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“Why did you change your outfit when a man asked you to and not before?”
This is much harder to deal with.
Because even though I’m a strong, smart, capable woman trying to make her own way through life—Sexpert equals Example A—the answer to this question is because I… I need validation and I felt like Andrew gave me that.
Because I’m ashamed of my body. I wish I looked different. I wish my breasts were smaller, and my hips narrower, and I hate my double chin and… yeah.
Fine.
I have self-esteem issues. I can admit that.
Moving on.
“So then… Eden… why did you start a video channel centered around your cupcakes?”
I don’t know. Because it seems like a really stupid, humiliating idea right about now.
And I have go in to work and face up to it. Andrew has probably already told Pierce and there’s gonna be another one of those screeching PA announcements about the whole thing, and I’m gonna be humiliated all over again.
Everyone I know at work is going to watch those videos and know it’s me.
And… Fuck it. Fine.
But if that’s gonna happen, I’m gonna go in there wearing something that is not a button-down shirt and drab skirt. “Because life goes on, Eden. This day will end and tomorrow will come, and I will have to find a way to survive.”
My walk to work is way too quick and a part of me wishes that I never moved to the TDH. That I still lived back in my dad’s house in the crappy part of Lakewood and I had to drive my old truck to work every day and get stuck in traffic like I used to. I wish I was still sixteen and my pink and white bedroom was age-appropriate instead of ridiculous. I wish I had never started this stupid Sexpert thing. I wish I had never met Andrew Hawthorne or even gone to work at Le Man in the first place.
But I did. I did all those things and now… now it’s time to face the consequences.
So I hold my chin up as I walk towards the TDH building and go inside to find a huge crowd of people all waiting to walk up the stairs to the second floor.
I stop and look around. “What the hell is going in here?”
“Oh, hey, Eden.” It’s Sylvia from the printer. “Pierce just made an announcement—“
“Attention! Attention!” Pierce’s voice booms from the ceiling. “All Le Man employees, please report to the auditorium on the second floor. There is a mandatory meeting. Your attendance is required.”
“Oh,” I say, deflating even more than I was before I came in here. “Well, that’s just great.”
“Do you have any idea what this is about?” Sylvia asks.
“Yup.” I sigh. “And I guess I shouldn’t be late so I better get up there.”
She walks with me, chatting the whole time about some cheesecake at a new local bakery, oblivious that my demise is underway and I’m the star of the show this morning.
The second floor of the TDH building is convention space, I guess. There’s lots of conference rooms along the perimeter and then at the end is the giant auditorium where everyone from Le Man is waiting to file in for the big reveal.
“Eden! Eden! Over here!”
I look to see Myrtle waving her hands at me. “I’ll see you later, huh, Sylvia?”
“Sure, Eden,” she says, moving forward with the crowd.
I make my way over to Myrtle, who is smirking at me. “Well, don’t you look nice today?”
“Thanks,” I say.
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh… nothing,” I say, sighing heavily.
“You look like you’re going on a job interview. You’re not quitting, are you?”
“Quitting?” I laugh. It’s a real laugh too. Because that’s not what’s happening today. “No. I’m not quitting.”
“Good,” Myrtle says, smiling at me. “Because you’re like my best friend here and I’d be super upset if you left. Come on, there’s a back way in. Pierce showed it to me earlier. He’s saving me a seat right up front. That man,” she titters.
Which makes me look at her funny, but I don’t have time to unpack that comment, because she leads me over to a door, and we slip inside the auditorium right up at the front, like she said.
Pierce is there. Up on stage already, standing in front of a microphone.
And so is Andrew.
He looks right at me, his eyes narrowing as I take my seat next to Myrtle, and I want to look away. I really do. I want to act brave, and stoic, and unaffected by what’s about to happen.
But I can’t. I don’t look away. I’m not brave, I’m scared. And I’m not stoic, I’m emotional. I can feel the tears welling up in my eyes as reality sinks in.
He’s told Pierce and by the end of this meeting, everyone I know at Le Man will think differently of me.
