Chapter 2
two
BILLIE
“You’re the wrong woman for the job, Billie.
You just don’t have nerves of steel,” my boss— Mr. Franklin— says, staring at me with his watery, brown eyes.
They narrow as he looks at me, as if it’s physically painful for him to be exposed to my pathetic presence.
Mr. Franklin is in his late sixties, and he’s tough.
Old school. He always tells it like it is, which is bad news for me right now.
He shakes his head, then says the worst thing I’ve ever heard in this office:
“I can’t give you this promotion.”
I shift in my chair, clutching its structured arms with a confidence I don’t feel.
Behind Mr. Franklin, a set of windows overlooks Lake Michigan, towering floor-to-ceiling glamour screaming, “Billie, this place is too fancy for you.” The whole office is like that, actually: all clean angles, marble surfaces, and high-end finishings.
Everything in Franklin Luxury Developments is designed to suggest that compromise is for other people.
“You’re not the kind of woman who can stand up to difficult buyers and sellers,” Mr. Franklin continues. “This is Chicago, and we’re dealing with multi-million-dollar real estate deals. There are sharks out there, and you’re not one of them.”
“But I am a shark! I do have nerves of steel! My nerves are so steely I’m practically a hardware store,” I say, hating the way my voice rises in pitch.
Try to be a killer, Billie, I think to myself.
I’ve been preparing this argument for weeks, even sticking post-it notes to my mirror with affirmations.
You are a badass. Boss Queen. “I handle every issue this company throws at me,” I say, executing my rehearsed arguments with precision.
“Scheduling, last-minute appointments, proper-paperwork filing. I understand our clients, I can position our unique properties… I may only be an assistant, but I’m the definition of nerves of steel. ”
“Then why are you crying right now?” Mr. Franklin sighs.
Oh no. He’s noticed the tears streaming down my cheeks before I’ve even clocked their presence. I resist the urge to wipe them away and try to wear them proudly instead.
“This isn’t crying. I have allergies,” I say. “I’m just very, very allergic to… bad news.” I take a deep breath, swallowing hard.
“And you think someone who is allergic to bad news should be our head negotiator?” Mr. Franklin asks. "I’m sorry, Billie, but we’re going to fill this role externally. Maybe if it had been a more introductory job listing?—”
“Excellent point!” I agree heartily, attempting to seize my moment.
“So maybe instead of promoting me from assistant to head negotiator, we could take a step back and just make room for me as a regular negotiator. Like I’ve been asking for the past seven years.
Then you could give me a chance to show you what I can do. ”
“No,” he says.
The silence sits.
“Oh,” I manage to choke the word out. “I guess— okay then— I’ll just go back to my desk,” I grab my purse and get ready to leave, but Mr. Franklin holds up a hand, stopping me. I sink back into my chair.
“See, this is what I’m talking about,” Mr. Franklin says, taking the seat across from me and folding his hands across his lap.
“Right there. You gave up so easily. You’re right when you say you do everything I need from you and more.
You’re valuable, Billie. That means you have leverage.
But you don’t recognize your own worth, which means you never use your leverage.
I can’t have someone out there making deals on behalf of Franklin Luxury Developments unless they understand value, and what it means to fight to the death for things that matter.
” He raises a hearty fist in the air as if he’s cheering me on, when he’s really just ruining my life.
“If you can’t do that for yourself, how can I expect you to do it for us?
I mean, I just told you you’re not getting promoted, and you didn’t even threaten to quit?—”
“I can threaten to quit!” I say, standing up and leaping to my feet.
I catch a glimpse of myself in a gold-framed mirror hovering above Mr. Franklin’s desk.
There I am: caramel brown hair. Freckles.
I’m in my thirties, but I’ve always had a baby-face, and the blazer I’m wearing is just a little too big for me.
I can’t help but think I look like a kid playing dress up in her Mom’s work clothes.
Still, I stand up straighter and turn back to Mr. Franklin.
“I will walk out of this office right now!” I say, pointing my finger at him.
I let the moment rest, then— when the silence becomes too much to bear— I add helpfully, “After I file the next proposal. And answer all my emails. After all of that, I can leave.”
“So, you’re threatening to leave… after all the work is done?
” Mr. Franklin confirms before adding, “… Chilling.” He lets his head rest in his hand for a second, then looks at me again— really looks at me, taking me in like I’m his disappointing niece, or a free-loading grandchild.
“I see something you in, Billie,” he says.
“But before I can promote you, you need to see it in yourself.”
The tears fall again, even though I beg them not to. I can feel my nose turning red, and a sniffle escapes my lips. Why am I like this? I want nothing more than to stop crying, but no matter how hard I try to pull it together, I just keep thinking about one terrible truth I’ve known my entire life:
I’m just… not enough.
Mr. Franklin seems to notice that I’m spiraling. He clears his throat and grabs a card off his desk.
“See, this is why we have a company therapist on site. For difficult moments like this.”
I take the card, looking at the name on the front. Dr. Rhonda. Corporate Wellness. Suite 4B. There’s a small lotus flower printed in the corner. Our company therapist. I haven’t been to see her yet, but I’ve watched people leave her office crying. Perfect. I’ll fit right in.
“Don’t we also have a company therapist so you don’t get sued?”
Mr. Franklin waves a hand in the air. “Details,” he shrugs before adding. “Today is archetype day. Everyone who takes her personality test gets a badge to wear around the office. Go see her. I think you’ll get a lot out of it.”
“But I don’t want to?—”
“That was an order, Billie.” He taps a tag on his blazer which reads, The Commander, then says. “The Commander. That’s my archetype. Fun, isn’t it?”
With that, I’m dismissed, and I start the long walk toward Dr. Rhonda’s office.
* * *
Rhonda’s office is so pleasant it makes me want to throw up.
Everything in it is soft— soft lighting, soft colors, soft abstract art prints on the walls.
There are plants everywhere. Too many plants.
How does Dr. Rhonda have time to care for all these plants?
I think to myself, pushing away the wayward leaf of a particularly aggressive fern swinging over my head.
I’m too busy trying to keep my job to keep any plants alive.
A sound machine in the corner whirs. A small chalkboard sign on the table next to me reads: Good Things Are Coming.
“Archetypes can really help a person be seen,” Dr. Rhonda says.
She’s seated across from me, a clipboard in her lap.
She’s warm, and earthy— pulled completely together in a way that makes the rest of us look like we got dressed in the dark, which, to be fair, I did, because I leave for work at five in the morning.
She has braids pinned back from her face, glasses, and she’s wearing a forest green jacket. She matches the plants.
“Everyone who chooses to partake in our exercise today will be assigned their personality archetype, and then—” she reaches to her side and produces a small stack of nametags, fanning them out like a hand of cards, “—they'll wear their nametag for the rest of the day.”
“I didn’t really get to choose…” I start to say, but Dr. Rhonda waves a hand in the air as if this news isn’t relevant.
She opens a small bag of trail mix on the side table next to her, helping herself to a handful. “Don’t worry, you’ll love it,” she says, tossing the trail mix into her mouth. “Before we get to the assessment, let’s just chat. How are you feeling today, coming in here?”
And here is the thing about me, about my special curse: I am constitutionally honest. I can’t help it.
Give me an open-ended question and a person who seems like they might actually listen, and I will tell you things I haven't told anyone. My ex-boyfriend said I don’t know when to stop talking.
But he also cheated on me with a girl he met on a ski trip, so I don’t give too much weight to his opinions.
“I feel like I’ve been invisible for years,” I say.
“Especially when it comes to this job. I think Mr. Franklin only sees me as an assistant because I have character, and care about other people. People confuse me being nice with me being a pushover. But they're not the same thing. I’m nice because I care about people, but that doesn’t mean I can’t really accomplish things!
My dream is to be a negotiator. Not just an assistant.
I’m meant to be more than an assistant. I know it.
I just can’t seem to get anyone else to know it, too. ”
Rhonda nods slowly. She eats another piece of trail mix.
“Isn’t it great, though,” she says, “that the company offers this benefit? Access to a therapist right here in the building?”
I look at her. “It would be better if Mr. Franklin were just nice to us in the first place, so we didn’t need therapy.”
There’s a beat. Rhonda tilts her head slightly, like a bird processing new information. Then she writes something on her clipboard. Oops, I think. I already made the clipboard.
“Tell me more about why you feel invisible,” she says.
So I do. I tell her about my first boyfriend, who cheated on me during a class ski trip— nineteen years old, six months in, and I still apologized to him afterward for “making him feel trapped.” I tell her about my dad, who left when I was eight and sent a birthday card every year with a twenty-dollar bill inside until I was seventeen, like the twenty dollars was doing the emotional lifting he couldn’t.
I tell her about my current boyfriend, Tyler, and how I met him right after the first one, and that we’ve settled into a rhythm that’s too comfortable to feel rewarding.
And then I share the heaviest truth: that I’ve spent most of my life trying to prove that I am worthy— to employers, to men, to friends, to a universe that seems basically indifferent to my efforts.
I confess that I’m thirty-five years old and I still can’t ask for what I want without first checking if the other person is comfortable with me wanting it.
I’m aware this is my problem. I just don’t know how to fix it.
I say all of this in about four minutes. Rhonda eats trail mix.
“It sounds,” she says, when I’m finished, “like you’ve been trying to be enough for everyone else. But maybe the person you most need to be enough for is yourself.”
I sit with that for a moment. It's a good line. Annoyingly good, actually. “That’s a very therapist thing to say,” I tell her.
“I am a therapist,” she points out.
She sets down the trail mix and lifts the clipboard again, clicking her pen back into action. “Okay. Let’s do the assessment. Think of it like—“ she pauses, searching for the right frame. “It's like finding a Hogwarts House, but for your soul.”
“My soul,” I repeat.
“Your soul,” she confirms. “This test is a scientific window into who you are. You might have some hidden talents, Billie. And today, we’re going to find them.”
And for the first time in awhile, I feel a little hopeful.
The assessment takes twelve minutes. I answer questions about how I handle conflict (carefully, thoughtfully, and while composing an apology in my head), what energizes me at work (helping people succeed), what I want my legacy to be (I write: for people to know I tried really hard, which I immediately suspect is a wrong answer).
When Rhonda looks at the results, she goes very still for just a moment.
“So,” she begins.
“So,” I echo, starting to imagine what kind of archetype I must receive. I couldn’t help but glance at the pile of nametags in the corner. Roles like explorer and magician jumped out at me. Maybe I’m something cool!
“The archetype system is incredibly nuanced,” she says. “And every archetype carries tremendous value within the ecosystem of?—“
Oh no. My heart starts to race. I decide to cut to the chase. “What did I get?”
Rhonda turns the clipboard toward me. At the top of the page, in a font that is trying very hard to seem empowering, it reads:
THE ASSISTANT.
I stare at it. “I got… The Assistant?!” I shout. “When I literally just told you that all I want in life right now is not to be an assistant anymore?”
“The Assistant archetype is a helper,” Rhonda opens up a file on her computer and reads it like she’s a Doctor and she’s telling me the prognosis isn’t good— hushed and delicate.
“This is a person who enjoys aiding others in their quests. Kind, thoughtful, and empathetic, the assistant can anticipate the needs of others.” She glances up at me over her gold-framed glasses.
Checks my face. Continues. “Look, it’s not all bad.
Let’s scroll down to the best roles within the company.
The Assistant archetype is best suited for roles like... ”
I wait. I watch her scroll.
“What?” I say.
Rhonda looks up at me. Her expression is the picture of professional neutrality, which somehow makes it worse. “Assisting,” she says, glumly, and places the nametag in my hand.
I look down at it. White background. Black text. Clean, simple font.
THE ASSISTANT.
I peel off the backing. I think about the empowering post-it notes on my bathroom mirror, and thirty-five years of trying to be enough. I think about Mr. Franklin and his floor-to-ceiling windows and his nerves of steel.
I press the nametag to my chest. “I’m going to wear this,” I say angrily, staring at Dr. Rhonda, “But only so I can show my friend in marketing that everything I’ve been telling her about me not needing therapy is true, because this nametag is evidence the world is against me.”
“Fair enough,” Dr. Rhonda agrees, looking like she wants to disappear.
I storm out of the room, glancing down at the nametag one last time. At least it’s accurate— which is the worst part.