TWENTY-THREE
“Aresti! Get in here!” Felix yelled when I arrived the next morning, which didn’t help with the stares I was getting around the office. It was mainly the men, lips curled and eyebrows raised.
The women had known and had been on my side when it was their sisters and cousins and hairdressers I was helping. But now the men knew, it was like they wanted nothing to do with me. They couldn’t afford for their secrets to get out, that they weren’t happy with their lot, that they were exhausted and disappointed and unfulfilled. I was proof that we were all pretending, and it was easier to turn away. To show off engagement rings and holiday photos and tiny pastel onesies. The accessories to a life that didn’t tell the full story.
I slipped into his office and into the chair opposite Felix.
“Morning.” I smiled stiffly. “What’s up?”
“I saw about your little side hustle in the news yesterday. The top dogs aren’t exactly thrilled by the association.”
I pressed my lips together and nodded. “I understand.”
Felix tugged at his mustache, and I wondered whether he was allowed to fire me for this. Like, legally, could he get rid of me for a bit of bad press?
“Surely we could spin this for the PR?” I said lightly. “Make it look like a campaign for one of our female-first brands?”
“The crazy woman who thinks men are beneath her?” He snorted. “You think there’s an angle for that?”
I smiled tightly. “If you’re good at your job, there’s always an angle.”
Felix sighed, shaking his head. “I vouched for you, I said you were brilliant. I said you were a hard worker who was dedicated to this place, you’d be here forever, making it tick, doing whatever it takes.”
I blinked, wondering if that was meant to be a compliment.
“But now . . .” Felix trailed off, and I frowned at him. All of his actions seemed so caricatured somehow, as if tugging at his mustache, putting his head in his hands, sighing deeply, it would all convey this deep level of disappointment that I’d never recover from.
But I suddenly found that I didn’t really care what he thought anymore. How odd.
“So . . . what do I need to do?” I asked, and apparently it was the right question, because he beamed at me.
“Good girl”—he pointed—“that’s the right attitude. I need the Aly from a month ago. The girl who got it done, who didn’t complain, who gave two hundred percent. I need my girl Friday back, kid, you know? It’s like you suddenly started to think you were too good for this place after Matthew got that promotion.”
I blinked at him. “Oh, is that so?”
Felix rolled his eyes at me. “Come on, Aly. Be real for a second, would you? You . . . you’re a packhorse. A hard worker, solid, dependable. But you’re never going to be a leader. You haven’t got the balls for it.”
I burst out laughing, shaking my head.
Felix frowned. “Be serious for a moment. You’re in the shit here and I need you to—”
“To go back to being the perfectly helpful, amenable, selfless person I was before? The person with no life outside this office? The person who lived to prove herself?” I asked, expecting him to get the sarcasm.
But Felix missed it completely. “Yes, exactly.”
I threw my head back and pressed my lips together, trying to contain my laughter. Eventually it escaped.
“My god,” I said. “I’ve wasted my life.”
“What?”
“I quit, Felix.”
I felt calm and refreshed as soon as I said it, as if a cool breeze just descended upon me.
“Don’t be stupid, where are you going to go? You just made a PR mess of yourself and your reputation, sweetheart, don’t be an idiot.”
“I told you, when you’re good at your job, any mess can be an opportunity.”
“So you’re serious?”
“As a heart attack,” I said, standing. “Expect my letter of resignation in a few minutes.”
“And what about your notice period? Aly, you’re not thinking straight!” Felix laughed.
His face gleamed, like he was being so accommodating, talking to me like a child.
“I have more than enough holiday to cover my notice period. Thanks, Felix.” I smiled widely at him. “This has really been a learning experience for me. Before you, I didn’t realize just how many shitheads were at the top. Like you said, I never would have made it.”
I opened the door and walked out, just as he started yelling.
“You get back here, young lady! I’m not done with you! I won’t give you a reference!”
I got halfway across the office before I paused and turned back, watching his little red face scowling at me. I adopted an apologetic expression.
“Felix, don’t be so hysterical, you’re making a fool of yourself.” I wiggled my eyebrows. “See ya!”
I walked across the room to grab my bag, leaving everything else at my desk, and as I walked to the lift, I caught Eric’s eye and winked. He nodded.
When I got to the hallway, I was surprised to see Tola next to me, holding a box.
“Is that my stuff?”
She shook her head. “It’s mine. I handed in my notice two weeks ago. I was kind of hoping you were going to be brave enough to follow my lead. Turns out you followed your own.”
The lift opened, and we got in, and I nudged her with my elbow.
“You were brave,” Tola said suddenly. “I’m really proud of you.”
I shook my head. “Getting mad at my boss and walking out after a PR nightmare, with no job to go to, no references, and no idea of what I’m doing next? I’m not brave, I’m an idiot.”
“Pssh, you are not. Besides, you and me are going to start a business.”
“Oh, right, and do we know what type of business that is yet?” I asked, amused.
“Absolutely no idea,” she replied.
“Oh, good. Excellent.”
I couldn’t help grinning. I felt like I could run a marathon or scale a building.
“We’re mad, you know?” I said in awe. “We’re absolutely mad.”
Tola smiled at me, shaking her head. “We’re not mad. We’re brilliant.”
—
I spent the rest of the day with Tola, in a coffee shop around the corner with two brand-new notebooks, making plans. We talked about the kind of business we wanted to run, what we’d learned from the Fixer Upper, how we could move forward.
We wanted, quite plainly, to create our own agency. We knew we wanted to run a business that supported female companies. No fixing up, only building up. Glowing up. Growing up.
At one point we just sat quietly, listening to the women in the coffee shop talking to each other. It was like when we first started the Fixer Upper. But where before we’d heard only about the pandered-to boyfriends and babysitting dads, we realized now it was bigger than that. It was not being taken seriously at work, it was lackluster maternity pay, and no one talking about miscarriages, and never quite getting over that feeling when you saw a cover model and pinched your thighs. It was every ridiculous thing you’d ever believed about yourself and about being too damn exhausted to fix it.
“What problem do we need to fix?” Tola asked me, and I shook my head.
“For now, we just need to listen.”
“You’re okay with not being in control of everything all the time?”
“It’s meant to feel scary when you’re falling.” I repeated my mother’s words. “And then it feels like home. We’ll get there. We’ve just gotta do the scary bit first.”
Tola shook her head at me in utter surprise. “I love you. I absolutely love you right now.”
It was hours of double-shot lattes and ridiculous slogans, words written in capital letters, Tola getting louder as she said, yes, yes, that’s it, that’s the one!
It was the most excited I’d been for a long time, possibility stretching out like a new, unseen road that had suddenly appeared from between the trees.
And I didn’t know how to fix it all. But I knew where to start, with the two guiding principles that I’d forgotten until someone had brought them back to me: tell the truth and find wonderful things.