Ambrosia May Berger (Bro for short, but only to her enemies)
It’s 3 AM and they’re at it again. I grab my broom and bang on the ceiling. “Some of us have to work in a few hours, you jackrabbits!”
The squeaky-squeaky-squeaky-squeeeeeeak of the bedsprings is followed by a long moan and a high-pitched, come-to-Jesus pig squeal.
Finally.
If I ever meet my upstairs neighbor, I will not be able to look her in the snout.
Eye. I mean eye.
I might offer her some lube though.
For the squeaky bedsprings. Cross my heart.
I roll over in the relative quiet—the city is never fully quiet, which is one of the things I love about it—but I can’t get back to sleep, because I said work, and now my mind is spinning. I’m a social media manager for Crunchy, the second-biggest organic grocery store in New York.
At least, I was yesterday. Tomorrow remains to be seen. Crunchy was just bought out by a soulless dickstool who hides baby powder in unsuspecting women’s hairdryers and who hums the first few bars of “It’s a Small World” to get it stuck in your ear for days and who makes innocent girls take the fall for—ahem.
Hold on. My official Crunchy social media manager hat is here somewhere… Ah, yes. There it is.
Right.
Crunchy has been acquired by an environmentally-conscious, self-made billionaire philanthropist who gives lollipops, puppies, and rainbows to orphans when he’s not personally digging recyclables out of landfills.
It’s not the official party line, but it’s close. I toss to my other side, because I’m gagging now.
I’ve loved working at Crunchy since I landed in New York six years ago, but it’s job hunting time. There are lots of companies in the city not owned by Chase Jett—or anyone else who knew me ten years ago—who would love to hire an experienced social media manager.
And one or two of them might not run a background check, so I might even stand a chance of getting through the hiring process.
Squeaky-squeaky-squeaky-squeeeeeeeeak…
I shove my head under the pillow, close my eyes, and start counting free-range sheep.
By 10 AM, I’m jacked up on four cups of organic, fair trade iced coffee—Crunchy brand, of course—and I still have nothing on Parker’s emotional jitters.
My work bff is balancing on a yoga ball across the room in our open office at headquarters in Midtown, fingers clicking over her laptop as she texts me on our corporate internal messaging system. She’s afraid she’ll be on the chopping block when the inevitable company reorganization happens.
I snort softly to myself. More likely she’ll get my job, probably by the end of today.
Parker’s message pops up with a goth emoji as her profile picture, even though she’s a freckled brunette with virgin hair that has never been touched by dyes or colors, chemical, organic, or any other way. She calls it being ironic. I call her adorable.
“I can’t lose my job, Sia,” the goth emoji Parker says. “I’m half a paycheck away from moving back in with my parents.”
She’s not the only one who’s strapped for cash. At least three of my four employees are also living on a shoestring budget, including April, resident photographer in the marketing department who’s currently arranging bok choy in a sustainable bamboo bowl for an upcoming feature about the leafy greens we grow in-house.
Seriously. We grow vegetables in our building. It’s high-tech and super cool and I’m so pissed I could spit that it belongs to the Dick now.
“You’ll be fine,” I type back to Parker on my company-issued tablet. “We kick ass. Crunchy needs us.”
Completely true. Also true? The Crunchy marketing department is a great place to work. Our office is open and airy, with couches and beanbag chairs and yoga balls instead of cubes. Modular desks line the walls for people who dig the traditional set-up, and we have a stock of every type of phone, tablet, and computer known to man accessible to us in the media room. Necessity when you’re in modern marketing.
It’s weird, but it works for us. And it works because we’re a Crunchy family.
A family I need to leave soon.
Thanks, dickhead.
In the light of the day—and with the aid of the coffee—I’ve comforted myself with the probability that billionaire organic grocery store taker-over-ers don’t make the rounds to meet all the employees. Or even a fraction of them. Which means I can wait a few days to hear back on a select few feelers I put out this morning before I resort to blindly sending resumes.
“I heard he’s stopping by today,” April says.
I fumble and almost drop the tablet I’m using to check customer comments on our Facebook page.
She shoots me a knowing grin, then tilts a light on the bok choy and looks at it through her Nikon again. “I also heard he can bench a Volkswagen. I’d shoot that.”
I’d shoot him too, but not with a camera. “Better for our image if he benched a Tesla.”
My sarcasm is lost on her. “That’s brilliant. I’m putting it in the suggestion box.”
“We can make life-size cardboard cut-outs for all our stores,” chimes in Madison. She writes the copy for our posts and single-handedly tripled sales of chickpeas with her Funnust Hummust series last year. I’d forgive her for the idea of wasting good cardboard if she were putting anyone but the Dick on it. “Fueled by Crunchy. New slogan. I call dibs on putting it in the box.” A rare frown draws her dark brows together. “He won’t change the employee suggestion box, will he? I like the suggestion box.”
Wouldn’t be the worst he’s ever done.
Four sets of eyeballs swivel my way, and I realize I just said that out loud. “Didn’t his date wear fur to some charity auction last year?” I say quickly.
I have no idea. For the last decade, he hasn’t existed to me. I don’t think about him, my family doesn’t talk about him, and none of my friends know I know him. But my offhand suggestion sends half the social media department scurrying to Google, which gives me a minute to breathe and re-focus.
Think of kittens. And cupcakes. And kittens in party hats made from recycled cardboard posing with cupcakes.
Cake doesn’t have to be made from organic flour, natural food dyes, fair trade cocoa, and free-range eggs.
Cake is cake is cake.
I’m deciding to have a slice of cake for lunch—chocolate, of course, from this oh my god amazing not at all organic bakery two blocks away because today’s a triple fudge frosting kind of day, plus if I bought a slice of cake at the snack bar here, some of my money would go directly into the Dick’s pockets—when the oak door squeaks open.
A moment of deathly silence is shattered by a flurry of squeals that would give my neighbor’s bedsprings stiff competition. Stiff, heh, look at that, I can still make a bad joke today.
Every single member of the social media department lunges for something. April turns her camera to the door and goes paparazzi. Madison tries to hide behind an Apple Watch before she bends her head so her short dark hair covers her face. Parker’s fingers go so fast over her keyboard there’s smoke, and the ding of her message on my tablet rings over every other sound in the room.
Six feet of pure sin stands wide-legged in the doorway. His smile is a lie, his smoky blue eyes a portal to self-destruction, the dimple in his chin twice the size needed to store what’s left of his conscience.