“Because the world makes me cry and it doesn’t make you cry?”
“Your job is to cry and my job is to help you stop crying by reminding you how we’re leading the revolution by helping women take care of themselves. This is your moment to lead by example, like Gandhi.”
“I read something in the Guardian that said he used to sleep next to teen girls to test his chastity.”
“Fine, don’t be Gandhi! Be Michelle.”
“When they go low, we go high,” I sniffed.
* * *
...
For dinner, I ate the yellow porridge that was supposed to reset my digestive fire and also my brain. John had a baguette smeared with Brie that he smuggled me pieces of when Devin wasn’t looking. I kept the bottle of sauvignon blanc near my plate and told myself, You’re on vacation, each time I refilled my glass.
Devin told us about a comedian she knew who now had a job writing for a more famous comedian with his own TV show and how it was so great that her friend was bringing more diversity to the writers’ room by being a woman, but what would be even better was if her friend had her own TV show, but the problem was that she didn’t think her friend was very funny, actually, because her jokes made Devin feel guilty for being a white woman, as if that was, like, anything she could control?
“Give us an example of one of the jokes,” John said.
“Oh, I’m not very good at remembering jokes,” Devin said. “Something about pumpkin spice lattes showing up in your DNA from 23andMe. When I tell it, it isn’t as funny.”
“Is your friend white?”
“What?”
“The friend you’re telling us about. She’s white? Or she’s not white?”
“I’m not saying she was hired because of affirmative action, but I knew her when she had only like eight hundred Twitter followers, so you tell me.”
“So you’re saying she’s black,” John said.
I gulped my wine.
“If I don’t want to be seen for only being a white girl, I don’t want to see other people for only their color,” Devin said. “Right, Maren? You didn’t hire Khadijah only because she is black?”
“I hired Khadijah because she was extremely qualified to run our editorial content.”
“And because you didn’t want our staff to be all white,” Devin added, moving the wine bottle out of my reach. “Remember?”
“Did you know that Maren is an intersectional feminist?” John said, through a mouthful of bread. John didn’t believe in labels. He shared a life philosophy with our user @SmokyMountainHeartOpener, whose profile said, “We’re all just humans, being.”
“It’s not a joke,” I said. “What is the point of having those values if I don’t put them into practice? I don’t want the About Us page to be a photo collage of Julies and Emilys.”
“I’m offended,” Devin said.
“No you’re not,” I said.
“And by the way, my friend, the comedian? She’s Indian, the country, but she grew up here.”
“Well, when we raise our next round of funding, we can hire a diversity and inclusion specialist and then it doesn’t have to be just me trying to do my best over here,” I said, trying to hide my irritation. “After dinner, let’s go over the latest version of the pitch deck.”
Devin covered her ears with her hands. “No! No work! You promised!”
“Okay! Jesus. What’s for dessert?”
“Gluten-free vegan carob truffles.”
“What is a carob?” John said.
“It has three times as much calcium as chocolate.”
“I said, what is a carob?”
Devin thought about it. “Let me google,” she finally said.
John gave me a private look meant to indicate Why is she the CEO of your company?
“Let’s talk about something fun,” I said. “Nuclear holocaust?”
“Rhythmic gymnastics!” Devin blurted at the same time. We both laughed. Even John had to smile. We worked so many long hours together that it was easy to forget what made us fall in love in the first place. There was the time we were at a networking mixer and I mentioned I had some discounted Easter candy from Duane Reade in my tote so she impaled some Peeps on the rims of our prosecco glasses as a conversation starter. She was a joyful recipient of presents, like the “Nasty Woman” pencil set I picked up at the Christmas market in Union Square, or anything tiny I collected from swag bags at women’s empowerment conferences: tiny Shiseido Ultimune Power Infusing Concentrate, tiny Bobbi Brown lipsticks, mini bags of mini popcorn, a travel-size Diptyque Feu de Bois candle. When I had to leave the office to go to a psychiatrist appointment, she’d text me little love notes about how our friendship was one of the best things that ever happened to her, proof of the universe’s abundance, and how she wanted me to be healthy enough to share my own sparkle with the world.
More than work wives, Devin and I were sisters.
Khadijah
When I got to the office, it was dark. The heels of my boots clacked against the hardwood floor as I hurried to my desk, hoping to get a head start on email before anyone else came in. Rather than turn on the overhead lights, I opened the blinds over the street-facing windows to let in the sun, but the sky was overcast and threatening rain. That’s when I heard chirping behind me—like a ringtone but louder, more persistent.
Blocking the door to the beauty closet, there was a row of glass incubators with eggs inside. Not only eggs but little yellow chicks that had just started to hatch. They were unfurling their wet selves, fluffing and blinking their dark eyes, shocked at arriving. I opened the lid and took out one of the babies, who weighed less than nothing. She curled up and went right to sleep in my palm.
“You weren’t supposed to do this.”
Maren was standing in the doorway to her office, typing something on her phone. I realized I was wearing a crop top, my bare midriff exposing me.
“I thought you were in Connecticut,” I said.
“Obviously not.” She climbed atop her ergonomic desk chair and held her phone high above her head. Then she closed her eyes and threw it at the floor, hard, shattering the screen into a cobweb of tiny shards.
While I wasn’t looking, the chicks had somehow gotten loose from their incubators, and now they were running around the office. I was terrified I would accidentally step on one, or that they’d land their fragile feet on glass.