Chapter 2
It’s been three days. No proposal. Not even a mention of the box.
If it wasn’t a ring, then why hasn’t he shown it to me?
Who keeps a random box a secret? From his mother, no less.
I think a graduation gift from your mother is the kind of thing you would show your girlfriend.
I know if my mother had gotten me a graduation gift, I would have shown it to him.
“Marianto?”
Blanca—my co-worker and best friend—is looking up at me with doe eyes, a perfectly wild spray of brown curls framing her heart-shaped face. She seems to have been talking for a while.
I blink at her. “Yes?”
“Are you talking to Eugenia today?” she asks, and her tone indicates she’s repeating herself.
“Oh.” I shake my head. “Bad timing.”
She turns back to her laptop and starts typing. “What’s so bad about it?”
I scan our office’s layout before leaning over her desk.
Our workspace looks like a Swedish furniture store—minimalistic desks in pastel colors with cushioned chairs to match.
Mine is a soft turquoise with a touch of baby pink, and the one next to mine is apple green.
The waiting area, however, is bright and gleeful, almost like a preschool classroom; it sports a striped carpet designed by iconic artist Carlos Cruz-Diez, with abstractly shaped fuchsia and ocher chairs resting on it.
Portraits of famous journalists and influencers hang from every wall—the only place you’ll find Barbara Walters, Marta Colomina, and Kylie Jenner in the same room.
I love the orchestrated mess of it all. It fuels creativity.
“I think Alejandro is proposing,” I whisper, after two co-workers from the Advertising Department (whom we suspect are having a forbidden romance) walk past us.
Blanca’s eyes double in size. “Qué?!”
“Shhhh!” I lean even closer, fighting a grin. “I don’t want to get ahead of myself—”
“You already are.”
“But,” I continue, “at his graduation party, his mother gave him a little box, which I’m pretty sure holds a ring.”
Blanca narrows her eyes, sipping water from a Stanley cup she takes everywhere. “And you’re ready to say yes?”
“Of course I am. I’ve been ready.” I try to keep the nervousness out of my voice.
Blanca sighs, taking another sip of water. “Well, then, I don’t see how that’s bad timing to ask for a promotion. You’ve worked your ass off for five years.”
“Weddings are expensive” is what I say because the truth is a horrible thought.
“All the more reason to ask for a promotion now,” Blanca says. “More money.”
“I know, but—”
At that exact moment, two things happen: My phone vibrates with a text notification, while Blanca’s laptop chimes with another.
Mine is a text from Ale.
Ale: are you free for dinner tonight?
My heart jumps. I glance over at Blanca, who isn’t paying attention to me anymore and is busy with her laptop.
I quickly type a response.
Yo: Sí!
Yo: of course I am.
Ale: ok. I’ll pick you up at 7. Is Taiko okay?
I don’t feel like eating Japanese food, so I suggest we to go Moreno instead.
Ale: sure. See you then.
We haven’t had a dinner at a fancy restaurant in so long. Ay, Dios, what if today is the day?
As soon as the thought enters my mind, I can feel it in my bones.
Soon, we’ll be in our dream house in La Lagunita, having a late dinner because he had surgery that went longer than anticipated.
But it’s good, the guy made it, Ale saved his life.
Our dog will be barking in the yard at the little frogs that never shut up.
And the two of us will be together and anchored. Forever.
When I turn to Blanca, she’s already watching me with something akin to urgency in her face.
“She’s coming.”
Around us, the entire office moves like clockwork.
Two seconds later, in true Venezuelan-Miranda-Priestly fashion, Eugenia Fajardo—CEO, editor in chief, and complete badass—makes a straight line toward her office.
Her hair is pulled into her signature silvery ponytail, not a strand out of place. She looks immaculate.
“Buenos días,” Blanca and I mumble as she walks by Blanca’s desk.
We turn to each other, wide-eyed, when Eugenia ignores us.
I watch her disappear around a corner, her step sure, and think back to the last five years.
Eugenia will never promote me out of my current position if I’m engaged.
My job as the current Ella consists of three elements: one, showing our followers and readers that the lifestyle we advertise is actually possible; two, running Querida Ella, our weekly relationship advice Q three, doing the previous two through the magazine’s social media.
In the twenty-five years Ellas has existed, no one in my role has gotten engaged or married.
She’ll see it as validation, an opportunity to show her little love guru’s advice actually works. She’ll want it all documented.
I have one shot. If she says no, I won’t be able to ask again for a long time. I’d have to quit. I can’t risk losing this opportunity to impatience.
“I won’t talk to her about the promotion today,” I decide. “The timing isn’t right.”
“Maria Antonieta!” I jump at Eugenia’s sharp command.
“Go, go, go,” Blanca whispers, rolling her chair over to push me away.
I follow Eugenia to her office. People scatter, rushing to get to their desks and out of our way.
Her personal assistant is waiting inside with coffee, sitting on Eugenia’s chair to warm it like she does every morning.
I stop before crossing the threshold. Quick outfit check—mom jeans, wine-red tank top, navy blue blazer, and my brown hair falling in soft waves to my elbows.
It’s effortless chic. It took me an hour to put it together.
I do my outfit run-through in the time it takes Eugenia to cross her office and sit at her desk and for her assistant to walk out.
“Good mor—”
“I don’t see this week’s schedule anywhere,” Eugenia greets me. Her desk isn’t pastel like ours. It’s black-and-white. Blanca says it’s to assert dominance over the rest of us. She’s the mother and we’re the babies, so our desks are baby colored. And fortunately/unfortunately, I’m her favorite kid.
Panic beats in my chest. “That’s odd. I sent it on Friday. Like I do every week.”
I did this right before I left for the weekend. A thorough, detailed social media plan for each day of the week, along with the graphics I’m going to post and the topic for Wednesday’s “Hablemos de…” I’m pitching “Low-Budget Things to Do in Caracas.” It’s all planned out.
“Please, make my life easier and send it Monday morning before I make it to the office,” she says. “I need it to be the first thing I see. I don’t want to have to look for it two hundred emails down.”
“Very well.” Mental note: Don’t send emails Friday afternoon, even though you’ve been sending emails Friday afternoon for the last four years.
But there are worse problems to have. Eugenia is incredible. To be the person she’s taken under her wing is an honor.
After a couple of clicks and taps on her laptop, Eugenia looks up. “ ‘Low-Budget Things to Do in Caracas’?”
Her already narrow eyes study me in what I think is confusion. Or murderous intent.
“Yes.” I clear my throat. “I was thinking—”
“No,” she cuts me off. “We don’t do low-budget, you know this. And where’s the romance in that? Make it about…” She snaps her fingers as she thinks. “Oh! ‘Perfect First Date Spots in Caracas.’ ”
Not again, I think. Please, no more quirky, overpriced restaurants the government uses to launder money.
Low-Budget in Caracas is something everyone can do.
It’s an opportunity for outsiders to explore the city when they come and for those of us who have been living here since the dawn of time to use to reconnect with it.
I wish I could make her see that vision.
“Didn’t we already do that last year?” I say instead.
“Yes, you’re right.” Eugenia taps one finger to her chin, then perks up. “I’ve got it! ‘Perfect Fifth Date Destinations in Caracas.’ ” Fifth date? Fifth dates aren’t a thing. “Make sure you don’t repeat locations.”
I blink. Once, twice. “Okay.”
Because if I tell her it’s not a thing, she’s going to tell me to make it a thing, then. I don’t want to spend the next month writing articles about how “he doesn’t love you if he can’t remember your fifth date anniversary.”
“Everything else looks good.” Eugenia ushers me away with bright red nails. “Get on it.”
“Of course.”
Back in my pastel cubicle, I go through the graphics I have prepared for each day of the week and choose one.
These little affirmations are like our horoscope.
There’s a myth in the office claiming that whatever I post on Mondays will dictate the mood for the rest of the week.
At first it was just for fun. Five years later, it’s become weirdly accurate.
Today’s affirmation reads Do not beg for what does not want to stay in cursive brown letters against a soft pink gradient background. Minimalist, cute, clean. Perfect to become someone’s lock screen if they so desire.
I hesitate before posting it. Not quite sure why. But then I shake my head and follow it with a text story that says, “No begging esta semana, damas y caballeros.” We’re independent human beings, damn it, and that’s the energy we’re bringing to the week.
I turn to my laptop and log in to my work email. An ugly “237” welcomes me, signaling how many unread emails there are, all of them starting with “Querida Ella.” At 8:00 a.m., the day already feels thirty hours long.
Squaring my shoulders for the second time today, I crack my knuckles. Time to tell people how to be just as happy as I am.