“What’s in the other bag?”
She looked at me quizzically.
“The duffel bag.”
She looked down and then glanced away. “Oh, it’s nothing. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Well, it IS something. It’s a physical thing in your hand. Is it full of weed? Why are you acting so weird?”
“What?! No, of course not,” she scoffed.
She groaned and put the duffel on a waiting room end table. I unzipped it and peered inside.
It was Candace’s bridesmaid dress.
“Before you say anything, I already said I hadn’t been thinking straight. I thought I’d bring the dress to show her how lovely they turned out, just to have something to talk about since babies weren’t my thing.” She teared up. “But then on the way here I realized we fitted it for her to be pregnant at my wedding. And . . . and that’s just depressing.” Her wedding was in a couple of weeks. Candace would have been thirty-six weeks pregnant with Annabelle. I wiped my eyes with a tissue and handed one to Jane, too.
“Look, Candace and Wil are going to be in the NICU for a long time, so you’ll be here all day if you wait for them. Wil checks his messages every hour or so. I’ll let him know I saw you outside and that we headed back home together. I have their key so maybe later we can wash their preemie clothes and maybe clean up their place so when they do come home everything will be nice and tidy.”
As soon as I suggested we should clean, Jane wrinkled her nose. A cleaning person came to her place twice a week. Jane wasn’t exactly the roll-up-your-sleeves-and-clean type. She pleaded, “Can I bring Helga?”
“Your cleaning person’s name is Helga?” I’d never heard of a person in this country, living in this century, with the name Helga. It seemed like the sort of name you’d give a minor character in a slapstick comedy series.
“Yes, that’s her real name, and I can ask her to come to their house tomorrow. That’s one of the days she normally cleans my place, but I can skip it.”
“Okay, that sounds great. Did you drive here?” I’d taken a Liftr to avoid hospital parking fees.
BOOP-BOOP! She unlocked a BMW convertible just outside the sliding doors. “I did drive, and you can be my first passenger. Just bought it last week!” Ahhhh, new car smell. Far better than that antiseptic aroma permeating the hospital.
On the drive home, I casually mentioned, “Hey, did you know that Asher wanted me to convince you to abolish all maid of honor and best man dancing requirements?”
She laughed. “Asher’s a disaster on the dance floor. He does this weird boxing-like arm thing and doesn’t move his feet. The only way he even dances at all is if he’s completely drunk.”
“I’d like to ask then, as a favor to me, to make sure you DO have a wedding party dance. And could you make a big stink if he doesn’t come out to the dance floor?”
Jane asked, “Are you SURE you want to be subjected to dancing with Asher for a full three minutes, smiling for the audience, with your hands and bodies touching, while he steps all over your feet?”
Tough call. Cancel the dance, or torture him while also torturing me? “Um, never mind. Let’s cancel the dance.” We pulled into our parking garage and took the elevator to our apartments. “Unless you really want it.”
A flurry of delayed text notifications popped up on my phone when I unlocked my door.
Jane: Where are you? I’m in the waiting room.
Mom: Thank you sending the Seattle article. Waaa! You famous now! You should pic different picture, this one you have double chin. Maybe ask to retake or ask them to erase.
Nolan: I have to tell you something! In person. When I’m back in town ok? A wave of sadness hit me as I read his excited message. Even when he wasn’t traveling, I’d managed to avoid him since the night at the club, for both our sakes. I wasn’t ready to be around him yet.
Kat: Oh holy shit you have over 700 comments on your Seattle Met article! And Cosmo and Redbook just published articles too. Your PR friend is a genius! Trolls took the bait (including someone claiming to be UltimateDDay) and are battling all these liberal Seattleites and women’s rights advocates, who are rallying for you! Tallyhooooo!
Fresh tears brimmed on my eyelashes and trickled down my cheeks. Candace had really pulled through for me. So had the Seattle Met, and a lot of their readers.
Tallyho, motherfuckers.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Kat sent me a text. Why is Asher in Sue’s office?
Had he actually reported me for not-technically dating Nolan? My pulse sped up as I walked down the HR corridor. When I passed Sue’s room, I looked over as discreetly as possible, which really wasn’t at all. Asher was seated in one of her guest chairs, facing her, and Sue didn’t even look up when I zipped by. Usually, she waved.
After my recon work, I texted Kat. Couldn’t see anything. Nada.
My stomach churned, jaw muscles tightened, knowing that any moment I could be called into Sue’s or Ian’s office to be let go. Terminated. My biggest nightmare becoming my reality. As various scenarios of getting fired played out in my mind, Kat messaged again. Interesting email. Very unexpected. Maybe Asher’s not such a horrible guy after all?
Seventeen Studios had issued a formal statement: an incident had been reported in which an employee shared proprietary information with external media without proper clearance. Such action was not permitted at the company and warranted disciplinary action, including possible probation or termination.
At last, something was being done about Ian’s deliberate actions that had directly resulted in my utter misery. Finally, he would be held accountable.
Just before leaving work at a reasonably early time, WheedWacker disclosed the identities of many of my self-righteous, vicious cyberbullies. And they weren’t your stereotypical basement dwelling, Mountain Dew–drinking virgins.
@ApeSht75: A white middle-aged accountant (ACCOUNTANT? WTF) from Des Moines, IA. Family man. Churchgoer with a lesbian mother and sister.
@Hi_TierX: Upper 20s neuroscience PHD candidate. White. Played a LOT of video games. Harassed a LOT of women, people of color, and LGBTQ.
@GSquad_7: This guy was always getting banned on social media and wanted to rape everything. EVERYTHING. It was all he talked about. He just turned 18.
@XBulletGamr: In his 50s, lived with his mom, a day trader who posted lots of porn pics. Mostly Asian fantasy porn.
@gravitygirl23: A black female gamer in her 20s. She posted about #girlpower in a sarcastic way and hated all women of all races. To be fair, she also hated men of all races. She must have a backstory, but WheedWacker couldn’t find it.
@flipper9000: A Filipino American guy in his 30s. Single. He did not like Asian women. In fact, he hated them. All of them.
She texted: Want me to dox them? I have cell #s, addresses, SSNs, even banking info. I wouldn’t go that far though.
I could have asked WheedWacker to do it, and she would have. Posting that personal information would have escalated this to another level, but I refused to add more fuel to the fire. Game over. This stupid shit needed to stop.
Nah, no need. The harassment has really taken a nosedive since my Seattle Met interview, but thank you for everything. Justice Brigade saved me.
WheedWacker responded: By the way, we changed our name to Bitch Brigade. Police and Media confused Justice Brigade with the Justice League like all the time, and Wonder Woman was the only goddamned woman on that Justice League team. We’ll go by B.B. effective immediately.
Me: Has a nice ring to it. I love this bitch identity appropriation. You might think about 13.13 as another way to express B.B. It’s way nerdier.
WheedWacker replied: 13.13. Yes! Well, we can get you those files if you need them anytime. Just ask Candace, and she’ll find me. I’m disconnecting this number now. Good luck, Gamer Girl.
I wrote: No, thank YOU, but the message did not go through.
The rain had let up, and now the skies were clear, not a single cloud for miles. No bluebirds singing, though. The sun burned my eyes, like someone coming out of a dark movie theater and being thrust into direct sunlight. This momentary pause in precipitation was glorious. Pedestrians swished past me, some talking on their phones on their way home, some chatting with friends or coworkers, and a few walking alone. My body tingled all the way down to my fingertips and toes.
I had control again. What a wonderful feeling.
Chapter Twenty-Six
My phone rang at 6:15 A.M. a day before launch. All I heard were high-pitched squeals, which at first I thought was a fax machine transmission. But it turned out to be my friend Nick, shrieking with glee.
“Melody! Are you up? Wake up! Remember how I submitted your game trailer to all the advertising award festivals? Well, it won Grand Prize at the Indie Webbies for video CGI! And not just any grand prize. It was the Grand fucking Prix! We got the highest honor! How amazing is that?”
I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. “Oh wow. Congratulations, Nick! But it’s not ‘we’ we’re talking about, it’s YOU. YOU won this and you deserve this so much. I am so excited and proud of you.”
I could feel him beaming through the phone. “There’s more. The Ultimate Apocalypse trailer’s been picked up by a few industry news outlets, so your game trailer is going to be featured in both Adweek and Ad Age. And the UK and other European countries and regions are also picking up this news. A video game for women, with stripper heroes? The press is already all over that shit!” More press for him meant more press for me. Good deal!