Chapter 36
Chapter thirty-six
Madison
“Idon’t know why you’re still thinking about this, Maddie,” my mom says. We’re in the kitchen at the farm, mixing up side dishes while Dad and Caitlin’s husband are out back deep frying the turkey. Chris and his wife will be over in a few hours to eat dinner together.
Mom scoops the niblets of corn she cut off the cobs into the slow cooker, where butter and cream cheese await to completely cancel out any nutritional value of the vegetable.
“It seems pretty obvious that you should take the job. You already know exactly what to do there. It’s financial security and insurance—none of which you have with this side hustle,” she continues as she adds salt and pepper to the corn mixture.
I mash the sweet potatoes more aggressively. “Does it not matter at all that they fired me in the first place? Maybe I don’t want to bail them out. Maybe I don’t want to move back to Kansas City.”
Mom perks up at my statement. “If you’ve decided you don’t care for big city living, why don’t you move back here? We’d love to have you closer to home! It could be just like old times having you help out with harvest and—”
“No, Mom!” I cut her off, frustrated. “I’m not moving back here. If I don’t accept the job, I’m going to stay in Noel with Clara and Liam.”
She tsks. “Are you sure you’re still going to have a boyfriend to go back to?
Especially after you threw that temper tantrum?
That’s exactly what happened with Arthur your senior year of high school.
You need to learn to get a tighter rein on your tongue if you’re going to make a relationship work. ”
Gripping the potato masher tighter, I hold in the choice words I’d like to yell. I officially regret telling my mom about my fight with Liam.
“Can we not talk about this anymore, Mom? I’d like to enjoy Thanksgiving instead of having my mistakes rubbed in my face.”
“Now, Maddie, I’m not trying—”
“Please, Mom? Just stop,” I beg, a hint of tears edging my voice.
Mercifully, JoJo comes into the kitchen asking for a snack.
I abandon the sweet potato casserole and sweep JoJo into my arms, carrying her to the fridge to look for some fruit.
Mom takes an aluminum pan outside to my dad, so I take a second trying to corral my emotions in the cool air of the refrigerator. Caitlin comes up beside me.
“Mom?” she quietly asks. An entire one-worded question that we both understand.
“Just meddling with her always-right opinions,” I mutter under my breath.
Caitlin pokes me in the side. “You had to get that opinionated nature from somewhere,” she teases.
I roll my eyes but crack a smile.
I’ve filled her in on everything that transpired with Liam—with much more detail than I volunteered to my mom.
“I don’t know what to do, Cait. Going back to WritInc is entirely unappealing, but I tried doing my own thing, and it’s not working.
At this point, it seems pretty irresponsible to turn down a stable job. ”
“Mads, what do you want to do?” she asks. “Forget making the right choice for a minute. What do you want?”
I kiss JoJo’s cheek, trying not to cry. “I want Liam. I want Noel. To live there with all of our friends, who seem to actually like having me around. I want Madison Joy Editorial to succeed and not be a failure.”
Add “not crying” to the list of things I fail at.
Caitlin pulls me into a hug, squeezing JoJo between us. “Then do it, Mads. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“I wind up destitute and homeless, filing for bankruptcy while slowly dying of starvation,” I deadpan.
Caitlin smirks. “I have a feeling there are a lot of people in Noel who wouldn’t allow that to happen. Liam and Clara topping the list.”
Taking a deep breath, I slowly exhale. “You’re right,” I say.
“Duh,” Caitlin replies. “We both inherited that ‘always-right’ nature.”
When I wake up absurdly early the morning after Thanksgiving, I know exactly what I need to do. I shower and get dressed quickly, but as I’m applying eyeliner, I pause to look at my hands. Staring at my fingernails, I make a decision.
Removing the black nail polish from my middle fingers, I repaint them in the same shade of crimson as the rest of my nails. I don’t need my form of silent protest against injustice anymore. Because I’m going to confront the injustice head-on.
I say brief goodbyes to my family while shoveling breakfast down my throat. Hopping in my car, I begin the four-and-a-half-hour drive from the farm to Overland Park, Kansas, where the WritInc office is located.
Channeling my inner Clara, I listen to my pop Christmas playlist the whole way, begging for a dose of my own Christmas magic.
I know that Chad will be working the day after Thanksgiving because he always had zero personal life or boundaries to speak of. It’s not an official vacation day given by the company, so there are bound to be at least a few people there who didn’t have enough PTO to take the day off.
When I arrive at the building, I ring the bell at the reception desk. Either the receptionist did take the day off, or Chad decided that reception was another unnecessary position. Finally, one of the graphic designers I recognize comes around the corner.
“Madison?” he says. “What are you doing here? Are you coming back? Please tell me you’re coming back. It’s embarrassing the number of mistakes that have gone to print.”
“I am not coming back,” I state. The words feel good on my tongue—a warm-up for my declaration to Chad. “I’m just here to talk to Chad briefly. Is he still in the same office?” I ask the designer.
He confirms, so I march back to Chad’s corner office, head held high. When I walk through the open door, he looks up in surprise.
“Uh, what are you doing here, Madison? We’re meeting on Monday.
Mr. Douglas isn’t here, so you’re going to need to come back at your scheduled time,” he says.
The condescension in his voice assures me that he has absolutely not changed his tune, despite being proven wrong.
Very embarrassingly wrong, according to the graphic designer.
“I’m not coming back,” I say. “I’m not coming back Monday because I’m not coming back, period.”
Chad huffs. “If this is some kind of power play to get a pay bump, you can rest assured that Mr. Douglas was already planning to offer you a two percent increase over your previous salary.”
I pin him with my best daggered glare. “I told you that you needed a human proofreader looking over the content you sent out. I told you that AI wasn’t a sufficient substitute. But you didn’t listen.”
He sputters a breath through his lips as he stands to his feet. “What do you want, Madison? For me to admit I was wrong? Maybe I was wrong—or maybe people are way too uptight about some meaningless typos.”
“Those newsletters and postcards reflect the professionalism of the clients, Chad. Not to mention WritInc’s professionalism.
The customers you lost were justified in leaving you behind,” I say.
I feel steam building, the momentum gathering as I step fully onto my soapbox.
“All you cared about was cutting costs and increasing the bottom line, not about the quality of the brands being represented. And you certainly didn’t care about the employees who had worked their tails off to make sure that WritInc consistently put out the highest quality.
Why do you think we had so many customers coming to us after getting burned by other print marketing firms?
Because we had a reputation of excellence.
Until you screwed it up. Just because your short-sightedness came back to bite you in the butt doesn’t mean I have to bail you out. ”
I almost think Chad has somehow transfigured into a fish, given his open-mouthed, wide-eyed expression.
“I’m glad someone came to their senses and realized you need a real proofreader—although, I have a hunch that person was Mr. Douglas, not you.
But you’re going to need to find a different person because I have no interest in coming back to work here after how you treated me,” I state definitively.
“Not only how you fired me, but how you treated me ever since you started here—belittling my position and micromanaging everything like no one was as competent as you. I deserve better.”
Pivoting on my heel, I march to the door. Holding up a hand in a dismissive wave, I punctuate, “Bye, Chad.”
I practically run to my car, hurling myself into the driver’s seat. I calculate time in my head to decide just how much I need to push the speed limit if I’m going to get to Noel before the kickoff Christmas Fest parade tonight.
I need to get home. I may not know exactly what I’m going to do to earn a living, and maybe that makes me an irresponsible excuse for a grown woman.
But I know this much: Madison Joy belongs in Noel.
She belongs with Liam.