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A thought pops up in my head. “What do you plan to do with the decorations?”
“Put them in storage for the next inevitable party. Why?”
“I have an idea.”
5
Jackson
The day after the party, my office door doesn’t budge. I can hear plastic squeaking, and when I shove the door open, a large pop makes me jump a foot off the floor.
“What the hell?” I ask, looking around my office.
It’s full of balloons. The tinsel my parents obnoxiously put around the brewery for every event hangs from my binders full of procedures. My diploma is defaced with stickers, all saying, “I Survived a Tourist Summer at Woody Finch Brewery.” I check, and they’re attached with Scotch tape. An inflatable dog sits in the corner. My chair is wrapped in streamers, in the way we used to TP the principal’s car in high school.
My jaw clenches, and my blood boils over.
A card is propped on my keyboard, the edges tucked into the grooves.
I open it, half-expecting glitter to fall out.
Since you couldn’t make it, I thought I would bring the celebration to you! xoxo, Shiloh
There’s nothing I hate more than people who can’t be confrontational, who use roundabout ways to be petty and infuriating. I crumble the note in my hands and toss it into the garbage.
There are streamers from theceiling?
Emily leans against my door frame.
“Did you help?” I swirl my finger to all the decorations.
“Yes, I helped.”
“I can’t fucking work like this!” I yell, my forehead creased, my face probably red as a tomato. “I didn’t want to go to another fucking party after another stupid party was two weeks ago. There’re too many goddamn parties, Emily.”
“I agree.”
I gnash my teeth together. “Shiloh is pushing too far. Why does she do this?”
“I don’t know,” Emily says, crossing her arms. “She just wanted to bring some of the party to you and make you happy. It comes from a good place.” She walks to the door and turns around. “Not everyone is out to get you, you know, Jackson.”
Emily leaves me alone with my thoughts. I was able to clear most of the decorations and I folded up the ones we reuse for parties. I sat on the streamers on the chair, typing away, trying not to think.
I check the schedule. Shiloh doesn’t come in until one.
At one-fifteen, I leave my chair to find her.
6
Shiloh
“And he just stopped calling me. Like, I thought we had a great time, and then he doesn’t say good morning anymore,” Ingrid says, dabbing her eyes. “What should I do?”
Biting my lip, I rehearse what I’m going to say in my mind before I open my mouth. “I think you move on. Maybe try not dating for a while. Go out with your friends. Do things you enjoy. Don’t worry about him. You are wonderful, and if he can’t see that, he wasn’t worth it in the first place.”
Ingrid’s face breaks into a grin. “Thanks, Shiloh. You’re totally right.” she says, turning away from the bar.
I kind of started a thing.
