Oh my god.
“Are you okay? I caught you before you hit your head.”
No! I am mortified.
“Yes,” I lied, sucking in a deep breath. “Um, thank you.”
“Do you need anything? I hope it wasn’t what I was saying.”
I shook my head. “No, I just probably haven’t eaten enough today.”And I didn’t sleep at all last night, as you well know,I refrained from adding. I straightened my shirt and pushed myself up.
John hovered nearby, apparently worried I might collapse again.
“I’m going to head home.” I was disoriented, but after several gulps of air, the cloudiness cleared. More than anything, I wanted to leave the building. “I’ll get you my comments on that vendor contract by tomorrow.”
“Okay, thank you.” A line formed between his brows. “Take care of yourself.”
“Will do.” I walked as quickly as my wobbly legs could carry me to the elevator bank.
When I got back to my one-bedroom apartment in the Hudson Yards neighborhood of Manhattan half an hour later, I turned on the light with a shaking hand, and then sat on my couch and stared at the wall above my television.
What is wrong with me? I’m so bad at receiving constructive criticism that I fainted at work?
I groaned.Fuck.Six years of killing myself to rise through the ranks and now I’d had this moment of humiliating weakness that would probably follow me. Tears started flowing unbidden.
“You’re missing the point, Val.”John’s stern, all-knowing tone played on a loop in my head.
I’d sacrificed all of my plans and most of my sleep these past weeks for the deal in question, all so that we would be on track to sign the purchase agreement next week like the client requested. I thought I’d been doing so well. I could tell the client liked me. I still didn’t understand where the negative feedback came from.
Not bothering to get my breathing under control first, I took out my cell phone and called my mom.
“I fainted at work.”
“Oh, honey. That hasn’t happened to you since college. Are you okay? Are you sick? Have you been eating?”
“I don’t think it’s that. I was just stopping by John’s office on my way home and he told me that I haven’t been producing my work fast enough on this tech deal.”
“He can’t be serious.” My mom knew this deal had taken over my life lately—consistent sixteen-hour days, no time for even a phone call to catch up.
“Oh, he was. He said Devon would have gotten the agreement done faster, and I basically need to match his speed. But I know our client is happy with our work on this deal, and I tried to tell him that, but he really dug in. Said I’m missing the point, and I panicked and fainted right there in the hallway.” I sped through the summary, hands shaking, voice trembling, cheeks heating by the second. I still couldn’t fully believe it happened.
“That’s completely unacceptable, Val. He had no right to ambush you like that.”
“I should be better at taking constructive criticism by now,” I muttered. “I might be too sensitive for this job.”
“I don’t see what part of that was constructive. You can’t find more hours in the day. I’m sure the quality of the work this male associate he’s so fond of is producing isn’t as good as yours, either, if he’s doing it so fast.”
I sighed, helpless.
“You’re too hard on yourself, honey.”
“Probably,” I relented. “Please don’t tell Drew.”
“Valerie, he’s your brother, he cares about you.”
“I know, but I’m embarrassed. I’ve shown this sign of weakness, hypersensitivity…” Drew had always been successful. It came naturally for him. If he found out, he would probably ask me how this episode was going to negatively impact my success at the firm and then try to help me come up with ways to mitigate it. I couldn’t take that right now.
“I don’t agree with that at all,” Mom insisted. “Did you ever miss a client deadline or an internal deadline?”
