Chapter43
Morgan
Iwas so fucking done with work.
We were still two months from our Christmas event, but I was already being asked to share daily updates with the leadership team, and it was all the very last thing I wanted to be doing. I was so over it that I’d actually taken a break to read Mum’s latest email, all about her yoga certification and how she was starting to offer classes on her travels. That explained her latest postcard, which had been a beach with old-fashioned lifeguard hut on it, with the words “Nama-stay in Malibu” written in the sky.
I took solace each evening in my freelance work. I had finished the other projects Greg had referred to me, and I was now working on design mock-ups for a website for someone else in their Facebook group who was opening a used bookshop. I’d had to learn a lot about web design – accessibility, coding limitations, responsiveness – but just like when I’d been doing the Game On! Branding, I was enjoying learning about it.
I was only four days away from leaving for the Ren Faire, and two away from having to give the software company a decision. I’d managed to buy myself some time by negotiating the salary; my promotion at the rescue had definitely helped give me some leverage. They hadn’t quite been able to match it, but they’d closed the gap enough that it wasn’t a dealbreaker, especially given how much cheaper housing was in York.
That was a problem, too. Now that the house had sold, I needed to look in earnest for a place to live. And ideally it needed to be pet friendly; Pablo was just a week away from being moved, and I had every intention of taking him with me. So I needed to make a decisionnowabout where I was going to live, which meant making a decision once and for all about where I wanted to work. I’d broken up with Jack over the fact that I was thinking about moving to York, so why was it taking me so long to pull the trigger?
Okay, that wasn’t fair. I hadn’t broken up with Jack because I wanted to move to York. I hadn’t been planning to break up with him at all, actually. But the moment he gave me an ultimatum, I was right back to feeling tied to another person like I had with Cara all those years. And given how much freedom I’d found, how much I loved being the one calling the shots in my own life, I couldn’t give it up. Wouldn’t, even.
I’d been all but ready to accept the job before my girls night with Chloe and Fatima. I’d even drafted an email. But that night had reminded me that life here wasn’t just about Jack, which made saying goodbye to it feel infinitely more complicated. So the email continued to sit in my drafts.
* * *
I was sittingat the manspread desk – despite the promotion, I still hadn’t been moved out of the Fundraising Corner – when someone I recognised from around the office walked over, a laptop tucked under her arm, her locs just tickling the tops of her shoulders. I caught her eye, and she waved in confirmation that she was coming to talk to me.
“Hey, you’re Morgan, right?” she asked.
“Yeah, hi,” I said, holding out my hand as I stood.
“Kim,” she said, her handshake firm yet brief. “I work in design.”
I stood up a bit straighter – I’d spoken to design over email, but I’d never actually met anyone from the team.
“How can I help?” I asked, trying not to sound too interested.
She pulled her laptop out from under her arm and opened it, setting it on the desk next to mine. There was a mock-up of a web page – the home page of the R escue website, from the look of it – with low-resolution versions of my illustrations for the gala dotted around.
“We loved what you did for the gala,” she said, “and we want to use it for the website. But as you can see, we’ve just used the screen grabs we could access for these mock-ups. Do you think you could send us the vectors?”
I felt a swell of pride at seeing my work on the website, even if it was low-res. But my creative wheels started turning immediately, seeing how the illustrations we had weren’t going to be quite right. We needed way more versions of the animals, and maybe some other illustrations. Otherwise it would look like polka dots of animal faces.
“I mean, I can,” I said, “but I feel like you need some variation, right?”
“Yeah,” Kim said, squinting down at the screen. “I was thinking the same thing. I can try to match your illustration style, I guess.”
I cringed – hopefully just inwardly – at the idea of someone else using those illustrations; trying to emulate them.
“Or I could just help with it?” I asked.
“I mean, that would be great,” she said with a smile, her voice high and hopeful. “If you’ve got bandwidth for that?”
Aaaaaaaand there was the catch. Of course I didn’t havebandwidth. Because I was too busy planning the Christmas event, which I hated.
“Let me double check,” I said; I couldn’t bring myself to say no without at least speaking to Simone. “I’ll let you know by tomorrow?”
“Oh that’s fine,” Kim said, closing the laptop and tucking it back under her arm. “We’re so underwater right now, it’ll probably be a few weeks until we get to work on this.”
I might not have a few weeks, I thought, but I just smiled and promised her I’d email her with either the vector files or confirmation that I could work on it myself.
Almost as soon as she was out of sight, I tiptoed over to Simone’s office, peeking through the window to see if she was inside. She was leaning forward over the desk, her head in her hands. It didn’t look like the best time, but I knocked on the door anyway.
“Come in,” she said, sitting up straight and putting on what, for her anyway, passed as a welcoming expression. “Oh hi, Morgan, how’s the leadership update for today coming along?”
