CHAPTER 2
LIYAH feels like she’s in a deodorant commercial as she grips the edges of her office bathroom’s sink. You got this. You got this. You got this. She tugs at her blouse, making sure its hem covers the ruffled waist of her ill-fitting slacks.
She doesn’t exactly hate her body, not anymore. Her teenage years (and a good bit of her early twenties) were spent full-throat sobbing in dressing rooms every time she went pants shopping. Since then, a few clothing brands have developed “curvy” denim cuts, where the waist is true to size but there’s a good bit of extra fabric in the hips, butt, and thighs. The first pair Liyah tried on had inspired not only happy tears, but also an unparalleled level of brand loyalty. The Field Museum’s exhibition employee dress code allows for jeans, but today, Liyah is pitching an entire exhibit, and it feels like something that requires more elevated attire.
This twenty-minute meeting cost her approximately three I’m writing to follow ups and five almond milk lattes (the former to her boss, Jeff, and the latter for his assistant, Becca). When the exhibitions staff had their department-wide meeting the week after the Fourth of July, the head curator had announced the acquisition of several rare early hominid skeletons. Liyah had never so excitedly recorded her notes. This is her first chance since graduation to do the work she’d had a taste of while writing her master’s thesis, the work she’s dreamt of doing since the moment she first set foot in the Burke Museum, her father’s hand dwarfing her inexplicably sticky four-year-old fingers.
During the weeks since, this project has been the lead player in Liyah’s brain, and she has clocked an extra seven hours a week compiling sources and coming up with a plan. Come to think of it, she also bought lunch a few times for Siobhan, one of the department’s graphic designers, to secure her talents. Siobhan said she didn’t need it, but Liyah rambled on about unpaid labor and Siobhan eventually relented. This meeting is the most expensive of Liyah’s life. If Jeff goes for it, though, it’ll all pay off.
She checks in the mirror for sweat stains, life imitating corporate art. Lifting her arms reveals how scrunched the fabric is under her much-needed belt. She makes a mental note to find a tailor this weekend.
Liyah takes a deep breath and heads out to the conference room. The laptop is already connected to the projector, a presentation made complete by Siobhan’s graphics queued. She drums her fingers on the tabletop. Deep breaths. Jeff is usually running behind, but she can’t help but worry he’s forgotten about the meeting or decided it’s not worth his trouble. She doesn’t want to think about how many more almond trees it would cost to reschedule. But then the door to the room creaks open, interrupting her thought spiral.
“Liyah!” Jeff, always a smidgeon too loud for the room he’s in, arrives with Becca in tow. They’ve technically been coworkers for three years, but Becca keeps to herself, and prior to the coffee bribery, she’d hardly spoken four words to Liyah. Jeff takes a seat, notepad and pen at the ready. “Sorry to keep you waiting. Let’s hear it!”
“Thank you for meeting with me.” Liyah clears her throat. Jeff’s expression is blank, and likely to stay that way. She mentally morphs him into Neen’s smiling face and, with a deep intake of breath, starts the PowerPoint. “When I heard that we had a chance to bring the hyoid bones of early hominids to the Field, my first thought was how they weave into the story of the evolution of speech.”
“Yes, yes, the lack of space for the laryngeal air sack differentiates us from nonverbal apes.” Jeff gestures his hand as if to say I know all this, get to the point.
A quick press of the mouse changes the slide. “Right, the hyoid bone can give us an idea of the origin of language, but what if we used the open exhibit space on the second floor to tell a broader story of human evolution? Not just the nuts and bolts of natural selection, but the greater intricacies of the development of traits that we view as especially key to our humanity.” Liyah moves from slide to slide, going through the presentation exactly as she practiced with Neen. She stumbles a bit at first, but eventually hits her stride. By the time she reaches the end, make-believe Neen has long since disappeared, but the smile on Jeff’s face remains.
“This is … good. This is really good,” Jeff says, nodding. Liyah bites the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning. “It would complement our exhibit on the evolution of Earth. You know, how our home came to be, and then across the atrium, how we came to be.”
It’s quite possible that no amount of cheek biting is going to stop Liyah’s ear-to-ear grin. “Right!” she says. “Blurring the lines between the biological study and the social scientific study of, well, us.”
Jeff clucks his tongue. “This will require a lot more than the handful of skeletal remains and tools I already have secured. Even I can’t sign off on this without asking the higher-ups. How do you think it fits into our goal of attracting more young adults? We’ve got the kid market cornered, and retirees love museums, but we’re struggling with people your age.”
Liyah pauses, considering. She vaguely remembers Jeff talking about marketing at their last meeting, but she zoned out after the acquisition was announced. “Well, surely a new exhibition will bring people in.”
He leans forward, placing his hands palms-down on the table. “If you want to be bumped up to curator next year, you’re going to need to think beyond that.”
“Next year?” Liyah blurts. Curator by thirty, that was her goal. Her college advisor had looked down his nose when she told him (ambitious, aren’t you?) and Neen said they would print the website update the moment it went live and mail it to his house. Her mind spins. Curator by twenty-eight? If that’s on the table, it changes everything.
“Look,” Jeff continues, “you know what the board wants— better membership numbers. No matter how much you and I may wish it would come from a new exhibition, it probably won’t. Unless it’s all mirrors and colored lights for social media.” Liyah restrains her eye roll. Last year, she worked on one of those, and despite the Field’s admirable efforts to incorporate genuinely educational content, a little bit of her died every day she spent designing it. “If you work with the marketing guy they hired, I’ll pitch them your idea. Together, that would be a pretty convincing promotion package.”
“What exactly would working with him entail?”
“Meet with him, come up with events that will attract a millennial audience, and send me a proposal. You’re young, and you know this museum well. I’m sure you’ll make something great.”
Spending time away from her exhibitions sounds like a monumental waste. But curator rings in her ears. She grits her teeth into a smile. “I could do that.”
Jeff claps his hands. “Great! I’ll send you the details. Forward me your slides and I’ll pitch it to the board. I can let you know what they say by end-of-week.”
“Thank you. If it works out, I would love Siobhan to be the graphic designer for the project. She did a wonderful job helping with this presentation.” She’s not sure if this is an appropriate request to make, but she would feel immensely guilty if she said nothing.
Jeff nods to Becca. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He pauses, as if remembering something. “You studied evolutionary anthropology, right?”
“Yes. Or, actually, it was called biological anthropology at Northwestern, but yes—” She wills herself to stop mid-sentence. Excitedly spewing unnecessary information is a habit she’s never been able to kick.
“Okay, then. You’ll need someone to help with the cultural side of things. No promises, but it might be worth asking around.” He gives a pointed look. It seems her clandestine rivalry with Emiliano (cultural anthropologist, colossal priss) is not as clandestine as she thought.
Even so, Liyah full-on beams as she thanks Jeff and Becca. She barely manages to wait until they leave the room to do her victory dance and pull out her phone.
Liyah
It went well. He’s gonna bring it up the ladder, and all I have to do is meet with a marketing guy about appealing to a millennial crowd. Which, gross, but Jeff said it would be, and I quote, “a pretty convincing promotion package.” AH!!!!
Neen’s reply is almost immediate.
Neen
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hhhh curator C-J! kicking bones and takin species’ names
Liyah
God you’re corny. And getting ahead of yourself. But thanks I love you!!!
Neen
sent u $$ for celebratory lunch! knock yourself out
and don’t even think about sending it back. it’ll start a vicious cycle greater than the venmo wars of 2014
Liyah
Ugh love you miss you!!
Neen
love you miss you too xo
Liyah all but sprints to her office and swings open the door. “I’m taking you to lunch!”
Siobhan startles, her fair, freckled skin turning beet red as she pulls out one earbud. “Jesus, Liyah. Scared me half to death.”
“Jeff liked it! He’s gonna let us know if it’s a go by Friday.”
“No shit, huh? Congrats, love.”
“Your graphics took it to the next level. I couldn’t have done it without you. Hence, lunch.”
“I don’t believe that for a second. Also I will physically fight you if you try to buy me food again.” She holds up a finger. “And if you start on about wage theft, I won’t even go to lunch with you. Doing favors for friends is not the leading cause of underpaid workers.”
Liyah shoots a playful glare over her shoulder as she sits. “Alright, noted. But I told Jeff that you should do the graphics.”
“If it gets me off this stupid newsletter revamp, I might have to buy you lunch.” Siobhan sighs. “Speaking of, can you proofread this?”
Liyah, too drained from the meeting to stand up, scoots her chair across the small room until she can read Siobhan’s screen. As much as she hates doing the work, she does a good job of it. The design would inspire at least a quick read-through instead of an instant delete. “There’s no u in favorite,” she says, pointing.
Siobhan groans. “It’s murder keeping up with American spellings. You know, the English started this damn language, shouldn’t we defer to their rules?”
Liyah places her hand over her heart. “Not Siobhan Gallagher saying something positive about the English. Must be below zero Celsius in hell.”
“Don’t go getting used to it. And get back to work.” She punctuates this with a kick to the base of Liyah’s chair. It rolls halfway back across the room, and Liyah finishes the journey, Siobhan’s laughter tangling with the stuttered sound of Liyah’s awkward scooting.
As she clicks through her in-box, archiving, deleting, and replying as needed, the details for tomorrow’s meeting appear in a message from Jeff. She’ll be having coffee with Brett (ew) at a little place in the Loop on Wednesday, nine sharp. Annoyance nips at her.
“Siobhan, what’re the odds of me getting through a ninety- minute meeting with a marketing specialist named Brett without rolling my eyes?”
“Nil,” she replies. Liyah snort-laughs.
Aliyah Cohen-Jackson, Curator. Fine, she can tolerate a few meetings with a corporate hack. Maybe he’ll be dumb enough to fall for feigned feminine incompetence and do all the work.
“HOW’S THE PHARMA account going?” A new route was put up at their bouldering gym, and Jordan spots Daniel from ten feet below.
Jordan was the one who discovered Chicago Rocks two years prior. Before that, they had worked at the same marketing firm for a year and a half without ever interacting. They were aware of each other, especially as the rest of their company is nothing if not incredibly white, but they were hired at different times and had never been on the same project.
One day, Jordan showed up at his office at 5:05 p.m., leaned on the doorframe with the kind of twinkling smile that Daniel previously thought only existed on film, and asked Daniel how he felt about rocks. They’ve been climbing together three days a week since. Daniel is eternally grateful that Jordan chose him to ask that day, and not only because it gave him a good reason to cancel his overpriced gym membership.
Daniel reaches for the next hold. His hand is too sweaty for a solid grip, so he dips it in the bag of chalk hanging from his hip. Much better. “I might be transitioning away from it, finally.” He hoists himself up another several inches, his feet finding security on new holds. “If we get CTA, I’m pulling out all the stops to be lead. Brett also emailed me about an account I might want, but he did it after five, so I refused to open it on principle.”
Jordan’s laugh echoes up at him. “If anybody at Kinley would be more excited to post about trains than cutting-edge medicine, then I guess it would be you.”
“Hey, the L has never failed me.”
Jordan snorts. “I can probably name five times off the top of my head that you’ve been late this month specifically because of the Chicago Transit Authority.”
“We have a complex relationship.” Also, he hates big pharma. When he was assigned the account, there were many envious eyes on him. He pretended to be excited; it was a big account for someone so junior at the firm, but he’s wanted off since the beginning. As anybody with a basic—let alone intimate—knowledge of the industry’s standard practices would. Daniel reaches the top of the wall, so he releases his legs and does a few pull-ups on the last two climbing holds.
“Cough, show-off, cough,” Jordan calls.
“Did you inhale some chalk there?” Daniel asks, and he doesn’t need to look down to know that Jordan is giving him the finger. He starts his descent, the path down easier than the path up now that he’s built some muscle memory. When his feet land softly on solid ground, he grabs his towel to wipe the sweat from his brow and sees that Jordan has already gathered his things. “Wanna grab a drink?”
Jordan shakes his head. “I would, man, but I told Nisha that I’d watch some crime documentary with her. I don’t know why women love that shit. It’s nightmare fuel.”
“Aite, another time,” Daniel replies, following Jordan outside. The air is warm but breezy, a perfect August night.
“Whatever happened to that woman from the airplane?”
Daniel regretted telling him about Liyah approximately three seconds after he let it slip. He should’ve known that Jordan, a true romantic, would never let him hear the end of it. The inquiries came every day at first, only recently decreasing to about once per week. He shakes his head. “Why won’t you let this go? It’s been over a month.”
“Because you haven’t mentioned a girl—woman—to me since, well, before, you know…” Jordan trails off. Daniel could throw him a rope, but he doesn’t. Let Jordan dig himself out of his own hole. “You haven’t mentioned a woman to me in over a year.”
“Jordan, I mentioned that I ran into someone I used to know and that she absolutely hated me. Somehow, you’ve forgotten the second part.”
“You also said she was hot.” Daniel gives him a flat look, and Jordan holds up his hands. “Okay, I’ll let it go. I just wanna see you happy. It’s been a minute.”
“I live with Alex; I’ve already got enough unsolicited dating advice.” Daniel’s roommate frequently reminds him that he has a standing offer to woo a lady with never-ending free drinks. Alex’s words, not Daniel’s. His six-month dry spell maybe hasn’t been ideal, but it’s not that bad. Between Jordan’s serial monogamy and Alex’s serial ghosting, neither of Daniel’s closest friends in the city have ever learned how to spend two weekends in a row with an empty bed.
“Whatever you say, man. I’ll see you at the gala on Friday.”
Daniel groans. “Don’t remind me.” He can think of near infinite ways he’d rather spend his Friday night than at a museum celebrating his firm’s twentieth birthday. Clipping Sweet Potato’s front claws, say, even at the risk of another scar between his forefinger and thumb. His only solace is the possibility of an open bar. He extends his hand and they part ways with a sweaty dap and twin see ya laters.
On the L, he swipes through his phone until he reaches the app store. Six months isn’t that bad, but it’s starting to get to him. His thumb is hovering over the little cloud-shaped redownload button next to the Tinder icon when he thinks better of it. The situation is not so dire that he’s willing to subject himself to overly forward questions about which side of his family he got his dick size from—gross—or white women who are creepily obsessed with Korean popular culture—somehow grosser. For now, his hand works perfectly fine.
When he finally gets to his apartment door, he finds it already unlocked. Alex must be off tonight. Sweet Potato saunters over to him and weaves between his ankles: her customary welcome home the greatest consistency in his life. He bends down and scoops her up. Despite her impatient meows, she doesn’t squirm, and instead softly pats his jaw with a front paw. It took her weeks to warm up to him after he’d adopted her, and he still savors every bit of her affections. Just then, a thud comes from Alex’s room, and Sweet Potato thrashes to jump out of Daniel’s arms.
The thud is followed by a low-pitched moan, and Daniel surmises that the lack of light coming from Alex’s door is not because he’s napping. They live in a building with decently thick walls, but their bedroom doors are perpetually propped open so that Sweet Potato can roam freely without ever losing access to her litter box. It’s great to have a roommate who loves his cat, but not if it means that Daniel is the audience to this particular concert of groans.
He thinks about shutting the door, but he doesn’t want to make their houseguest feel awkward, and he certainly doesn’t want an accidental view of Alex’s bare ass mid-thrust. Instead, he empties his gym bag and tosses his work clothes into the laundry hamper. The groans and thumping continue until the rush of water from Daniel’s showerhead drowns out the noise.
He slips into the shower, letting the hot water soothe the muscles in his shoulders. They always ache by nighttime, the cycle of underuse at his desk and overuse on a rock wall catching up to him. As he lathers, he hears a door slam shut. At least he won’t have an unfortunate soundtrack to his dinner. It’s like the world is conspiring to make him keenly aware of exactly how long it’s been since someone else touched him. Maybe he’ll take Alex up on a complimentary bar tab this Friday; the guy must be doing something right if he’s managed a one-night stand on a Monday.
Shit, the company party. Daniel groans, turning off the shower. Endless drinks and wooing will have to wait until next week.