The knock came on the doorframe sooner than I’d expected.
“Beware of dragons,” I hollered over my shoulder.
“Can we talk?”
I paused the game and spun around without getting up. I pulled my feet up and rested my elbows on my knees, chin on fists.
Aida ventured in, grabbing a rolling chair from beside the unused desk, sighing as she sat. “My God. I’m going to pop if I get any bigger.”
“Do you want to ask me not to kill the messenger?”
“Reynold says you’re just not ready yet. But he’s open to changing his mind.”
I chortled. “Oh, and how am I supposed to do that? Finger puppets?”
She didn’t laugh. “You know he’s considering Gerry.”
“Old Man Morris?” Things must be bad if he’d rather send the resident network guy instead of a scrappy young developer. “How? He doesn’t even program.”
“Neither do I.” She raised a brow, chiding. “Gerry has a pleasant demeanor.” Somehow I knew she was quoting Reynold, not stating her own opinion.
“I should find a way to knock him out of the running. I’ll switch his coffee with decaf, and he’ll fall asleep while Reynold’s auditioning him for the spot.”
“You of all people would never do that.”
She was right. Not just because coffee was a sacred and untouchable source of joy and I’d never mess with anyone else’s elixir. But also because I’d once been the victim of a sabotage that had left me with this crippling fear of public speaking.
Aida used her heels to roll her chair closer. “Besides, I think you’d rather get that spot on your own, right?”
“That was what I was trying to do earlier. You saw how that went. How am I supposed to overcome my own body turning on me?”
“I had an idea.” She unlocked her phone, and her thumbs clicked and scrolled. “I saw a post on Facebook the other day that caught my attention at the time because it was so . . . weird, I guess. But I got to thinking—”
“What? Is someone selling healing crystals this time?”
Her maroon lips pressed together in judgment of my quippy sarcasm. I coveted whatever brand of lipstick she had on—something more practical to my everyday life than this conversation.
Aida persisted in the belief that there had to be a magic cure to this mental block. When therapy went nowhere, we’d tried guided meditation videos, herbal teas, and a workshop on using imagination to boost confidence. But I wasn’t lacking confidence exactly. It was more that I could picture every kind of humiliation that awaited me if I stood in front of a group of people, with all eyes on me, and attempted to speak on any topic upon which I was supposed to be an expert. I could lead a yoga class at the local YMCA, but ask me to stand behind a microphone and I froze.
If I somehow overcame my resistance, calamity—or unusually loud gas—struck.
She sighed. “Hey, the aromatherapy might not have worked, but you have to admit our town house smells great.”
“Sure.” I picked up a Sonic the Hedgehog Funko that had fallen on the floor and stood to place it back on the credenza. “It’s like strolling through a cool forest meadow at sunset in our bathroom.”
She angled her phone toward me. “Do you remember Alfred Jordan?”
I squinted, trying to place the name. “Alfred? No.”
“He’s in this Facebook group I joined for Auburn alums who live here in Atlanta now. Anyway, listen to this.” She read the post on-screen. “ ‘The Vibes Taphouse presents its first annual Chagrin Challenge. Bring your embarrassing anecdotes, diary entries, poetry, or other past shames for a chance to win prizes, up to the grand prize of one thousand dollars. All participants will receive a free drink and all the chiding.’ ”
“Uh-huh?” She couldn’t have been suggesting I volunteer as tribute. I could only assume she was thinking of winning herself an extra grand. “So what? You’re going to reveal your most mortifying secrets to a roomful of strangers?”
She’d do it, too. Aida had gumption to spare, not to mention an unending supply of stories that would have an audience clutching their guts. She wouldn’t hesitate to expose her embarrassment, especially if there was a competition involved. They might as well write the check out to her right now.
“I’m not going to do it.” Her eyes bored into mine, begging me to get a clue.
My heart sank. “No way.”
“Sierra, we’ve tried every gentle option we could think of. We haven’t tried trial by fire.”
“You mean death by a hundred snickers.” I crossed my arms. “No. What you’re describing isn’t just humiliation, it’s humiliation squared.” I combed through the possible anecdotes I might share and heard a record scratch. “What am I supposed to tell them? About the time I neglected to wear a bra under a white shirt on a day of a heavy downpour?”
Aida snorted. “Don’t you have a diary?”
“My journal?” My stomach cramped. I visualized myself standing in front of a room filled with mean drunks, heckling me. Or worse, a bunch of bored drunks, yawning as I revealed myself. I balked. “There’s no possible way I can share whatever I’ve written in public. I would rather die.”
She grabbed a pen from my Power-Up Mushroom mug and scribbled a note onto a Post-it. “Here’s the website for the event. Check it out.”
“Fine.” I swiped the sticky note. “But no promises.”
Chapter 2
Aida, Marco, and I carpooled home from the Midtown Atlanta office to Virginia-Highland, a hip little neighborhood a ten-minute drive away, where Aida and I had rented a town house together right out of college. She’d started work at Coca-Cola, and I’d gotten a job at a startup software company that went belly-up a few years later. It was an expensive area, but we’d been hired with strong opening salaries and figured they’d only go up with time.
We were wrong.
Neither of us anticipated we’d put our financial security on the line by starting our own company, but after I lost my job, we took a serious look at the games Marco and I had been developing and decided it was time to find an investor.
Enter Reynold and his venture capital.
Our company blossomed along with Aida’s budding romance with Marco. I probably should have moved out when Marco moved in, but where would I have gone? Instead, I relocated to my lair in the basement, at a fair discount in my rent, but they were progressively squeezing me out. Once their baby came, we might need to reassess the arrangement.
If this next game sold well, maybe I’d get my own town house. Maybe even one of the cute cottages down the street.
Aida tossed her purse on the table and followed me to my home sweet home in the cave below. While I tugged off my shoes, she took a seat on my futon. “So I was reading the comments on that Facebook post I showed you.”
“Uuugh.” I dropped down on the floor cross-legged and unlocked my spare laptop to unpause a game of Undertale.
“Look. There seemed to be a lot of interest from alumni around the area. You might reconnect with someone you knew at Auburn or meet some new friends.”
“Mmm-hmm.” I was paying attention, but my focus was on the screen where my character entered a room and . . . yes! I found Papyrus guarding a door, saying, “Oho! The human arrives!”