Although it seems like it would be a lot less trouble to throw myself off the Empire State Building, I do manage to drag myself in to work Monday morning. Sure, I exploded my personal life into bits of shrapnel this weekend. Yes, I spent Sunday in a stupor in front of the TV.

Kari didn’t call, and she didn’t return any of my calls, so I guess we are officially fighting—which is a bummer, because I could really use a sympathetic ear right now. I didn’t hear from Mitch, and he didn’t answer my calls either, so it’s a pretty sure bet he’s washed his hands of me, too. There is no Chunky Monkey left in either of the two bodegas closest to my apartment.

But at least I’ve got work under control.

“You’re late,” Ryan says when I open the door.

I look at the clock. “No, I’m not.”

“For the meeting.”

“What meeting?”

“The meeting you’re forty-five minutes late for,” he says patiently. “When it became obvious that you weren’t going to make it, Melody took all your reports and stuff, but I don’t know how well she’s covering for you.”

I shake my head. “It’s a mistake. We don’t have a meeting today. It’s tomorrow.”

“Ben’s off tomorrow, and he has to leave early today. He moved the meeting to this morning, before office hours. I sent you an email about it Wednesday.” He points to the door behind me. “They’re in the conference room across from Ben’s office. Better get moving.”

I stare at him for another few moments, unwilling to believe this. The meeting tomorrow—today—is a big deal, and Melody can’t fill in for me, though I’m sure she’s trying her hardest. How can I have missed such an important email?

But of course Wednesday was the day Mitch brought lunch. I was distracted, like I’ve been distracted so many other times lately. I’ve only got myself to blame.

I turn and sprint for the elevator.

* * *

“So, if the focus groups are right, then—” Ben cuts off what he’s saying and glares at me over his glasses. “Good of you to join us, Jenna.”

Ben’s not the sort that wants a big flowery apology or a dramatic scene, so I opt for quiet and professional. “I’m sorry I’m late,” I say, and slide into the empty seat beside Melody.

She has a stack of papers in front of her; she pushes them over to me and points to the focus group results Ben is discussing. That’s enough to orient me, and by the time Ben finishes his sentence I’m up to speed.

“We’re looking at this slightly off-center,” I say. “The copy is focusing too much on long-term results and not enough on how very little is required to start. We can’t continue to ask these kids to think about tomorrow instead of today.”

“That makes sense,” Ben says. He’s every inch the professional, and he’s not going to let my tardiness throw the meeting out of order. As long as I can jump right in and keep up, he’ll do the same. “These are young people. Tomorrow is an eternity away.” He turns to Aiyana. “You realize we’re going to have to change the copy again.”

“They don’t need my help with that,” Aiyana says, pointing with her chin across the table at the copywriters. They’re all bunched up together in one corner of the table. Big surprise. “Not my department.”

I wince.

“Everything is your department,” Ben says coldly. “We all work together to create a final product, and everyone’s work impacts everyone else’s. If we rewrite copy, you’re probably going to have to work out a new design.”

“Oh, come on,” she says. “Do you know how many changes we’ve already made? This is—”

Melody stands up and clears her throat. All eyes turn to her. She looks at me as if she’s not quite sure why she just stood up and perhaps I could fill her in, but I’m as baffled as she is.

“Yes, Melody?” Ben says after a moment.

“Well, I was just thinking—I mean, what I mean is—” She looks lost for a moment, then moves to the giant mock-up of that damned brochure that sits on the easel at the foot of the table. “Can I write on this?” she asks.

Ben shrugs. “Go ahead. You can’t make it any worse.”

This gives rise to a lot of resentful looks around the table but no one disagrees with him. Obviously he’s not feeling too friendly this morning.

“Look,” Melody says, and uncaps a black Sharpie. “This part here, the part the focus groups don’t think is as important—can’t we sort of move it here?” She circles the bullet point in question and draws a line to a spot at the bottom of the right flap. “Congregate the longer-term details here, like fine print, only not fine.”

“We can fit it there with a little tweaking,” offers one of the copywriters. He’s blond with a sleek goatee. I’ll be damned if I can remember his name.

Melody leans in and draws more circles and arrows. Suddenly our brochure looks like it’s covered in football plays. “Slide this chunk over here, put this here and maybe just bold it to punch up the emphasis? Then we’ve got a whole different perspective but we haven’t lost anything. We’ve just emphasized the most effective points.”

Everyone just stares at her, and when none of them have any response she forges on.

“We don’t want to eliminate that stuff altogether, because I’ll bet you that some of these kids are going to be running this by their parents, and the parents are going to be thinking long-term. We don’t want to make it hard to find or, God forbid, get rid of it. We want it … not front-and-center. Front and right-of-center.” She smiles a little. “Plus you might not have to change the design, or just change it a little.”

Aiyana beams at her.

“You know what this means,” Ben says.

Melody nods, and they say, in unison, “More focus groups.”

Ben points at me. “Make it happen. I want parents of college-age children. Make sure you get a good cross-section education-wise. I want to know how the college-educated parents differ from the ones who aren’t. And I want to know the investments they’re making themselves, or if they’re not making any.” He pauses. “And I still want this off to the printer at the end of the week, regardless.”

There are some muffled groans around the table, but I keep my game face on. “Shall we end, then?” I ask. “So I can go get this moving?”

“Yeah,” he says, and the group breaks up. Everyone gathers their things and makes for the door.

I head out behind everyone else, but as I pass Ben’s chair he reaches a hand out to stop me. “Bring her in on it,” he says, nodding at Melody, who wanders out the door oblivious to his interest. “She’s got good ideas.”

“Bring her in how?” I say. “I mean, she’s in everything anyway. I value her advice a lot.”

“Now, so do I,” he says. “Share the work, let her do as much as she feels she can. Like I said, she’s got good ideas, and she did a great job filling in for you this morning. Speaking of which, Jenna—have you decided that our meetings aren’t important to you?”

“I didn’t get the email that you changed the day,” I mumble.

“I hear that you’re dropping the ball a lot,” he says. “Is something going on that I need to know about?”

I shake my head, horrified not only that I’ve been messing up so much, but that people are talking about it. What am I supposed to say?

I guess I could tell him that I was distracted by my ex-boyfriend getting engaged to a girl that looks like a Victoria’s Secret model, but that’s all handled now because they broke up and, oh, by the way, I had ill-advised sex with him this weekend and he treated me like garbage.

I could tell him that my best friend isn’t speaking to me because of the aforementioned sex-with-my-ex, and because I won’t pass along spoiler information from her favorite soap opera.

I could tell him that the source of the aforementioned soap opera information is probably never going to call me again now that he knows what a moron I am, and that thought has absolutely wrecked me.

I’ll be sure to fill him in, right after I stick hot pokers in my eyes and pull out all my fingernails.

“Nothing,” I say. “I just missed the email somehow and Ryan never mentioned it.”

“Ryan sent you the email,” he said. “That’s all the mentioning he needed to do.” The reprimand isn’t as bad as it could be, but it stings nonetheless.

“Of course,” I say.

“Don’t let it happen again, Jenna.”

I nod and scurry out the door. Back downstairs, I head for Melody’s desk, where she’s putting down her notes and things from the meeting.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey,” I say. “Will you make copies of those for me?”

“My notes? Sure.” She picks up her notebook. “You really didn’t miss much. You know how long it takes to get everyone quieted down and on task.”

“Still, I really appreciate you covering for me, Mel.” I lean against her desk. “I know I’ve been off in space lately and it helps a lot to know someone around here is paying attention.”

She blushes. “You’ve just got a lot going on, I guess?”

“Something like that. Listen, Ben was impressed, too. He notices these things.”

“What things?”

“Things like knowing what’s going on in your department, being prepared, stepping in when you’re needed, taking initiative.” I point my finger at her, cock my thumb, shoot. “Keep surprising Ben and you won’t be sitting at this desk for much longer.”

“There aren’t a lot of other places to sit, Jenna,” she says.

“Hey, you never know what might happen,” I say. “I used to sit at this desk—actually, I sat at the next one over, but you get my point.”

“I’m not sure I do.”

“Ben likes to hire from within. He’ll move you up the food chain before he brings in someone from outside. That’s how I got my job.”

“Last time I checked your job was unavailable,” she says wryly.

I laugh. “Not the way I’ve been going lately.” Hey, wait a second. That isn’t funny. I clear my throat awkwardly. “But, uh, seriously—keep it up, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And come by my office after lunch. Ben asked me to use you more on this project, and you have great ideas. I’ll look through my work and see where you can take some stuff on.”

“Sure.” She smiles brightly and walks off in the direction of the copy room.

I head back to my office, thinking idly about what I might have on the back burner because of Grow. There’s always some damn thing getting neglected, it seems. Maybe I can find something on another project as well, something that will really showcase what she can do, look good on her resume.

And figuring all this out will stop me from thinking about the other thing. The thing I am most decidedly not thinking about at work—not after I just got the smackdown from my boss for not paying attention to my job.

Ryan looks up as I enter and asks, “How’d it go?”

“It went fine,” I say. “Melody covered for me. She’s going to be working more closely with me on this particular project from now on.”

“What does that mean, exactly?” he asks, frowning.

“For starters, copy her on all emails that would normally come to me. That’ll keep her in the loop.”

“Okay,” he says. “So how was your weekend?”

And then, out of nowhere, with no warning, something happens that is about as mortifying as anything could possibly be: I start to cry.