Chapter Three
The next morning, fueled by the fancy coffees I promised, Cassie, Alec, Eliza, and I get to work planning what is certain to be one of the crowning moments of my career: Next weekend we’re releasing our first test group of southern mountain yellow-legged frogs back into the wild.
Last month we introduced a milder form of the fatal chytrid fungus to the tadpoles in our lab.
Then Cassie gave them the anti-fungal medicine to cure them, but only after they had developed the immune response that will protect them in the wild.
Now they’re vaccinated and ready to go live their best froggy lives in their native ponds and streams.
“This is basically our Super Bowl,” Alec says as we sit around the conference room table.
Playing with her septum piercing, Eliza nods. “Finally, a sporting event I care about.”
“I’ll make vegan nachos,” I offer.
Cassie grins. “Think we could get Beyoncé to play at halftime?”
I smile. After last night’s dinner, it’s nice to be surrounded by people who get me and are excited about the same things I am.
We continue cracking jokes while we plan the release, and by the time we finish I’m buzzing with pride in our accomplishments and too much overpriced, sustainably harvested coffee.
And that’s when our boss, Gregory, comes striding through the front door.
Gregory’s not one of those evil bosses you see in movies.
He’s perfectly fine. I just wouldn’t call him necessary.
He doesn’t even have an advanced degree.
And I think he was in a fraternity. He’s only my superior because he comes from a shit-ton of family money and one day he decided he was going to open a nonprofit for endangered species.
Partly because he needed another tax write-off and partly because his ex-wife loved animals. (Now she loves her personal trainer.)
The thing is, Gregory is famously hands-off—because he doesn’t know anything about science or animals. So when he shows up in his khakis and golf shirt, it’s usually bad news. Alec spots Gregory coming down the hall and stops cleaning his glasses to shoot me a worried look.
“Hello, everyone!” Gregory booms cheerfully. I don’t trust it.
We all gather around him, tentatively. “Hi, Gregory,” I say. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t just stop by to see my favorite scientists?” he answers merrily, like he’s auditioning to be a mall Santa.
“So this is a friendly visit? There’s no bad news?” Alec asks.
“All my visits are friendly visits!” Gregory declares, and I see Cassie’s and Eliza’s shoulders sink with relief.
Gregory’s smile falters slightly. “But there is bad news too, I’m afraid.” Their shoulders snap back into position.
“I knew it,” mutters Alec.
The involuntary twitching of Gregory’s jaw is his tell. This will be a doozy. “Well, there’s no easy way to say this . . . We didn’t get the grant.”
“What?!” This hits me like a metric ton of bricks. “We need this grant to keep our program alive. We’re all depending on this funding.”
Gregory keeps prattling on about knowing how hard we’ve worked and how passionate we are, but I’m not really paying attention because my stomach has turned to lead.
“What happened?” I cut Gregory off. “We were a shoo-in, especially now that the vaccine is showing promising results. I don’t understand.”
He grimaces. “They gave it to the leatherbacks.”
“The sea turtles!?” Eliza is livid. “But they’re in NorCal! This money was earmarked for a Southern California species.”
“You know sea turtles are a ‘charismatic species,’” Gregory sighs. “They’re the poster child for conservation.”
“So, because the sea turtles were in a friggin’ Nemo movie and sell more plushies, they get our funding?” Alec demands as I slump into my chair.
You’d think I’d be used to this particular blow by now, as I’ve encountered it my entire career.
Everyone’s worried about adorable animals like sea turtles and leopards, and don’t even get me started on the fucking pandas, but no one seems to care about amphibians.
Half my job is convincing people with money that Kermit and his buddies are important, and the other half is watching all the funding go to “cuter animals.”
Which is why it takes all of my self-control to remain professional in this moment.
“Look, Gregory,” I say, clenching my teeth.
“We get it. No one is putting frogs or salamanders on a glossy eighteen-by-twenty-four, and sure, leatherbacks help the dunes and the reefs and that’s great for them, but we need the money more.
We’re high priority! Isn’t there anything we can do? Appeal it?”
“There’s no appeals process. The only thing we can do is a big push for donations.”
Eliza shakes her head. “It won’t be enough. We need at least three hundred thousand dollars by January to keep the lab running. The entire nature center barely made twenty thousand in donations last year. And that was only because Mrs. Roth kicked the bucket and left us ten grand in her will.”
I’m momentarily impressed by how Eliza keeps all these facts and figures in her head, but then I’m immediately panicked by the direness of this situation.
Ninety percent of the yellow-legged frog population has already died off.
We need the money, and we need it now. I kick the closest trash can. “Fucking sea turtles!”
“If only we had a rich founder . . .” Alec looks at Gregory with puppy dog eyes.
He shakes his head. “Sorry, gang. You know I have a board to answer to. But maybe we can think of a big publicity idea to raise funds?”
I sigh because he’s right. If we don’t think of a big idea, we’re screwed.
“I could dance around in a frog costume asking for money,” Alec says, shrugging. “It wouldn’t be the first time.” We all give him a confused look as he grabs a dry-erase marker and writes “Publicity Ideas” on the whiteboard.
“What if we sell calendars with a different yellow-legged frog for every month?” Cassie suggests.
Alec starts writing that down until Eliza says, “We can barely tell them apart and we work with them every day. How will the public differentiate twelve nearly identical frogs?”
Alec crosses out “frog calendar” on the whiteboard, then suddenly brightens up. “I know it’s not technically related, but everyone loves a good firemen calendar.” He raises his eyebrows suggestively.
“Is that a real idea, or are you just letting us know what you want for your birthday?” Eliza asks as she continues shooting dirty looks at Gregory. She would definitely shoot the messenger if she could.
“We need something splashier,” I say, trying to push through the nuclear fallout that Gregory’s sea turtle bomb has had on my spirit. “Like maybe a gala or silent auction or . . .” I trail off when I realize those things require up-front money to organize and we don’t have any.
Cassie suddenly turns to our boss and asks, “What if there’s an out-of-the-box solution?”
Gregory shrugs. “What’s the idea?”
Then Cassie approaches me slowly with her hands raised as if I’m a rabid raccoon. “Before you get mad, hear me out . . .” I don’t like the way she’s looking at me; it’s making me wish I were a rabid raccoon. “I know you hate social media and reality TV, but Love Shack has millions of viewers—”
Gregory cuts her off. “My daughter and all her friends love that show!” I roll my eyes. Of course they do.
But then I realize where Cassie’s going with this and start muttering, “No, no, no, no . . .”
She ignores my discomfort and tells Gregory, “Grace was chosen to be a contestant, and if she goes on the show, she’ll get a ton of free publicity that we can use to drive people to our website and hopefully convert to donations.”
“Oh my God, yes!” Alec says, dropping the dry-erase marker. “And if she wins, she’ll get $250,000, which she could donate to the center and we’d almost be at our goal!”
I throw my hands in the air and look around at them in utter disbelief. “Less than twenty-four hours ago we all agreed how ridiculous that would be. There’s no world where I’d win a dating show.”
Alec shrugs. “America loves an underdog.”
I can’t blame them for being horribly delusional traitors because I know their hearts are in the right place.
“Look, guys, I’m just as desperate as you are to protect our frogs, and I know how hard we’ve all worked, but there’s got to be another way.
Like Alec dancing in a frog costume. Let’s revisit that! ”
Cassie looks deep into my soul and says, “You’ve always said you would do anything you could to save endangered species.”
I break eye contact with her and desperately grasp at anything that might save me. “I don’t think we gave the fireman calendar enough consideration . . .”
“Are you really going to let an entire species go extinct just because you don’t think you’re good at dating?” Cassie asks.
“Why does it have to be me? One of you guys would be way better at getting strangers to like you.”
Eliza shrugs. “Yeah, and if I looked like you, I would trade places with you without a second thought.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I look down at my slacks and sensible shoes.
“You’re a babe, Grace,” Alec says, like it’s obvious. “If I were straight, I would totally try to date you on national TV.”
I’m about to question whether Alec is high right now when Gregory claps his hands. “I like this idea! We could definitely use the publicity. And the board loves any sort of Hollywood connection.”
My head is spinning, looking for any excuse. “But . . . but . . . I’d have to miss work.”
“We can cover for you,” Cassie immediately offers. “I don’t mind staying late and working weekends.”
“Me too,” agrees Eliza. When Alec doesn’t respond, she elbows him.
“Oh yeah, me too, I guess,” Alec mutters. “Unless I have a date.”
“I’m fine with you taking time off, Grace. You’ve never even taken a sick day. Plus, you’re technically kind of working, trying to raise money and all,” Gregory says with a shrug.
I sigh as I consider what they’re saying.
Am I being selfish? What kind of leader would I be if I didn’t put my personal comfort aside to save our program?
I feel my resolve melting faster than Greenland as I say, “I’ve never seen The Bachelorette or any of those dating shows.
What do you have to do? Go on a couple dates? Make small talk?”
Cassie, Alec, and Eliza exchange a look that I can’t decipher before Cassie quickly says, “Yeah, totally. Just a couple boring dates, that’s all!”
“I thought there were challenges—” Gregory starts, but Alec cuts him off.
“The challenge will be playing nice with others,” Alec quips.
“But Cassie said it was ‘really sexy.’ What’s that about?” I ask warily.
“Oh, you know me, I’m boy crazy. I think everyone is sexy,” Cassie responds in a way that sounds oddly like a cover-up.
“I should probably watch a few episodes and do some research first,” I suggest.
Eliza waves me off. “It’s reality TV. How hard could it be?”
“Yeah,” Alec adds. “You’re one of the leading biologists in a field dominated by straight, white men. You’re a badass, Grace. You can do anything.”
Even with their weirdness and my reservations, I can’t help but notice that everyone is staring at me like I’m their only hope.
I look around the lab I’ve poured my heart and soul into for the past three years, and my chest clenches at the thought of having to shut it down.
Especially when we’re on the brink of a breakthrough that could have a game-changing impact on conservation for decades to come.
I exhale deeply, and before I can change my mind I say, “Okay. I’ll do it. ”
Gregory immediately claps his hands and says, “Wow, won’t it be fun to be working with a famous person? Maybe now my daughter will start coming over for Christmas again.”
“I’m published in nine journals, and this is what impresses him?” I whisper to Cassie.
“We have to make you an Instagram page. And probably TikTok,” Alec says. “Does anyone know how to do TikTok?” Cassie, Eliza, and Gregory all shake their heads.
I sigh. “Unfortunately, I know just the person.”