Eloise.
My sister.
I don’t call out. I don’t say anything. I don’t want to talk to her.
Not yet.
I glance at my watch. It’s just after three. Now I know what time to avoid running into her.
Once she’s disappeared, I head upstairs and eat my tacos, alone in the comfort of my familiar apartment.
Then I resume my endless thinking. And pacing. Thinking and pacing, while writing up a new ad idea for tomorrow. Something with love. If the child psychic says I need to get through this with love, that’s what I’ll focus on. Two lovers estranged, brought back together with the Splice app?
I scribble down notes, mind a whir of activity.
I’m going to fix this day. I’m going to come up with a new pitch and show them I can do it. That I have value. That I can fit. Maybe I’ll even get to keep my job. Maybe I can keep going over and over until I get it right, figure it out. Maybe this is a chance from the universe to get what I want.
Or I’m dead and this is hell.
Or tomorrow, I’ll wake up and it will be Tuesday and I’ll just have ruined my own life by blowing most of my money on fabric, tacos, and teenage psychics.
I put all the fabric I purchased in the closet, along with some written ideas for a new pitch.
Tomorrow, we’ll see what happens.
I lie in bed and try to think more positive thoughts. I can find a way to do something—take action. Like with the magic closet.
The neighbor is crying again. Muffled sobs. The soundtrack of my new life.
I pull a pillow over my head.
I have control of my choices and actions. I can get out through love.
The teenage psychic told me so. Spiritual advisor. Bah!
Except . . . disbelief wars with hope in my brain, a thought I’ve been avoiding all afternoon rising to the surface.
She called me Jane. I’m sure I never told her my name.
Chapter Six
Sprinkle me.
Well. It’s Monday. Again.
And I need to check the closet.
I scramble out of bed.
The fabric is still there. The papers scribbled with new ad possibilities survived too. Everything I put in the closet survived the night. I turn around. Everything I didn’t put in the closet is back where it was on the first Monday. The phone, the clothes, the briefcase . . .
It is a magic closet.
I spend ten seconds dancing around, my limbs a spastic blur divorced from the music’s tempo, but whatever. Something is different, something I can maybe use to my advantage, and it makes me inordinately happy. I can control something in this weird . . . whatever this is.
I stop dancing and reconsider the confined space full of work clothes and boxes. Maybe I should sleep in the closet. It’s small, barely large enough for me to sit in comfortably, but it might work. I’ll try tonight. Something I can control, right?
I’ll figure it out later. For now, I have to go get fired and then dumped by a narcissistic malcontent.
My stomach lurches.
I hate talking in front of people, and knowing I’m going to get fired at the end is like an extra turd on a giant crap cake.
But it’s not a life-or-death situation like my mind wants to believe. Like my body seems to. My own thoughts make it worse. They always have. How do I escape my own self-defeating thoughts?
But what else can I do? I have to get through this, right? At least I have a brand-new pitch to try out.
And I have an idea on how I can avoid the train.
I bring sanitizing supplies to the pay phone on the corner, clean it off, and then call the yellow cab.
I arrive at the office ten minutes sooner than I would have if I had taken the train, and I’m poop-free.
It’s already a better day.
This is totally going to work.
Instead of asking Hannah or Presley to tell the others I’m here, I go straight to the conference room. I miss running into Alex but, oh well, it’s not like he’ll notice or care.
And still, knowing how this ends, knowing I won’t die or anything doesn’t change my body’s response. I’m sweating. Again. My heart is racing. Again. Black dots swarm the edges of my vision.
No.
I can do this.
This is just a meeting. I’ve been here before. But why does my body respond like I’m surrounded by black mambas?
Ugh. Get over this, Jane.
It’s great. It’s fine. I’m going to sweat like a pig and screw it up and I hope I do, I hope it’s terrible, I hope they go all Lord of the Flies and band together and kill me.
I almost laugh at the thought, the ridiculousness of my thoughts dropping my anxiety down a notch.
What’s the worst that can happen? It already has. They’re just going to fire me. It sucks, but it’s not death.
“It opens with a brief clip showing the development of a budding romance, two lovers meeting for the first time at a restaurant. More clips of them dating, kissing, moving in together, a whole relationship revealed in the span of seconds. Then they’re fighting, yelling in the rain, at night. They’re both alone.
“But then she’s walking along the street near their first meeting. She gets a notification and he’s there, at the restaurant they first met. They reunite, it’s very romantic, and the tagline reads: a splice of life.”
Blade and Drew exchange a glance. Did Blade roll his eyes?
Okay, maybe it’s not the best pitch but I came up with it in the span of an afternoon, shouldn’t that get me something? I thought it wasn’t half bad. And it’s about love. That’s what’s supposed to get me through this, right?
“Jane, it’s fine, but it’s not quite there,” Stacey says.
I let out a breath. I know what’s coming next.
“So, you’re firing me.” I deflate like a popped balloon.
“Don’t think of this as a door closing. It’s a whole bunch of
