Page 8 of Fireworks Flame
“No pizza?” Elena gapes at me with an awe that’s embarrassingly misplaced. “I want to be you when I grow up.”
“You are grown up,” I say. “And we have the same job. Only I’m here late every night while you’re out living your life. If someone’s winning, it’s you.”
Elena looks as shocked as I feel at the admission. Maybe my confession to Deiss last night has left a crack in a door I never meant to open. Thankfully, no one around us seems to have heard me.
“You don’t have to stay late just because they ask you to,” Elena says. “None of the rest of us do. I thought you were just kissing up for a promotion.”
“Sure.” She doesn’t know I often have nowhere else to go. Or that I keep naively hoping the extra work might finally result in a creative project the higher-ups will approve as is. “Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do? That doesn’t mean I’m not sick of it.”
“But you could just stop. All you have to do is say no.” Elena’s eyes light up, and she leans in to whisper, “It feels so good saying no to them.”
Before I can formulate any kind of response, Mr. Dailey calls the meeting to order. Like a switch has been flipped, the party-like atmosphere fades. Seats groan as people settle in. Smiles sink into frowns. It’s the flaw of the Friday afternoon meeting. We’ve all just been given a glimpse of the relief of the weekend, but now we’re about to be reminded of the fresh hellawaiting us next week. It will niggle at the back of our minds on Saturday, but by Sunday night, it will be wailing like a siren, obliterating any effort to hold onto the remaining joy of the weekend.
“I’m sure you’ve all received the memo about bathroom etiquette,” Mr. Dailey says sternly.
I turn toward him and sit up straight to present the image of an enthusiastic, attentive employee who cares greatly about her coworkers’ bowel movements. My mind, however, sinks into the simplicity of Elena’s suggestion.No.For only two tiny letters, the word is strangely compelling. Intoxicating even.No.It sounds so firm. So decisive. I whisper it silently, and my tongue clicks off the roof of my mouth in a satisfying way, even as my chest tightens.
That word is the antithesis of everything I learned growing up. My mother taught me to not end up how she did, abandoned, alone, scraping to get by. If I would only do as I was told, by her and everyone else, I’d become someone better. One of the bright, beautiful people we watched on TV instead of the tired, worn-down scraps we always felt like. If I did everything right, I’d be financially solvent, have a home, and be loved. If that were true, though, why am I not? Technically, I haven’t reached any of those benchmarks yet.
The truth is, I’m not even happy.
Should I be happy that I’ve somehow become the go-to designer for foods so gross that they need to be rebranded so people will put them in their mouths? Should I be happy that my shoes feel like mousetraps have snapped shut on my toes? Should I be happy that Roger was willing to take me on a bike ride so long that we’d have to smear packs of chemical gel onto our tongues just to survive it?
No.I whisper it silently again, rolling it around in my mouth, savoring the feel of it.
Maybe it’s still there twenty minutes later when Mr. Dailey addresses me in front of the group. Maybe it has settled itself on my tongue like a runner crouched at the starting line, taut with the desire to be released. Or maybe it’s been building since Deiss pulled away the curtain to reveal a wall. Whatever the reason, when Mr. Dailey announces that my next project is not only another food project butbone broth, the most disgusting one I’ve received yet, I’m as surprised as anyone that I don’t just nod politely as I’m expected to do.
“No,” I say instead.
The word comes out simply, coolly, decisively. There are a few gasps around the room, but the biggest show of surprise comes from Mr. Dailey himself. He looks positively stunned, and who could blame him? I’ve always been his yes-girl. In fact, if our office had a yearbook, I’d probably be in there asMost likely to give away her firstborn if formally requested by management.
I brace myself for my impending regret—regret for behaving rashly, for embarrassing myself in front of my coworkers, for disappointing my boss, for endangering my career—but it doesn’t hit. All I feel is a thrill of excitement working its way up through my chest, powering me like a surge of electricity. This might possibly be the most alive I’ve ever felt.
“But—” Mr. Dailey begins to speak, almost certainly intending to explain that the bone broth project wasn’t an offer as much as an assignment, but he’s cut off by the wave of my hand.
I engage my beauty queen smile. “No.”
And it turns out Elena was right. Itdoesfeelgood.
THEN
I had refused to get out of the car. In fact, I’d gotten behind the wheel and moved the car farther away, just to physically mark my objection to the night’s event. Graffiti was an eyesore. It was also illegal. And I didn’t care how many times Simone declared it decorative or Mac claimed it would be good practice for my graphic design classes; I had no intention of participating.
I’d been sitting in the driver’s seat in the dark for about twenty minutes when the cop came flying into the gravel parking lot like a stunt driver on crack. He did that thing where you hit the brakes and the car keeps moving, spinning around so his headlights spotlighted the crumbling wall my friends were marking up. It would’ve been badass if it weren’t such overkill. Actually, itwaskind of badass, especially the way it caused my friends to whip around, gaping at the headlights like startled deer. If I hadn’t been so terrified, I might’ve laughed.
Oddly, my first instinct was to look at the drawings that the moonlight had been too dim to illuminate from this distance. Imade a mental note to ask Phoebe to jot down those flowers for me when we got back to the dorm; they would be the perfect addition to a digital sketch I’d been working on for my Editorial Layout class. And I swooned a little at the sight of Mac’sMac & Phoebeand the halfway-completed4that was presumably meant to have become4ever.
My second instinct was to check on my friends. Unsurprisingly, Deiss was stepping back to lean nonchalantly against the wall, even as the hand that held the spray paint can slowly lowered from the wordDeftonesdown to his side. Mac and Phoebe had covered their mouths like they were trying not to laugh. Simone had fluffed her hair and was unsubtly adjusting her cleavage. Belatedly, I ducked down, praying the officer would assume the car was empty.
I was convinced he was going to arrest them, maybe even take them directly to prison, so I kept my grip tight on the steering wheel, determined to provide a getaway car if he tried. It proved unnecessary, though. Less than twenty minutes later, he was gone and they were back in the car, laughing and comparing tickets.
“My dad is going to kill me,” Phoebe said, looking at me with wide eyes even as she giggled.
“My dad is going to lawyer me up and demand I contest it,” Simone said.
I wondered what Deiss’s dad would have to say, but I didn’t bother asking. He’d never even confessed aloud to being born to human parents, leaving us to wonder if he might’ve been created in some lab with excellent speakers and a varied playlist. After two years of friendship, we’d yet to be able to get him to share anything of his past. Once, Simone pushed too hard to figure out what state he was from, and he’d walked out of theroom, strolling back in three days later like nothing had happened. We stopped asking him questions after that.
I pulled Phoebe’s ticket out of her hand, my mouth falling open as I read the print.
