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I do recognize, however, that I’m pushing it more than normal this month. I’m majorly overdue, but I have every intention of paying him—just as soon as I make it to work and earn a commission. That’s just what I intend to do, if only my car would start. It likes to pretend it’s going to fail on me once or twice a month. I slide onto the faded seat and twist the key, and it putters morosely.
“Come onnnnn,” I groan, twisting the key again.
There’s a low clicking noise, like it wants to start as desperately as I want it to.
I mimic the people in movies and TV, pumping the lifeless gas pedal before twisting the key once more, nearly hard enough to break it in two. The starter clicks pathetically and then, by some miracle, my car sputters to life.
“YES. THANK YOU!” I shout to myself, banging my hands against the steering wheel.
I do not have time for car issues this morning. I look at the bright red clock on my dashboard; I’m already five minutes late for our staff meeting. By the time I pull into the last available spot at the agency, I’m nearing the dreaded ten-minute mark. By that point, I should just feign illness and go home. But, as it is now, I skate into the room by the skin of my teeth and a half-dozen pairs of eyes snap up to look at me.
My boss, Helen, sits at the head of the conference table wearing an ill-fitting chartreuse dress. The rest of planet Earth has agreed to stop making chartreuse happen, but Helen isn’t quite ready to give up. The color makes her look ill, but I would never tell her that. Fanned out on either side of her are my fellow real estate agents, all women, all carbon copies of one another. There’s a leader, of course—Lori Gleland. She’s positioned on Helen’s right side and she watches me enter the room with a thin, arched brow carefully raised.
“Is this your third late arrival this quarter?” Lori asks, feigning concern. “I do hope everything is going okay for you at home.”
I want to take Mr. Hall’s pruning sheers to Lori’s face, but instead I am a picture of stoic professionalism as I pull out the very last chair at the conference table: my reserved spot. So what if it also happens to be the spot meant for the lowest agent on the totem pole.
“Car trouble,” I offer lamely when it’s clear Helen isn’t going to continue until I speak up.
The agent beside me, Sandra, leans closer and whispers so everyone in the room can hear, “I think you have something stuck in your bra, sweetie. It looks really…lumpy.”
“Ah, of course.”
I unsheathe the forgotten granola bar from my bra with grace and dignity then tear it open. I’m still hungry, after all.
Sandra rolls her eyes and I smile warmly. Sandra is Lori’s minion. What Lori does, Sandra mimics, down to the chunky brown and blonde highlights streaked through short bobs. I take such delight in those chunky highlights. They are the visual manifestation of a request to speak with a manager at Applebee’s.
“All right, that’s enough of a distraction,” Helen cuts in. “Madeleine, I’d like you to stay after the meeting so we can chat.”
The room might as well break out in a chorus of um-mum-mums because Helen has never once asked me to stay after a meeting. Fortunately, Helen pulls the attention away from me a moment later by announcing with a sing-songy voice that “Lori was our top-selling agent last month!”
Sandra breaks out in staccato solo applause, but it fades slowly as no one moves to join her. “What is that, the fifth month in a row?”
Lori bats away Sandra’s compliment. “Six, actually—but who’s counting?”
Everyone titters at her terrible joke, and then Helen plays right into her ego by asking Lori to define her selling technique for the rest of us. If there’s one thing Lori doesn’t need, it’s an audience. I predict her selling technique has something to do with showing the most cleavage possible, considering we’re all a millimeter away from an eyeful of areola in that tank top of hers. Instead, she unveils what she calls The Five Ss.
“Smile, Suck Up, and Sell! Sell! Sell!”
Groundbreaking stuff here.
“Copyright Lori Gleland, all rights reserved,” she adds with a laugh. “No, but really,” she says, her tone turning deathly serious. “I am thinking about copyrighting that phrase.”
“You would trademark it.”
All eyes jump to me. I hardly ever speak up in meetings.
“What?” Lori asks.
I sit up a little straighter, already regretting my choice to leap into the conversation.
“You don’t copyright a phrase, you trademark it, and that’s the worst phrase I’ve ever heard, so there’s no point in trademarking it.”
I leave off the second half of my advice since I’d prefer to leave this conference room with my eyes still inside my skull.
