AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Evan casually strolled onto the stage and took the microphone out of Melvin’s stunned hand. “Artemis worked very hard to put this project together. We had an amazing project manager, one who deserves the real credit here.”
Melvin moved to take the microphone back, but Evan held it out of a stunned Melvin’s hand. “Indiana Aaron, not Melvin Hammer, designed, constructed, and implemented this project. And it was an honor working with her.”
Gasps from the crowd. I’d untangled my heel a while back but was now regretting the two champagnes I’d had to make the evening palatable. This would be an amazing time to be sober.
“Indiana? I think Apollo would like to meet you. Officially.”
“Yep, coming,” I said.
People swiveled their heads in my direction, but I heard a lot of mumbled, “Who said that?” and “Do you see anybody?” God damn it. I had on my highest heels. I pushed my way through the crowd and joined Evan at the podium. He handed me the microphone with triumph, and I fought a sudden rush of adrenaline and dread. But I wasn’t Pope Joan. There wasn’t a potty seat for me here, and even if it felt like it sometimes, this wasn’t the Middle Ages. “A little warning would have been nice,” I whispered to him.
“Then you might not have come,” he said.
“Eh, I still would have,” I said to him, then turned to the crowd. “I’m Indiana Aaron,” I said. There were several collective gasps, and Melvin put his hand on his heart, but I plowed through. Now or never.
“I know I’m not who you were expecting,” I said. “I never set out to deceive anyone, but I didn’t correct a misconception, which kind of snowballed to where we are now.”
“Were you ever in a war?” someone yelled from the crowd.
“No! What war would that even be?” I asked, exasperated. “I think Indiana was a parasailer at one point, not a paratrooper. Honestly, I don’t really know the difference,” I admitted. “Or—” I cut myself off. I was helping everyone miss the point.
“I am Indiana Aaron,” I said again. “I’m an employee at Apollo, and I’ve had the honor of working on the Artemis team for the duration of the S.J. Sporting project. I’m so proud of the work we’ve done and the team we’ve built.”
I grinned at the fist pumps Mike and Bruce threw in the air from their seats. “I’ve been looking for that type of comradery and teamwork for my entire work life. But I didn’t find it because I was lucky. I found it because of that misconception.
“I was given an opportunity to have more creative power on the team because Melvin Hammer”—he jumped at the sound of his name—“thought I was a male go-getter instead of an outspoken female. If he had known what I looked like, he never would have given me the opportunity.”
His eyes slid away from mine, and I thought I saw some semblance of shame there. “Would, too,” he muttered.
I snorted into the microphone, instantly regretting the way the sound reverberated. I covered it with my hand and leaned his way. “You’re full of crap, Melvin, you know that? You dismissed me out of hand.” Then I turned back to the crowd. “This isn’t the eighteen hundreds, but for women in the workplace, especially in male-dominated fields like this one, it can feel like it. It’s still a man’s world. It’s harder to get respect, we don’t make as much money, we aren’t promoted, and we’re just as often mistaken as the girl who takes the coffee orders.”
Evan’s eyes met mine, and he, too, looked down.
“Preach!” yelled a female voice from the crowd.
“I’m gonna!” I raised my champagne glass in her direction.
“Have any of you heard of Laura Mulvey?” I asked the crowd. Looking around, I saw a sea of blank faces and had to kick myself. I was talking to a tech crowd composed mainly of men. The likelihood that they’d taken a film theory class or a women’s studies course in college was close to nil. “Anyway, Laura Mulvey wrote a life-changing piece,Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. You all should totally read it. She changed the world. And she did it by putting into words a feeling I’d had since I was a kid and couldn’t articulate. Mulvey’s main idea is that, when you watch a movie, you’re encouraged to identify with the main male character. The movie is shot through his eyes. When the woman comes on-screen, the story stops,the wind machine starts, the slow jazz plays, and she blinks like her lashes are stuck to her eyeballs.” I rolled my eyes. “It even happens in children’s cartoons—kids whohave no idea what they’re looking at. That girl bunny fromBambiwho seduces Thumper, or the girl dog inLady and the Tramp, or, God, the girl character in any cartoon. I could literally go on forever. But I won’t,” I added.
“We’re asked to see what the man sees, tobeJames Bond and therefore win the Bond Girl. She’s a reward; her only job is to be rescued. And these women don’t historically have a ton to offer in terms of intellectual prowess. Their purpose is to look pretty and get rescued. And we, as viewers, get to be the hero. Even with”—I looked down, my throat suddenly dry—“Indiana Jones.” I focused back on the audience. “That’s why we love it so much—we get tobeIndiana when we watch the movies. To get the girl, to be the hero he is.
“Speaking as someone who has had the ‘pleasure’”—I smiled wryly—“of being Indiana over the past few months, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. These messages work their magic on women, too—we’re taught to see other women as competition, to value ourselves based on our appearance, and to defer to men. We all learn not to look to women for ideas or innovation, not to see them as equals.” Probably not what Evan had been expecting when he handed me the mic, but once I started, I had no desire to stop.
“Things are changing, but it’s glacial. As you grow up, it’s on you to see through these messages and to take responsibility for your own biases—and not to take those biases into your work life. Because office culture is full of that. Anyway,” I said, addressing the rest of them, “this leads to my own small problem. I have an opinion about everything. That makes me bossy, insubordinate, and emotional. It makes my counterpart, the manlyIndiana, assertive, a risk-taker, and an innovator.” I was so far up on my soapbox now, no one could pull me down. But again, they were the ones who’d called me up here, so they were trapped now. “But despite all that, I would never want to be a man.” My eyes found Margaret in the crowd, and she lifted her glass to me.
I could feel Melvin getting restless and more upset, so I tried to wrap it up before he tried to wrestle the mic away. “And what does that look like for women? It means we still make less money, don’t get the same respect, and are passed over for less-qualified white boys like Taggert who ‘drive a hard bargain.’ No offense, Taggert,” I yelled into the crowd.
“None taken! We all owe you our lives anyway.”
I grinned. “I saved you that day, my dude. I only got the opportunity I did because my name inspires the image of a rugged manly man.” I peered into the crowd. “Thanks for that, Dad. I guess.”
“You were almost Melanie!” he yelled from the back of the crowd.
“So, to wrap up my point, this was all a misunderstanding. But I turned it into an amazing accomplishment that I am so proud of due to the help of Evan Smith, Allen Parks, Bruce Atkins, and Mike Mowery, who didn’t care if I was male or female. And our inspiring client, S.J. Sharpe.
“And no thanks to you, Melvin,” I said.
He was opening and closing his mouth like he still couldn’t find the words.
