes, trains, or hotels over the next few weeks.
I caught up on all my housekeeping at home over the weekend, video chatted with my friends every day this week, and had my regular Spanish lesson and drinks with Manny. Now that it’s June, the days are long and warm and feel endless when you have a glass of tinto de verano in your hand.
It lulls me into a sense of security, and the nauseous feeling that starts on my walk to the venue surprises me.
Carlos catches me in the bathroom again.
This time, while I’m leaning against the counter, a damp towel on the back of my neck, he hands me a glass of ice water.
Things between us have improved a lot, and while I haven’t seen him much in the office—not unusual—we’ve texted every day.
To my surprise, Carlos has been sending me updates on Izan.
Usually just pictures with no commentary, but it’s always Izan getting into some kind of mischief or sleeping.
Now though, he looks at me nervously. “I have some bad news; there’s a problem with the teleprompter. It’s not getting power.”
I freeze.
“How can I help you?”
I shake my head, the glass of water forgotten. The panic is starting to rise, and my voice sounds too high. “What do we do?”
He checks his watch. “We have fifteen minutes until we start. We can delay a little bit, but right now we haven’t located a replacement yet. We’d just be delaying the inevitable, probably.”
“There’s no backup?”
He shakes his head. “The screen cracked a couple of weeks ago and it’s on back order. We’re definitely going to complain, but . . .”
But there’s nothing we can do right now.
Carlos takes a step closer. “You know the material. You’ve read this a hundred times. A thousand times.”
“I know.”
His eyes bounce back and forth between mine. “I’m going to go back out there and keep trying, okay?”
I nod, and as the door is swinging closed I remember that Rebecca will be in the audience today.
The presentation is already set up on the slides behind me when I walk out. The room is bigger than I remembered from the site visit—the chairs extend farther back, the lighting is brighter, the ceiling higher. All of it conspires to make me feel very small at the podium.
I find a point above the audience’s heads and fix my eyes there. Don’t look at the faces. Don’t look at Rebecca in the fourth row. Don’t look at Carlos to my left, steady and unreadable as always.
Just get through it.
“Good afternoon,” I begin, and my voice sounds like someone doing an impression of me—technically correct, no warmth at all. “Thank you all for attending today’s presentation on advances in hair loss prevention for oncology patients.”
Carlos translates to Spanish. I click to the next slide.
The opening section—the one we spent three training sessions making human—comes out of my mouth like a technical report. I know it’s happening. I can hear myself doing it, the sentences too measured, the pauses in the wrong places. Like I’m reading terms and conditions out loud.
Start with a story, Carlos had said. Show them why it matters before you show them how it works.
I start with methodology instead. It’s where my brain goes when I’m frightened—into the data, into the numbers, into the things I know for certain. Facts don’t require me to be present. Facts just sit there.
“The methodology employed a double-blind randomized controlled design with a placebo arm consisting of—”
In the third row, someone looks at their phone. I see it in my peripheral vision and don’t let myself register it.
Five minutes in, I say something I shouldn’t. A statistical model we cut—one of the original seventeen slides Carlos made me remove—comes out of my mouth before I can stop it. I feel the mistake leave my body before I’ve consciously recognized what I’ve done.
I look at Carlos. Just for a fraction of a second.
His face doesn’t change. He keeps translating. But I know he heard it.
I try to recover. “As I was saying—the results showed a significant decrease in hair loss—” But I’ve already said this. I’m circling back over material I covered three minutes ago, and I know it, and I can’t stop doing it. The thread of the presentation is somewhere ahead of me and I can’t find it.
“The patient satisfaction scores—” I stop. Click forward. Back. Forward two.
Where am I?
“Sorry,” I say, too quietly for the microphone. I find the slide. I keep going. “Quality-of-life improvements were measured using the validated FACT-B scale—”
I’m speeding up. I can feel it happening, the sentences compressing, the slide clicking faster than Carlos can translate. Some distant professional part of my brain is observing all of this with horror. The rest of me is just trying to outrun the thing that’s coming.
I don’t outrun it.
Mid-sentence—something about confidence intervals—my mind goes completely white.
Not blank. White. Like a light too bright to look at. I open my mouth and nothing comes out and the slide behind me just sits there, and I hear the silence in the room shift from polite attention to something else entirely.
One second. Two.
Carlos’s voice fills the space. Smooth, professional, elaborating in Spanish on something I was apparently trying to say. I hear him but I can’t attach the words to meaning. I’m standing at the podium with my mouth still open and my hand still on the clicker and my mind still white.
The patient testimonials are on the next slide. The photographs. Maria, fifty-three, two years in remission. The part we were supposed to make human.
I click past it.
“In conclusion,” I hear myself say.
We are twenty-two minutes into a forty-five-minute presentation.
“In conclusion, our data demonstrates that this therapeutic approach offers significant benefits for oncology patients experiencing chemotherapy-induced alopecia. The safety profile is favorable, the efficacy is proven, and the patient satisfaction metrics exceed industry standards. Thank you for your attention.”
I click to the final slide. I stand there breathing.
Someone starts clapping. A few others join in—that particular applause that means we’re not sure what just happened but it appears to be over. No hands go up for questions. In the back of the room, a woman in a headscarf is gathering her things, her face careful and unreadable.
I say “thank you” again into the microphone, even though I have no idea who I’m thanking or for what.
Then I walk off the stage.
I’m pacing when Carlos finds me. My heels are too loud on the floor of the prep room but I can’t make myself stop.
“That was a disaster,” I say, before he can say anything.
“It was rough—”
“I blanked, Carlos.” My voice comes out flatter than I intend. “I stood up there in front of three hundred people—in front of Rebecca—and I skipped the patient stories and then I just—” I make a gesture with my hands that doesn’t mean anything. “Ended it. Twenty minutes early.”
“You were nervous. Without the teleprompter—”
“I knew the material.” The anger is easier than the other thing underneath it. I lean into it. “I have known this material for months. It was gone. All of it.”
I press my palms against my eyes.
Carlos says something about the patient testimonials, about rushing, about the parts that were supposed to make them care. He’s right. He’s completely right. That’s the worst part.
“You’ve been waiting for me to screw up,” I say. My voice is shaking now and I hate it. “Well. Congratulations.”
“Jade—”
The door opens.
Rebecca strides into the room.
My boss leans against a table and crosses her ankles.
She’s wearing a fantastic emerald-green dress and diamond earrings.
She looks every inch the power boss and I wish that didn’t make me feel smaller.
“Jade,” Rebecca says my name in a soft reprimand.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were uncomfortable presenting? ”
I take a deep breath to help calm myself. “Today was an aberration. The teleprompter wasn’t working. We’ve been getting a good response from attendees, and my presentation is informative. I’ve had a few people who’ve been really intrigued by the data—”
“Jade. I understand that you’re a scientist, first and foremost, but you’re representing the company right now. Carlos can’t do all the work when it comes to our client relations. If I’d known this was going to be a problem for you, I would have found someone else to do it.”
I swallow. Client relations are my forte . . . just one-on-one.
“Carlos and I discussed possible options to replace you when he told me you were struggling, but I hadn’t expected it to be such a problem.
Now, I understand that this is difficult for you and my intention isn’t to make it harder.
But,” she continues, “I have to consider what’s best for the company. ”
And then, as if reading my mind, Rebecca says, “I need to rely on you to not fall apart when things go wrong. Try to look at your past experiences with a bit more lightheartedness. Maybe that can help you move past it. Have you tried some exposure therapy? Dancing on stage, perhaps?” Rebecca softens the dig with a smile.
My mind goes completely white. At first I think it’s blank, just sheer surprise and embarrassment, but after the initial flash, it fades to anger.
What. The. Fuck.
I am dying of mortification. Has Carlos told her everything? “No, it’s not too late,” I protest. “Look—I know it hasn’t been great. It’s not easy for me, but I’m working on it. Let me . . . let me think about this a little bit and work on it.”
“One more presentation,” Rebecca agrees, and I promise an update after Paris and Barcelona next week. She leaves, and I round on Carlos.
“How could you?” I hiss. “Our conversation was private and you turned around and told Rebecca?” I’m so mad I can’t even begin to have this conversation in Spanish and Carlos follows my lead, answering in English.
He leans forward, jaw clenching. “Don’t be so selfish, Jade,” he snaps. “This isn’t just about you. This is my job, too, and—”
I take a step closer. “It was private. I can’t believe you told her about falling off the stage.”
Carlos crosses his arms. “It provides context. She needed to understand how serious this is.”
“Well, congratulations, it’s so serious she might take me off the tour. I’m glad my trauma has given you ammunition to use against me.”
Carlos spreads his hands. “You can’t honestly tell me that you think this is going well? That you’re happy doing this?”
“Well then you should have spoken up before we started.”
“You shouldn’t have withheld pertinent information.”
“I didn’t know it was going to be that bad! The previous presentations were fine. You had no right. Whatever is happening on that stage—that’s mine to manage. You don’t get to take it to Rebecca behind my back.”
“You’re right, it wasn’t mine to share. But Jade—” Carlos stops. He points to the ballroom. “Those patients out there don’t deserve ‘fine.’”
That hits me like a punch to the solar plexus.
“They deserve a presentation that packs emotion, a presentation that gives them information and hope. This is our one chance to be a face and a story, not just a treatment.”
Goddamn it. Carlos is right and holy hell is he good at his job. I close my eyes and turn my head away. “It should be you giving the presentation. Or anyone else. You’re right.”
When I open my eyes, Carlos’s gaze meets mine.
“Maybe,” he allows. “But I don’t think you really believe that.
I’ve seen you with these people one-on-one.
In some ways, that matters even more. But it can’t be everything.
I saw when Rebecca told you there would be opportunities to talk to patients.
You wanted that, but something is in your way. ”
Carlos leaves, and I stand there, shaken.
I know I’m feeling defensive. I know that this is all my fault. I’m angry at Carlos and Rebecca, but most of all I’m angry that I didn’t take this seriously enough.
I need to talk to someone, find a therapist. I need a plan. I need . . .
I need my friends.
I pull out my phone.
Jade
I need help.