"Cheswick!" Phil has stopped using his admin to summon me, instead just opening his office door to bellow my name across the farm of cubicles. I notice that I'm the only reporter who gets this treatment, and I can't decide if that means he likes me or if my neck is still on the chopping block. "Come on in here."
"Yep," I say, closing the lid to my laptop. I plunk into the seat across from Phil expectantly. I turned in my revised draft of the piece about Thatcher's opening. I stayed up most of the night to work on it, after the diaper incident.
"This is more like it," Phil says, tapping his monitor. "This isn't even a puff piece. You got him to really talk to you."
I smile. Phil never, ever hands out these sorts of compliments. I start to relax a little more, and then Phil says, "I want you to come to the editorial meeting later. Let's hear your ideas for the next few weeks."
My jaw drops. Junior reporters almost never get to go speak up in these meetings. We get whatever assignments nobody else wants. We work the beats, trudge into emergency rooms and interview operators at Poison Control, trying to sniff out our own angle on the assignments. The thought of sharing my idea about Juniper…well, Thatcher's idea…I squeeze my thighs to keep from clapping my hands in excitement.
"That'll be all, Cheswick," Phil says, already typing away on someone else's article submission.
"Thank you, Phil. This means a lot to me."
"Ungh." This time, I can tell his grunt is short for "you're welcome, now beat it and let me work."
I decide to take an early lunch. I text Nicole to see if she can meet me so I can tell her all about it. I practically skip across the bridge to our favorite Thai place--I could eat Thai every day--and I see her already sitting at our table on the back porch.
"Nick! You're not going to believe it!"
"Spill it," she says. She's dressed impeccably, as always, looking like she is off to kill it in the board room. "I've got 46 minutes before I have to pitch our software to an investor."
"Aha, so that's why you're dressed like a superhero today. Anyway!" I start to tell her the extended version of going to Thatcher's house last night, but she cuts me off.
"Wait. You went to that creep's house? Alone? After he practically molested you at the opening? What is wrong with you, Emma?"
"Oh, shit. I forgot I didn't fill you in." I grimace. I'm not supposed to tell anyone about Thatcher's and my plan to fool his family…but this is Nicole. I'm not going to be able to do this on my own. I need her advice, like always. "So I sort of made a deal with him where I'm pretending to be his fiancé and he's giving me open access to his studio and to his family--which is why I'm excited today and--"
"Hold on." She signals the server to bring her a Thai iced tea. "I need caffeine for this. Start at the beginning and leave nothing out."
Once I explain the whole thing, Nicole has drunk two of those orange iced teas and she's tapping her fingers on the table rapidly, her nails clicking on the Formica. "I think it's weird," she says.
"That's fair," I respond, but explain that it's already paying off in my favor because I get to pitch at the meeting this afternoon. "I didn't even tell Thatcher that I'm going to pitch something his sister-in-law said about daycare in the office. That's, like, a whole third feature I could maybe get in exchange for pretending to like him for a few weeks."
Nicole has her phone out, tapping around, looking for something. "Oh," she says, sliding it across to me. "Is this him? Shit, he's hot."
I look at the picture. It must be an old one, where his beard is shorter and his hair isn't so…ratty. "He does look good there," I say. "He's more hipster, grungy caveman these days, I'd say. Not my type." Liar, I think, biting my lip.
"Ha! Girl, you don't have a type."
"I have a not-type," I tell her, diving into the noodles and sliced mango with coconut rice. "I will say, he's really sexy when he's taking care of his nephew, and he has amazing abs."
"Does he know about all your…stuff?" Nicole wipes her mouth and checks her watch. I can tell she's about to scurry off to her meeting.
I shake my head. "I don't see why he needs to know about that," I tell her. "I haven't felt a seizure aura for months. Really, Nick, I'm more worried that he will encounter my mother than I am about him finding out my health quirks." I finger the rose-gold medical alert bracelet that Nicole helped me find when we were in college. "This one doesn't scream 'there's something wrong with me!'" she'd said.
When I moved in with her she helped me find a new neurologist, and that was the first time I'd had control over my symptoms. The first time I felt like I could have a life outside of my mother's home, away from her oppressive care. I owe Nicole a lot more than just Pad Thai and friendship. She squeezes my hand. "Kick ass at your meeting, Em."
"You, too, friend." She winks, grabs her purse, and clicks out the door in her heels.