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Tarek
“Alright,” I start. “Tomorrow’s conference should definitely be… interesting.”
Valentina lightly taps the table, her eyebrows furrowed. Gage offers a reassuring smile.
Outside, the sun hangs bright orange in the sky, pink and yellow swirling light permeating the room through the window.
Their stares bore into me. For all the support they normally offer, they’re now skeptical of my hesitance.
But I can’t trust them. Nobody in my inner circle can know what we’re actually presenting tomorrow.
Valentina cocks her head to the side, her glasses nearly tilting off of her ears.
“Indeed,” Valentina says. “But we have to remember it’s just another conference. We get through this one, just like the others.”
Gage nods approvingly, though I’m even losing him. He’s gripping his empty wine cooler, wanting only to replace it to make the silence more bearable.
Everything up on the cloud is a decoy, meant to fool Fuck Face Craig.
Tomorrow’s presentation will be an exercise in deception.
Oh, come on, I think. If there’s anybody you can trust, it’s Valentina and Gage.
“Do you have the numbers on AR and AI product adoption, Gage?”
He produces a solid white folder and lays it out in front of me.
“I’m not entirely sure why you’re lumping AR stats in with AI stats,” Gage says. “But I’ve incorporated both. Everything’s pretty comprehensive, I think.”
Even in doubt, he wears a wide grin on his face. At first, I hated it. Nobody has a right to be so happy all the time for no damn reason.
But in time, I’ve seen how he boosts morale. His optimism is infectious to everybody in the company. It drives workers to surpass expectations and meet deadlines.
I know it’s not him. But I really hope it’s not him.
I flip open the folder, finding a not insubstantial stack of stapled-together papers, covering a gamut of associated marketing topics. Cyan, yellow, and magenta bars fill the pages alongside crimson and blue pie charts, all of them cohesive and thorough but somewhat vague in purpose.
“It’s very broad for the day before a conference,” Gage says. “Are you sure we’re ready to present?”
I nod. “This is fantastic.”
I close the folder, pushing it toward Valentina to look over. She flips the folder open, pressing her nose into it. Closely, she scans over every detail, and even though she’s my VP, I can feel myself fidgeting and bouncing my knee. I look toward and away from her studious glare in alternating moments.
“This is very scattered,” she says before looking up at me. “Do we have a definite pitch?”
“We absolutely do,” I reply.
She clicks disapprovingly.
“But I haven’t seen anything new from your earlier presentation,” she says. “So you’re going to be up all night working on this, aren’t you?”
I nod. “I have something almost ready. I’m pretty proud of it. I wish I could show you it, but you’ll see it tomorrow.”
We wrap up our meeting about an hour later, giving me plenty of time to run into Sloane. After so much time spent concealing the true plans from Valentina and Gage, I’m aching to talk to somebody who actually knows what’s going on.
I chuckle to myself. Who knew I’d be confiding in the thief who conspired to rob me?
“Awfully chipper for somebody whose company is in shambles, aren’t you?”
