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That out-of-body feeling of dread came swooping back in. “Yes?”
“Your aunt Maeve passed away.”
Pretty sure Mom said more, but the hand holding the phone dropped to my desk.
“Kenna?” Liz jumped up and rounded my desk, putting her arm around me. She took the phone from my hands and hit the speaker button. My head felt like it was no longer connected to my body. Not Aunt Maeve. She was my only surviving relative outside of Mom. I hadn’t known her well, thanks to a decades-old feud between the sisters, but family was family.
“Ms. Ryan? This is Liz.”
“Oh, hi, honey. Is Kenna okay? I didn’t want to tell her over the phone, but time is of the essence. She needs to get out to Florida right away.”
There was a knock on my doorway. Chris, my temporary manager, stuck his head in my office. “They’re ready for you, Kenna.”
I nodded somehow, which was impressive because I no longer felt like I had control over the muscles in my body. I stared at my hand, wondering how it had raised in the air. In the back of my head I wondered if I was in shock. Having a stroke maybe?
“She’ll be right there!” Liz said brightly to Chris, squeezing my shoulders so hard I would have elbowed her off me if I could have lifted my arm.
“I gotta go, Mom,” I mumbled, stumbling to my feet and grabbing my folder. A sheet of paper flew out, but I didn’t have time to grab it. Surely it wasn’t that important.
“Wait. Kenna.” Liz hit the red button on my phone and hung up on my mother. “Take five minutes and just breathe, okay?”
Panic flooded in and suddenly I wasn’t sure I could breathe given even several hours. “Nope. Don’t have five minutes.”
I spun on my heel and marched to the conference room, seeing the entire management team already sitting around the long table through the glass walls. There at the head of the table was Ashley, smoothing her hands down her bright red dress, hair perfectly coifed and fake eyelashes fanning the room.
Chris waved me to the head of the table too. I stepped up next to Ashley, giving her a smile around the waft of flowery perfume that made me want to vomit. Next to her I probably looked like a wrinkled-up pair of dirty underwear that somehow always found its way to the gutter of the streets in San Francisco. I always wondered how people lost their underwear.
“You go first, Ken,” she said with a kindness that was as fake as her boobs.
“Thanks, Ash.” I turned away from her and noticed Liz plugging my thumb drive into the laptop and firing up my slides, a small detail I’d forgotten. Thank God for best friends who will never let you down.
I went through my presentation, feeling pretty good about my dancing moles to help preschoolers learn to count. Hairy-tailed moles were an underrated animal and an unexplored mammal in education books. Perfect for this new project. When I sat down to allow for Ashley’s presentation, I felt like I got a few head nods from management, which boded well for that promotion.
Ashley pointed to one of her slides, her slender arm pointing to a furry bear with...good God, was that genitalia? The men around the table began to murmur but my attention was on something else.
Ashley had a diamond bracelet around her bony wrist.
Identical to the one the sales lady had shown me at the jewelry store.
Sudden nausea had me lurching to my feet. Heads swiveled in my direction and Ashley’s lips were still moving, but no sound hit my ears. The very air in this room was pressing in on my brain like a vise. I couldn’t suck in a breath to save my life. Even my limbs were shaking as I tried to balance on my heels.
Chris tried to pull me back down to my seat, but all I could do was stare as our CEO walked up to Ashley and shook her hand, a lecherous grin on his alcohol-bloated face. Realization hit and I didn’t know whether to cry or laugh. I’d lost my husband, my aunt, and my promotion, all in the same week.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
I looked around the room and noticed all eyes were now on me. Apparently I’d said that. Out loud. I almost let out an unhinged giggle at dropping an F-bomb in the conference room.
I pointed at the screen, voice rising. Was no one else seeing this shit? “Her cartoon characters have alien-sized genitalia! For a preschool education book!”
Chris moved in closer, but I dodged him. I had a desperation bubbling up inside of me that had nothing to do with this job and yet needed to come out. Right now. I locked eyes with our CEO who looked like he’d bit down on a bitter lemon.
“You want alien genitalia? I can genital my ass off, buddy. Prepare to be genitaled within six”—I gasped—“no, EIGHT inches of your life, gentlemen.”
Ashley had the gall to gasp, the diamonds on her bracelet catching the light as she put her hand to her mouth.
“And you!” I was not anywhere close to being done. I pointed at her, fury giving my voice volume. “You house-wrecking whore!”
At this point, the managers had all gotten to their feet, each trying to usher me out the door, but I was faster than all of them. I danced around and spewed my displeasure until Liz wrapped her strong arms around me from behind and dragged me out the door. I kicked and screamed some more, but ultimately Liz got the better of me. She finally let me go when we got inside the walls of my office, eyeing me like I might rush back out there and stir up some more shit. She was right to watch me. I had so much shit I could stir for days and not take a break.
