Page 80 of Caribbean Crush

The phone number belongs to none other than my boss, Gwen Levis.

I answer it with a cool and cheery, “Hello, Gwen!”

“Casey, hey,” she says, sounding cheerful herself. “Sorry to call you on a Saturday evening. Not usually our style here, but we’re in a pinch. Our intern quit earlier, actually. So unprofessional. Don’t get me started. Anyway, we really need those assignments completed. Especially Mark’s.”

I lean back in my chair, reveling in the calm that’s suddenly washed over me. For so long, I’ve cared so much about this job. In the past, I would have been stammering over every word if Gwen Levis deigned to call me. I don’t think we’ve ever, even once, spoken on the phone before now. I’m not going to lie; it feels really good to have her coming to me for something. I think I’ll revel in it for a moment.

“Oh no, sorry to hear you all are struggling.”

Read, No, I’m not.

“Right. I saw your email. Maybe you accidentally sent it?”

“No.” I chuckle. “I meant that email.”

She doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then asks, “What did you mean by ‘no’? You haven’t had time to get around to reviewing things? That’s fine, but we need Mark’s story to run by Tuesday, so how about you tackle it first thing—”

“No.”

I’m really enjoying using that word as a whole sentence.

Gwen clears her throat. “Casey. If this is about those emails you sent yesterday, I said I’d think about giving you a raise, okay?” Her voice is high and tight now, like she’s this close to losing it. “I can probably talk them into a two percent bump, maybe three percent, so let’s just move forward and—”

Two percent? Two fucking percent?

Holy shit. She really doesn’t get it. She never will.

I chuckle because this is actually pretty funny. “Sorry, you don’t understand, Gwen. The answer is no; I won’t be doing those assignments.”

“Excuse me?”

She cannot comprehend this change in me. She only knows me as dutiful, quiet Casey. Give Casey any assignment, and she’ll do it. The grunt work? The boring stuff we can’t even talk an intern into taking on? Casey will do it! Casey doesn’t care. She’s just glad to be here.

It’s pathetic, really, what I was willing to do just to say I worked at a publication like Bon Voyage. I can’t believe I never saw it before now. The injustice of it all.

“Gwen, I quit. Active immediately.”

“What? You can’t quit,” she shrieks so loudly that I have to hold the phone away from my ear. “Do you think this magazine is a joke? People are dying to fill your shoes. Dying.”

“I thought you said the intern also quit today ...”

“You little brat,” she hisses through clenched teeth. “You listen here. You should be grateful for the job I gave you. You think you’re going to go out and make it big? Where? I won’t let you go to one of our competitors.”

This is just a less cliché way of saying You’ll never work in this town again, and I’m slightly annoyed she didn’t just stick with the original.

She laughs shrilly. “After pulling this shit? You can kiss any sort of reference letter goodbye.”

“Noted.”

My calm response only rankles her more.

I know she wants to do more to me, but she really can’t. The thing is, Gwen barely knows me. Like right now, if I asked her my last name, she’d go, Uh, uh, uh—Hanes? So it’s not like she can dig deep into some arsenal of personal information to really take aim at me. I suppose she could poke fun at me for being the fact-check girl for as many years as I stuck it out, but like, okay, ha ha ha! I believed you when you hired me and told me I’d be able to work my way up in the company. What a dumbass, right?

She can’t punish me like she wants. This isn’t high school, and she’s not the principal. There’s no detention or suspension. There’s not even any company property she can seize in a final fit of rage. My laptop is my own. I guess I might have left some knickknacks in my cubicle in New York. Enjoy my mostly dried up highlighters and bent-up Post-it Notes, Gwen ...

“You want to quit? Fine. Good luck, Casey. You’ll need it.”

Then she hangs up, but not in that fun way where you can hear the receiver slam down on the other end of the line. How unsatisfying to have to just jab that little red X. Oh well.

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