“Sol!” my roommate, Marissa, calls from the kitchen.

“Yeah?”

“The computer keeps flashing that you have an urgent email. You didn’t log out last time you used it.”

I close my copy of Conquering Corporate Culture, climb off my bed in our tiny, shared bedroom, and walk to the living room.

“Also,” Marissa says as I enter, “the moms say we have to come to Tampa for either Thanksgiving or Christmas. They won’t let us skip both.”

Marissa is also my cousin—our moms are sisters, they moved to the U.S. from Spain together. I’m an only child, and Marissa’s the only girl, so we became kind of a package deal—we might as well be sisters, everyone treats us like we are.

I try to ignore the pang that goes through me when I think about my mother’s move to Florida. She packed up the van and pulled out of town the day I graduated from high school, leaving me to live with Marissa’s family until college started in the fall and I could move to the dorms. Nothing quite like having your own mother counting down the days until you’re out of her home, and in many ways, her life.

“I vote Christmas because it’s going to be freezing here by then,” I mumble, shaking off my bad memories as I grab the laptop we’ve been sharing off of the counter and bring up my email.

My eyes scan the newest message once, twice, then a third time before I shriek, unable to believe what I’m seeing.

“I got it! I got it! Oh my God, M, I got it!” I toss the laptop on the sofa where Marissa catches it before it slides onto the floor, then I’m screaming and bouncing and probably scaring the crap out of the neighbors.

“Ok, ok,” she laughs. “Calm the hell down, chica. I take it you got one of the jobs you applied for?”

I’m nearly breathless when I answer, hands gesturing like I’m a used car salesman. “Not a job, the job! The one at Petrovich. I’m the new junior marketing executive at Petrovich Vodka!”

Now Marissa knows what all the fuss is about. Her hands fly to her mouth and her brown eyes grow big and round. “Shut the front door!” she gasps. “You got it? The big one? The one you’ve been talking about for two years?”

She’s right. I have been talking about working for Petrovich for two years. It’s a phenomenal company—still family owned, but turning out a monstrous profit year after year, and innovative both with their product and their marketing. Hashtag career goals.

Before I know it, Marissa is off the couch and we’re both jumping around like a couple of lunatics.

“Woo hoo!” we shriek, holding each other’s hands and dancing in a circle like we did when we were little. A pounding vibrates the floor beneath our feet and I roll my eyes as we stop jumping and Marissa drops to the floor where she yells into the hardwood, “Take a chill pill, Herman. We’ve got shit to celebrate!”

She stands and we both giggle breathlessly.

“This calls for a party,” she says, skipping into the kitchen. She returns with a box of red wine, the only alcohol we have in the apartment.

“It’s cheap but plentiful,” she says, holding the box up over her head with one hand and two wineglasses with the other.

She pours the wine and we both raise our glasses to cheer. “To Petrovich’s newest junior marketing executive,” she says. “May you get to do lots of those marketing kinds of things that you like so much.” I laugh at her ignorance about my work. “And may you see The Czar every single day you’re at the office because nothing makes a job worthwhile like some sizzling eye candy.”

The Czar is Mick Petrovich, heir to the Petrovich Empire. His father is the owner of the company, but rumor has it that now that Mick is no longer able to play professional hockey he’ll be working for the company as well.

“He would be nice to look at,” I agree, taking my first swallow of wine. “I’m not sure if he’s working there or not.” I shrug. “I probably won’t see him anyway. I’m sure all the Petroviches are locked away on some super secret floor with gold bidets and dishes of caviar all over the place.”

“Eww,” Marissa says, scrunching up her nose. “Caviar and bidets in the same sentence does not create good images in my mind.”

“Sorry. Think about Mick Petrovich again, that’ll clear your mental palette.”

She sighs. “Ah, yes. Those legs, that chest, the ass.” She sighs as she takes a sip of wine. “You have to promise me to get a picture if you do see him.”

“I won’t, but okay, I promise.”

“Good. Now let’s get this celebration underway!”

She stands up on the coffee table while I stick my iPhone in the dock and set it to The Chainsmokers. As we begin to move to the music, glasses of wine clutched in our hands, the occasional sloshes splashing to the floor, I think, it paid off—every bit of it. I’m finally on my way to my dream—a corner office in a tall building, a corporate position, a home that no one can take from me. I’m going to be part of something bigger, something permanent. I hug my cousin and swig wine, because this is the greatest day of my life. Petrovich Vodka, here I come.