Page 1 of The Romantic Agenda
One
THURSDAY
Dreams are such strange things to have and to hold.
They can be as big as wanting to be the next Naomi Campbell—the bougie-on-a-budget version. As outrageous as hoping to find true love in a seven-billion-person haystack. Or even as innocuous as hitting that fabled Inbox Zero before the end of the workday.
Forty-seven emails to go.
Joy doesn’t know what happened. One second, she was wasting on-the-clock time by searching for and deleting junk email, and the next, she’d become intensely obsessed with seeing the number in the red notification bubble drop lower and lower and lower...
Her intercom beeps, breaking her concentration. “Joy?”
“This is, and you’re bothering me,” she answers playfully, holding the phone between her ear and shoulder to keep her hands free. Forty-three emails now.
“It’s Meg. Do you think you could come to my office for a second?” Her voice sounds too high and strained.
Joy frowns, but says, “Be right there.”
Down the hall and five seconds away, Megan sits at her desk, face crumpled in despair as she stares at a pile of papers. Her office is a mirror image of Joy’s—from the slate gray pair of chairs for guests to the corny-as-hell inspirational wall art. Most employees at Red Warren added personal touches to make the space theirs. Megan brought in her adorable cross-stitch creations, displaying them everywhere.
Hanging on to the door jamb, Joy says, “You rang, my dear?”
“I did.” She looks up—her hazel eyes dominate her light brown face, with her patchy freckles coming in a close second. As if she isn’t already cute enough, loose brunette curls cascade over her shoulders like a Rapunzel in training. “Is that a new outfit?”
Joy twirls into the room, ending in a pose. “New-ish.” She’d bought the chic olive green pantsuit—flared high-waisted slacks and sleek blazer, both tailored to perfection, and paired with a tasteful plaid crop top—a few months ago, but this is the first time she’s wearing it to work.
“Special occasion?”
As far as Joy is concerned, fashion is life, but Megan clocked the situation correctly. Her hopes are sky-high for something about to go down, most likely in the next hour. It’s why she abruptly decided to devote her immediate future to securing Inbox Zero.
Approximately sometime around two hours, thirty-seven minutes, and twenty-four seconds ago, her focus had shattered from anticipation after her boss, Malcolm, sent a short email.
He asked if she had plans for the holiday on Monday.
He hinted about clearing everything from her calendar for Fridayandthe following Tuesday.
He needed to talk to her about something important.
“Hopefully?” Joy answers. It’s a miracle her heart hadn’t spontaneously combusted after she finished reading the email because her brain moved at the speed of light, jumping to the only possible conclusion: her time has finally come.
A reluctant laugh bursts through Megan’s stress. “Well, I’m rooting for you, whatever it is. Come look at this, please.” She’s holding a signed contract with some questionable language around distribution and follows it up with pictures of the product itself:a line of craft beers with an explicit NSFW label.
“Huh.” Joy’s eyebrows are nearly at her hairline. The image is so realistic, she can’t tell if the model’s 3–D or not. If she’s real, despite her excellent, perky posture, she most certainly has back problems from having boobs that big and a waist that small. How she managed to hold a perfect spread-eagle side split would have been a small miracle on set.
The image slides straight past comical, bypassing artistic expression, and ends up a little too close to exploitation. Red Warren Nightclubs pushes the envelope here and there, but this kind of advertisement isn’t in line with the brand.
“You approved this?” Joy asks.
“No.” All the color drains from Megan’s horrified face. “I was there because I was filling in for Johnny. Remember when he got sick and was out for two weeks?”
“I do.”
“I remember the product they showed us. I can literally see it in my head and it’sdefinitelynot this.”
Joy nods, keeping her cool. “I’ve always wondered if people are born with a photographic memory or if they have to develop it.”
“It’s eidetic memory, not photo—Oh, Joy, oh no.”
