Page 14 of Don't Go Faking My Heart
My watch vibrates with a text.
Shoot, Mom and Greg wanted me to text them as soon as the presentation was over. They wanted to hear all about it. None of us imagined it would go up in flames like this. Mom won't see me differently, but I don't want Greg to think of me as a failure.
Rusty keeps collecting information from people and casting worried sidelong glances at me. I scrunch my nose and shrug like it's not a big deal, but he doesn't seem to buy it.
Who could?
Lou and Parker come over and crouch next to me.
"Two weeks, huh?" Parker asks, and embarrassment squeezes my throat. "That's ambitious, but we can do it."
"You can't. None of you can. We have more work than we can handle as it is. This should have been a sure thing!"
"Hey," Lou says, putting her arm on my shoulder. "Anyone with two functioning brain cells could have figured out how smart the proposal was."
"Or enough fake tanner to paint a desert," Parker says, glaring at Teddy.
"So it didn't go the way you wanted right off the bat, but it's not over. You have two weeks,” Lou says.
"What can I do for this many businesses in two weeks?"
"Pfft. You're Ashley Jane Moore. What can't you do in two weeks?" Her phone alarm rings, and she tsks. "I have to go. Auditions wait for no woman."
"Thanks, bae," I say when she hugs me. Parker hugs me next. "You two should go. You have work. I'll figure something out."
"We'll figure something out," Lou says, and I nod like I plan to take her up on that when I absolutely do not.
Rusty keeps getting more and more information, and my brain moves a hundred miles a minute. This isn't a single account, it's dozens. A lengthy to-do list forms in my mind, but every single item fights for first place. Where do I start? Who do I prioritize? How do I prioritize?
I look at the various people talking to Rusty—owners of businesses I don't know the first thing about—and the overwhelm hits harder and harder.
"I can't breathe," I whisper.
Rusty holds a hand up to the man he's talking to. "What? Are you okay?" he asks with a quiet urgency.
"It's too hot in here." I pull at my collar. It's too tight around my neck. Everything is too tight, too constrictive, from my glasses all the way down to my shoes. "I have to get some air."
I rush out of the room and through the hallways until I see an emergency exit. I push it, not caring if it sets off an alarm (it doesn't) because I’m suffocating. The mounting pressure is too much, too heavy. The weight of the building crushes down on me until I burst outside into the muggy, oppressively sunny day.
I undo my top button and gulp air.
What have I done?
The question plagues me as I wander from the town hall through the park and across the street. Once I'm on Maple Street, I keep walking past the buildings until I reach the riverwalk.
I walk and think and think and walk until the exhaustion of the all nighter hits and I drop to the earth.
The riverwalk is beautiful. It's something out of a movie set, and despite being just beyond the town's main street, it's a hidden gem of the entire region. I've always loved the water. Swimming, kayaking, bubble-bathing, you name it. It calms my racing thoughts more than almost anything.
And my thoughts are racing, all right. They're sprinting against Usain Bolt, and they're winning. This isn’t just a job, this is an organizational tsunami wrapped in a hurricane of priorities. And organization and priorities are my nemeses.
That’s why I ran. If I'd have stayed, I'd have lost it, and I can't do that to Rusty. He risked his reputation by being there today. I could tell how much it hurt his feelings to be called the B Team. I wince remembering the term.
It's nicer than what I heard from kids in school growing up, but it cuts just as deep.
I can't blame Teddy for calling Jane "the hot one," though. My bestie is a real life Margot Robbie. (I know Margot Robbie is a real person, for the record.)
I'm the B Team, not because I'm not pretty enough but because I'm not put together enough. Someone like Teddy looks at someone like me with the “Talk Nerdy to Me” sticker on my knockoff Stanley water bottle and starts sneezing.
