“NOORA, sweetheart, get in here and close the door,” Loretta screeches.
It’s Wednesday morning, and I’ve just finished watering the plants. I wipe soil residue from my palms and check my phone—it’s 10:00 a.m. What on earth is Loretta doing here at this ungodly hour? I trail behind her, locking the frosted door behind me. She collapses on her couch, fuming.
Side note, her Fashion Week looks have been killing it. Today she’s in an onyx feather coat, leather cigarette pants, and her signature black combat boots. She looks like a chic dementor.
“I’ve just received the most horrible news,” she says, her forehead in her hands.
“Oh my God, is Sarah okay?!” I walk over to the couch and sit down beside her.
Loretta immediately stiffens. I definitely struck a nerve. She rarely ever talks about her wife, Sarah. Her generation believes in keeping the personal and professional separate. Mind you, she usually says this while calling me at 2:00 a.m. on a Friday night and asking me to book her top-secret lipo appointments.
“What? Of course. She’s fine. This is much, much worse. I’ve just learned Jade Aki has been invited to sit front row at Sandy Liang.”
I pause, waiting for the and, but it never comes. Puzzled, I lean back on the couch and turn to face Loretta head-on, studying her expression.
Jade Aki is Vinyl Digital’s director, although I’ve never actually seen her in the office. Saffron says that she’s always traveling, doing promotional stuff for the brand. At twenty-seven years old, Jade is known for being a bit of a media prodigy. She took Vinyl into the digital age by starting its website when she was just twenty-four. As a fellow first-generation American, I’ve always looked up to Jade—although I don’t know much else about her. Loretta has been the face of Vinyl for almost two decades. I’ve never heard her bring up Jade before.
“I’m not quite sure I understand. Isn’t this a good thing? She works for you! Maybe she can help secure a front-row seat.”
Loretta squints back at me.
“She’s a child,” she says. “I was sitting front row the day she was conceived. This is an abomination. I want you to get Sandy Liang herself on the phone. Today.”
I stare at her, positive I misheard.
“Today?”
Loretta’s eyes drill a hole into my skull.
“You know, I’m quite fond of you, Noora. And I want you to succeed here, I really do. But if you’re unable to complete this one, simple task…well, I’m not sure I can do anything more to hold your hand. You understand, don’t you?”
I slink back to my desk, practically comatose. I feel as if I’ve been paralyzed. Loretta’s venom must have made its way into my bloodstream. As my mind begins to reawaken, I replay the events over again.
I want you to get Sandy Liang herself on the phone.
The next part is where things start to get fuzzy.
I’m not sure I can do anything more to hold your hand.
Am I going to allow myself to get fired over this? Over a fucking chair?
I sit up straight, cracking my neck and back. No way in hell am I going down like this.
Time to spring into action. I pull up Loretta’s schedule for the rest of the day. Around 1:30 p.m., she’s scheduled to sit in a meeting with Daniel, the head of Communications, for about an hour and a half (not sure what that’s all about, but still). That’s my window. I glance at the timer on my laptop screen—I still have three minutes until the fifteen-minute mark before Loretta’s next appointment arrives. In other words, I can leave my desk.
I run to Saffron’s sanctuary. They’re hunched over, listening to Soccer Mommy, editing a piece about coming out to your friends as pansexual. I urgently tap them on the shoulder.
“What are you doing right now?” I ask, my nostrils flaring.
“Um, my job?” Saffron says with a laugh.
“Any chance you can do your job at my desk? I just need you to cover me for, like, max forty-five minutes at one thirty. Please.”
Saffron takes in the desperation in my eyes. They nod.
“Yea, I mean, sure,” they say. “I just don’t want to meet Loretta’s wrath, ya know?”
“I’ll be back in time for her next meeting,” I promise.
When 1:30 p.m. rolls around, I walk Daniel from his office to Loretta’s and close the door myself.
“Aren’t you just the spiciest little shish kebab?” Daniel says to me, his English accent flattening his vowels, before entering the room. I roll my eyes. Racist prick.
Saffron shows up on the dot and makes themself at home at my desk. I grab my jacket—a slinky little vintage sequin number from the ’20s—and run to the elevator bank. When I make it outside, I flag down the first cab I see.
“Where to?” the driver asks. The car smells like a pretzel left out in the sun for too long.
“Grand Street and Kenmare. The Sandy Liang headquarters. And step on it.”
The ride takes twenty unpleasant minutes—it should have been ten, but I’m stalled by Fashion Week traffic and influencers taking photos in the middle of the street. I keep refreshing my email, playing roulette with my inbox. I’m both terrified a message from Loretta will arrive informing me of my dismissal and hopeful a representative from Liang’s team will get back to me explaining this was all just one giant misunderstanding. I look out the window and people watch to calm my nerves.
New York Fashion Week turns the city into a euphoric zoo, where every single cooped-up animal begins to competitively and harmoniously peacock. Creatures don their most fabulous frocks and strut up and down Houston, desperate to be photographed by street-style photographers and splattered all over the pages of next month’s Vogue. I watch as a beautiful woman with a tiny, frayed pixie cut wearing a boxy olive-green suit walks straight into traffic. She’s probably an off-duty model. My guess? She lives with about seven other women, all of whom look somewhat like her. She glances at her phone and frowns. Do I have enough money left in my checking account to buy lunch today? I imagine her thinking. She’s about six years shy of becoming a New Yorker. I think Manhattan membership requires ten-year admittance, at the very least. In this jungle, you have to earn your stripes.
The cab pulls up in front of Sandy Liang HQ. The building is one of those new age, modern developments—a sleek high-rise with views of Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. I scan the perimeter; there’s security hovering by either entrance. There’s no chance I can sneak in without being caught and thrown into Rikers. The upside? I’ll join the ranks of girl boss Anna Delvey. The downside? Loretta might kill me first.
Reluctantly, I accept there’s only one thing left to do: use my remaining thirty-five minutes to stand across the street, waiting like a stalker, on the off chance Sandy Liang might emerge.
I know what you’re thinking: Noora, you’re fucking crazy.
Well, first of all, that’s ableist. And, yes, I know I keep saying ableist things, okay? But that’s in the past now. I’m not perfect! I’m working on it. Second of all, I’m actually desperate—I’m not ready to lose this job just yet. I can’t imagine saying good-bye to Saffron, Cal, and Beth after just weeks of being in their lives. Even Superman! And I won’t let myself give up until I’ve actually written something of value that makes a difference in this fucked-up world.
So I sit on a stoop across the street and stage a full-on stakeout.
At first, nothing comes of it. I kill fifteen minutes swallowing yawns and darting my eyes from the revolving doors to the back entrance. Plenty of characters float in and out. There’s an older Latino man wearing a top hat and a three-piece suit, swirling a cane made of marble. I also spy a tiny dog sporting a sweatshirt with a self-portrait stitched into the cotton (I almost break my back trying to get a good picture for my followers). But as I inch closer to twenty minutes, I start to come to terms with the cold, hard truth:
I’m not going to find Sandy Liang. I was never going to find Sandy Liang.
What I am, however, is so fired.
My phone starts to ring. Could it be? Have one of her contacts actually come through at the very last millisecond? I answer a little too quickly, desperate for a breakthrough.
“Hello? Sandy?”
“Noora! You little bitch!” Leila’s voice blares through my speaker. “Did you borrow my cowhide fringed jacket? The one that apparently used to belong to Stevie Nicks? You know how much I hate when you take my stuff without asking! It’s the principle of the thing; if you had just asked, I obviously would have said yes, but now I’ve just wasted five years of my life looking through my closet for it, only to discover—”
“Leila, I love you, but I literally cannot deal with this right now.”
I hang up the phone then slowly stand and collect my things. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a flash of long, black hair. It’s moving quickly down the crowded street. I stand up and chase after it.
The hair is attached to a body dressed in head-to-toe black and carrying a briefcase. Could it be?
I follow the hair through side alleys and backyard dumpster dives. In fact, I trace it all the way back to Chinatown. As the smell of roasting duck begins to seep through my nostrils, I turn the corner and suddenly, I’m face-to-face with the hair. I look up.
The hair is attached to a middle-aged Chinese woman. She hands me a menu.
“We have lunch special,” she says, waving me into her restaurant. I feel my knees buckle.
“Maybe next time.”
I cab back to the office, cursing myself out for feeling hopeful. I imagine telling my parents, breaking the news to my Mom all the way in Dubai. She’ll pick up and, before I can get a word in, give me the gossip: which cousin is getting married to which lifelong nemesis. What silly television show my retired father can’t stop binge-watching (it’s currently The Crown on Netflix). “Maman,” I’d rudely interrupt. “I have to tell you something.” My eyes brim with tears just playing out the conversation in my head.
When I arrive back at the office, I sulk to my desk. Saffron looks up at me, a triumphant look on their face.
“Your little abode here is actual heaven. I crushed this edit. Like, I actually demolished it.” They notice my expression, shrunken and sad. “You, not so much, eh?” I shake my head.
Then, without thinking, I begin to collect my things. I pack up the coffee-table books I brought from home for my bookshelf—Paris/New York, The History of Chanel, Vivienne Westwood—and throw them into my purse. I start taking photos of me and Leila off my bulletin board. I’m just about to erase my laptop’s hard drive when the phone rings.
“Hello? Cal? Superman?”
There’s silence on the other end of the line.
“This is Sandy Liang calling for Loretta James.”
I black out for a split second.
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
I black back in.
“Yes, of course,” I tell the Sandy Liang. “One second.”
I mute the line, run over to Loretta’s office, and bang on the door. Thankfully, Beth has joined her meeting with Daniel.
“What is it, doll?” Loretta asks, annoyed.
“IhaveSandyLiangonthephoneforyou.” I let the words escape from my mouth as quickly as they can. Loretta stands up straightaway.
“What are you waiting for? Transfer the call!”
I run outside and quickly press *67.
“Hello?” Sandy Liang says.
Shit. It didn’t work. I try again—*67. Nothing happens. I check the Notes app on my phone. I’m positive Cal told me that this is how to transfer a call directly to Loretta’s line. I must have done this a million times since.
“Noora, sweets,” Loretta calls to me from her office. “Transfer the call.”
“I’m trying,” I call back. *67. Still nothing. What the fuck is wrong with this stupid phone?
“Noora,” Loretta screeches. “Transfer the call to my office.”
“I’m doing the best I can.” *67. *67. *6fucking7.
“Hello?” Sandy Liang says.
“NOORA,” Loretta screams at the top of her lungs. “TRANSFER THE FUCKING CALL RIGHT NOW.”
“I AM TRANSFERRING THE CALL,” I yell back. “STAR SIXTY-SEVEN ISN’T FUCKING WORKING.”
The office goes dead silent. Everyone from the Print team who came into work today stands up and slowly turn their heads to take in the drama. One editor coughs to cover up a laugh. A couple of Digital team members poke their heads from around the corner to watch me get chewed out. I feel my forehead begin to burn.
I just threw a tantrum. I yelled at Loretta James like a spoiled toddler. The entire Vinyl staff heard. Sandy Liang probably heard.
“Noora,” Beth says to me, quietly. I didn’t even notice she had stayed behind. “The transfer code is star seventy-six.”
My jaw drops. It’s as if my body has been inhabited by Area 51. I pick the phone back up and dial *76. Loretta’s phone rings. She picks it up. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to disappear.
“Sandy!” she croons, her voice oozing with faux charm. The door slams behind her.
I can’t breathe. My chest feels tight and sharp. I look down at my hands. They’re shaking so much that I can no longer hold the phone. My vision blurs. I stand up and run to Saffron’s desk.
“Keys,” I choke out. “Give me the keys.” They throw me the key chain to the beauty closet, and I set off running. I let myself in and collapse on the floor, convulsing in tears. My head is pounding. This is the end—I’m sure of it.
I hear the door creak open behind me. I peer out of the corner of one eye. Saffron is towering over me. They bend down and hold me, rubbing my back in a circular motion, just like my grandmother used to do.
“It’s okay,” they tell me. “It’s all going to be okay.”
“I’m dying,” I croak back.
Saffron shakes their head. “You’re not dying,” they say firmly. “You’re having a panic attack. It’s totally normal. In fact, it’s human. You think you’re the only one here battling anxiety? Girl, this office is living with demons in our desks and behind our backs. You have no idea how many of us have started taking antidepressants since signing our SPP offers. How many employees left because they couldn’t take medical leave. One even had to be hospitalized for dehydration, and what did SPP’s HR department do about it? Nothing. And me? I’ve been this way ever since I was a kid. Do you know what it’s like, constantly fighting gender dysphoria, trying to reaffirm who I am every single day? Going on hormones in the middle-of-nowhere bumfuck Idaho? It’s painful, it can be debilitating, and terrifying. But no, anxiety isn’t death. Because you’ll outlive it. For now, just focus on the breath moving like a current throughout your body. Inhale in, exhale out. It’ll keep you present. Alive.”
I sit still in their arms, hiccupping. The tears staining my cheeks begin to dry. I can feel my heart rate slowing down, too. I look down at my hands. They’re no longer shaking. Saffron has cured me.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“Anytime, sunshine. You and me, we’ve gotta stick together.”
They stand up and offer me a hand. I reluctantly accept. I’m not sure I’m ready to face Loretta just yet.
“You’ll be surprised,” Saffron says, reading my mind.
Curious, I follow them back into the bullpen, fully prepared to be verbally assaulted, perhaps even mauled to death. Instead, I find something much, much creepier.
Loretta is looming over my desk, with that eerie, manic smile on her face. She lights up when she sees me.
“Well, that’s done.” She smirks. “Jade Oki will never sit front row at New York Fashion Week ever again.”
Then, something miraculous and terrifying happens. Loretta James throws her arms around me, pulling me tightly into her bosom. I accidentally sniff her hair. I think we’re hugging.
She pulls away. For a second, I think she’s going to kiss my forehead. That, or stab me in the back. Instead, she looks down at my scattered desk and frowns.
“Honey, where do you think you’re going?”
For once, I don’t know.