CHAPTER 12
The glow of confidence Jeremy had wrapped around himself like a quilt on a winter’s morning was starting to recede as the meeting continued. None of this was playing out as he’d assumed, as he’d hoped.
They were sitting in the PopBuzz conference room, an area that tried, desperately, to pass itself off as ‘fun’ and ‘vibrant’ through bright paints and funky chairs and sassy slogans.
However, it had been some years since the early boom of online media, so the paint was scuffed, some of the chairs were broken, and the poster that said Fuck being good – be better had letters hatched out with a marker and now said Fuck god .
Jeremy had decided to wear a casually flamboyant (but also very cheap) lavender suit, believing it would make him feel sassy and strong.
It had worked on the commute to work, it had worked for the first half of the day, and now it had apparently run out of power.
Now he just felt like an idiot in a purple suit.
‘We think your ideas are great,’ Gina said diplomatically, pointing to the folder with a printed plan that he’d provided for her and Theo, one of the even bigger bosses.
‘And we love the initiative,’ Theo added. He was one of those business guys who smiled all the time. ‘Ideally, we’d love to do as much of this as possible, but you know … budgets. This time of year is never easy, and we’re not hitting our sales targets like we’d hoped,’ he explained.
Jeremy knew for a fact that the business had paid Theo a bonus last year that was more than Jeremy’s entire salary.
There were many practical, pressing reasons for Jeremy’s promotion – he was underpaid and overworked and he basically did his boss’s job for her.
He’d kept this publication together, churning out nonsense for years, through countless pivots to video and back again, through the rises and falls of different social medias, through several legal battles with wage-thieving business owners and corrupt landlords and angry film studios threatening them with defamation, through a poorly timed ‘Horny Week’ that launched on the same day as a significant natural disaster.
He deserved a promotion.
This was not a new conversation, nor a recent issue, but the spite pie had made it pressing, and Jeremy was fired up.
He knew there was no way that Miles would find his role as deputy editor of a site called PopBuzz at all impressive.
Jeremy knew PopBuzz did good work, for what it was – breaking important stories that affected young people that mainstream media wouldn’t touch.
He also believed that entertainment was a goal in itself.
But, while he conceded the image problem lay mostly with PopBuzz and its important lists of ‘Most Fuckable Muppets’, being the actual editor of the site would be at least mildly more impressive.
Luckily, he’d been planning this promotion for years – one might even say obsessively – and he’d come to the table with a structured and achievable strategy.
It was, in Jeremy’s opinion, genius. It shuffled everyone around, putting Vanessa into a technically higher position that required less work.
He would move up into the editor role – the job description of which, he reminded them, he was already covering – and everyone else fit into the gaps.
It was efficient, clever, and should soothe everyone’s egos.
‘No, we’re sorry,’ said Gina, closing the binder firmly.
‘No to what exactly?’ Jeremy.
‘Your suggestions,’ she clarified. ‘You’ve clearly put a lot of thought into this, but we can’t just … change everyone’s jobs to suit you.’
‘All of my suggestions?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Even the one to move everyone’s seats around a little bit?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then just make me the editor,’ he said flatly. ‘I already do all the work.’
‘We have an editor,’ said Gina gently.
‘But do we?’ Jeremy asked, failing to hide the bitterness in his voice, knowing Gina knew as well as he did.
Her face didn’t change.
It was at this moment that Jeremy realised how delusional they thought he was, and the unfairness of it all welled up like a bitter soda fountain.
‘Well,’ he said, trying to match their detached professionalism, smiling through his teeth, ‘perhaps I’ll need to look for a company that does value my … contribution.’
‘We’d be very sad to see you go,’ answered Gina.
Jeremy stumbled a little bit at that but pushed on. ‘Okay. Well, stand by. I’ll be doing some thinking tonight and might come back in with my resignation letter.’
‘We’re at peace with that,’ she said, standing up and opening the door. Jeremy walked through it quickly, biting the inside of his cheek to avoid burning any bridges he couldn’t unburn.
When he stalked back into the editorial section – usually defined by an overflow of shitty plastic promotional gifts from PR, blaring pop music and hunched writers wearing noisecancelling headphones – he saw his team gathered around Jimmy, the extremely young video producer and ‘meme curator’, who was currently holding a spoonful of wobbling bright-green slime in front of his face.
Jeremy realised, with a sinking sensation, that everyone was chanting ‘eat the slime, eat the slime’.
They’d recently been sent a whole bunch of slime by some company trying to cash in on SlimeTok, but about a year too late.
After a week they all lived in fear, he’d had to caution everyone to ‘stop sliming people in the office’ when an errant glob had sailed over editorial and landed on the stale paninis of a client meeting.
Jeremy had two options. He could walk over there and tell everyone to stop peer pressuring an entry-level employee into eating what he hoped was non-toxic slime, or he could let these underpaid, overworked, twenty-something journalists find a small amount of joy.
Actually, there was a third option, which would be joining in the shenanigans and using what little authority he had to force Jimmy to eat the slime, which in his current mood was quite tempting.
Jeremy turned and left.
Later that evening, Jeremy was in a mall with Anna and Sam going through a rapid series of emotions – a pretty standard experience when in a mall. These big buildings were full of shops and emotions. He’d been stunned, then he’d been angry, and now he was just … bummed out.
‘I’m bummed out,’ he said. Anna nodded sympathetically, and Sam shook his head in indignation.
They were sitting at one of the grimy food-court tables, drinking smoothies and bitching about Jeremy’s work.
Jeremy had chosen a strawberry bonanza, and while he could definitely taste the strawberry, he was yet to experience any bonanza.
‘They’re idiots,’ Sam said, shaking his head again.
‘Thank you, but I’m past the angry stage,’ Jeremy said.
‘Okay …’ Sam thought for a moment. ‘That sucks, Jeremy. That is sad.’
Jeremy had to admit he was a bit weirded out by Sam being here.
The mall was not the kind of place he’d imagined Sam frequenting.
He belonged in a forest, perhaps. Or within a ring of standing stones on top of a misty moor.
Sitting in a pub bracketed by warm light, cosy and laughing.
Not drinking through a paper straw near a sushi place and a Jay Jays.
Jeremy was at a crucial part of the spite plan – the clothes makeover.
Of all the tasks ahead of him, this was the one he’d been looking forward to the most. He loved clothes, and he loved the fact that he had a reason to spend some of his hard-earned cash on something beautiful.
Usually, he just impulse shopped when he was drunk, but this time he was shopping with sober intention.
He felt like an adult. He felt like a fashionista.
He and Anna were hitting a couple of shops specifically for a suit for the reunion – the big event.
He had to look handsome and successful, flamboyant but not cheap.
Miles had to look at him and his eyes had to bug out of his head, steam had to come out of his ears, and his tongue had to unroll out of his mouth like a carpet – anything less would be a failure.
After his disappointing meeting, Jeremy had found himself messaging Sam and venting about the whole situation in great detail.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Sam had offered to have Jeremy over and hang, but instead when told the shopping trip was booked in had invited himself along.
Jeremy was trying not to be gender essentialist, but he was deeply sceptical about a straight man going clothes shopping.
Would he even know what to do? Or would he do that weird thing that hetero boyfriends did, and loiter awkwardly near the change rooms pretending to examine the sleeve of a blouse?
They were sitting because Anna suffered from a chronic disease that sometimes reared its head unexpectedly, impacting her mobility and causing fatigue.
Sometimes she rallied, sometimes she didn’t – a particularly cruel affliction for someone who was often defined by her unbridled enthusiasm for people and places.
‘Okay, are we ready to SHOP?’ asked Jeremy with faux enthusiasm.
‘That depends – will you buy me a treat if I’m a good boy?’ joked Sam, cradling his face like a winsome child.
‘I’ll buy you a new cup and ball,’ answered Jeremy dryly, but laughing all the same.
‘Okay, well that’s cute,’ muttered Anna. ‘I have to go, sorry, boys.’ She stood up stiffly.
‘Oh no, still feeling shit?’ asked Jeremy.
Anna paused, flicking her eyes between the two of them and smiling a little. ‘Yeah, not really up to third-wheeling my way through a bunch of men’s fashion.’
‘Of course. Do you need a hand getting home or anything?’ Sam asked.
She shook her head and gave them both air kisses then set off, clearly stuck in the pain she was feeling through her body.
‘Will she be okay?’ asked Sam, looking worried.