by Suzanne Park
“You said a couple of weeks!”
Pause.
“No, Mom, I heard you right. I even put it in my calendar the day you told me.”
Pause.
“Yes, it’s problematic because I work. And I took the wrong week off. And I’ll be in New York then, because I THOUGHT YOU WERE COMING IN TWO WEEKS.” He noticed me standing there and I saluted him with my “World’s Best Grandma” mug. He smiled weakly.
“Well, don’t worry about that now. I’ll cancel my trip, or maybe you can just get a hotel and borrow my car or something if I can’t get a refund.”
He muted his phone. “My parents are coming soon. Sorry. I’m just annoyed because I might not be in town while they’re here!” He closed his eyes and a sigh escaped him. “Did you read my email? I’ll stop by later.”
“Yeah, sure.”
He held a finger up. “No, please don’t fly to New York to meet me there, I’m going to a bachelor party.” He whispered to me, “I’ll catch you later.”
Turned out that Nolan’s crazy relationship with his parents rivaled mine. Watching his situation spiral reminded me to call my parents when I got back to my office. It had been a while. Mom answered on the second ring.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Melody? Where are you?” I really hated it when she asked that. Did it really matter where I was?
I sighed. “I’m at work.”
“Why you call?” Her raised voice made me even wonder why I bothered to call, ever.
“I wanted to check in and see how things were going. Were you busy or something? And why do I sound echoey?”
“You on speakerphone. I am making kimchi and my hand have hot pepper and garlic and shrimp paste. We have church picnic next week and I making kimchi for everybody.”
“Wow, are you making it in the sink? Where do you have enough room for all that cabbage?”
“I make it in bathtub.”
“You’re marinating the kimchi in your bathtub?”
“No, michyeosseo!” She let out an exasperated sigh.
Michyeosseo. “Foolish.” She was making kimchi in a bathtub, and I was somehow the crazy one.
She explained, “I making kimchi in baby bathtub.”
What?! “You bought a baby bathtub for this?”
Another sigh. “You need to try listen! I find your old baby bathtub in closet and I clean and wash it. It is perfect size for making kimchi.”
I didn’t want to continue this discussion about making kimchi in a makeshift basin that I most certainly had pooped in as an infant twenty-six years ago. Who was the foolish one now?
“Anyway, I called to check in and make sure you weren’t getting any more weird calls from online stalkers.”
My dad shouted, “We are fine, no problem.”
I sighed with relief. “Oh, that’s good to hear!”
“You don’t sound good. Like you have froggy voice. You okay?” my mom asked.
I hesitated. “I’m okay.”
“You sound bad,” Mom said.
A hushed Korean conversation took place between my parents. They’d gotten better at putting their hand over the phone receiver. My dad shouted into the phone, “Okay, Melody, we decide we coming to visit. You sounding terrible.”
Oh, hell no. “It’s okay, Dad. You don’t have to come. I’m so busy with work. If you come another time, maybe after my game launches, I’ll have more time for a visit.”
My dad huffed, “No, we go there to make sure you eating.”
Mom added, “But not too much or you get too fat.”
A meeting reminder chimed on my computer. “Don’t worry about it, I’m eating. I need to go now. Important meeting. But glad to know that you guys aren’t still getting harassed.”
“No one call us anymore for you. Don’t worry for us,” Dad assured me.
“Good. Don’t worry about me, either.”
THE BOARD MEETING recap was excruciatingly dull. Ian had advised us to not multitask just in case some board members would be videoconferencing in, and he didn’t want anyone looking disengaged. Yawning, I tried to keep my eyes open while the finance team flipped through dozens of pie charts and line graphs.
Ding!
Five minutes later. Ding!
I snuck my phone out of my pocket and read the messages.
We hold plane ticket for trip to Seattle, we want to buy. Nashville to Seattle nonstop!
Okay we not hear from you so we go ahead and buy. No refund ticket. Can you find us hotel if you can’t fit us?
Shit. Mom and Dad were coming to visit.
I glanced up and saw Nolan looking straight at me from across the aisle. He turned beet red but didn’t break his stare. He mouthed, What’s wrong?
Shaking my head, I mouthed back, My parents, and made a choking gesture on my neck.
He laughed.
“Are those our slides up there?” I whispered, pointing at the presentation.
He nodded. Then made the choking gesture.
Stifling a giggle, I tucked my hair behind my ears and went back to watching the presentation, staring intently at the financial projections, wondering if Nolan had a girlfriend here or back home.
“I have to ask, why are you wearing that shirt?” I whispered.
He leaned toward me. “You like it?”
I shrugged. It was a nice, black button-down. It fit him. But it wasn’t very Nolan. I’d grown fond of his signature workwear. The shirts that he bought because he thought I liked them.
“I wore black because if something went wrong today, it would be my funeral. And I was mad at you so I picked a shirt I knew you’d hate,” he said with a sly grin.
A mic squawk interrupted us. “If I could take a moment of your time, I’d like to thank Nolan for making sure the A/V worked and the slides in the presentation looked good.” A smattering of clapping filled the room. Ian scanned the crowd and gestured for Nolan to stand. “He’s been working hard, and this guy is going places. He’s got the MBA brains and, of course, the MacKenzie genetics.” He pointed to the back of the room. “There are leftover croissants and cookies from the morning’s board meeting. Help yourselves.”
Dozens of dudes streamed to the back of the room to snag some free food. I noticed most of the executive team walk over to Nolan, thanking him for his prep work on the board meeting. All these higher-ups, fawning over an intern. The CEO’s nephew. And Nolan looking so comfortable with all of it. Shaking hands. Smiling. Joking around. Bitterness washed over me as this breed of people whom I felt so different from carried on like they were some exclusive club I had no business being part of.
Rage flared inside me as I stormed out of the room. Was I angry that they were like this? Or was I angry at myself for wishing I was part of it?
Maybe both.
Chapter Fourteen
“Can you help me button this?” Jane padded out of the fitting room and beelined over to the three-way mirror. Candace and I exchanged looks. We played rock, paper, scissors while Jane checked her teeth for lipstick smudges.
One, two, three, rock.
Candace was paper.
Damn it.
I stood up from the bench and Candace, seated right next to me, went down with a thud thanks to the unstable furniture. Sit down gently, Melody, lest you catapult your pregnant best friend into the ceiling fan.
Jane lifted her hair so I could fasten the buttons, and there were approximately fifty of them. Fuck. Each loop fit tightly over its corresponding satin button, which meant it took about a minute to button five of them. The skin on my fingertips chafed as I carefully pushed each button through its delicate ivory satin loop counterpart. Please, God, don’t let me misalign them!
As I started working on fastening button number six, Jane glanced at her reflection and said, “I don’t like this dress. Get me out of this ugly thing.” And so the unbuttoning process began, and it took just as long to undo.
She held up a stark white dress with long-sleeved lace and double
the number of buttons in the back. It also had a train the length of a football field.
“That one won’t show off your yoga arms,” I said. Candace looked up from her phone and nodded.
Jane had already gotten in the gown and had almost pulled it up to her chest. She paused for a second and nodded at me. The dress fell back to the floor and she kicked it away.
The next dress was a simple halter, with a bunch of shiny, sparkly shit on the top half of the bodice. But don’t get me wrong, I loved shiny, sparkly shit. This gown was old Hollywood glamorous, in the way that the Miss Universe pageant dresses were gorgeous. The diamondlike crystal sequins on the top looked even better when Jane put the dress on. Oh my, we had a winner.
This dress had 90 percent fewer buttons down the back than that other one, and the bustle in the back unhooked easily so the train was easy to maneuver. This was the dress. After three weekends of bridal gown browsing, this had to be the dress. Jane looked at herself from the front, back, and turned side to side so she could see herself from all angles.
“Jane, you look stunning from all three-hundred-sixty degrees,” said Candace, smiling. Jane slowly turned around so Candace and I could ooh and ahh.
She had chosen the dress. Or maybe the dress chose her?
Jane took a few steps back from the mirror. She pivoted to her right, and then left, like an oscillating fan. Then, cocking her head like a little bird, she asked, “So you don’t think this makes my arms look big?”
“NO!” Candace and I yelled simultaneously. I shook my head. Jane really made my blood boil sometimes.
The sales assistant came over and whistled softly. “Wow, that dress is beautiful on you! It’s a one-of-a-kind couture creation that we just got in this week. It is so hard to pull off because you basically need a perfect body because it’s silk, not satin. And then the top bustier draws attention to the bosom, which is an area where you are also blessed. You look stunning.”
Jane beamed. Yes, this was the dress.
I asked, “How much is it?,” and Candace whacked me in the arm. A tacky question, I guess? Oops.
The sales assistant replied, “I need to look it up in the computer. We didn’t put a tag on this dress because the fabric is so delicate.”
I leaned into Candace. “They didn’t include the price tag because it costs the same as a car.” She whacked me again. Geez!
The assistant clickety-clacked on the keyboard awhile and looked back over with a gleaming smile. “The entire dress was hand-sewn, and you can tell how high quality it is by the fine-quality silk, plus the stitching and beading.” This was an exquisite dress, no doubt. But even Jane caught on that she didn’t disclose the price.
“How much?” Jane asked.
That smile remained plastered on her face. “Without tax, it’s twenty thousand dollars.” How did she manage to say “twenty thousand dollars” with that cheery grin?
Candace let out a squeak. Or maybe that was me.
“Shit, you can pay for a small wedding for that amount!” Oops. That was me. No filter. But really, she could buy a car for that price. This was probably what Cinderella felt like when all those other bitches went to the fancy ball and she was left in rags.
Jane sighed. “Can you help unbutton this?” Candace and I both frantically worked at getting her out of the gown.
The clerk didn’t want to lose this sale. “Were there any other dresses you want to try on?”
Jane shook her head. She headed back to the dressing room.
The saleswoman followed her in and knocked on her stall. “Would you mind disclosing your budget?”
“Ten thousand. Maybe twelve. That’s the max.” Well, shit, that could still buy a used car.
Candace and I shifted our stares from Jane’s stall to the sales clerk. Your move.
“I’ll be right back.” She ran back to her computer, clickety-clacked some more, and then grabbed the store phone and dialed. She kept looking over at us, and then back at her computer screen while she spoke. She nodded a few times and hung up. The verdict was in.
The gleaming smile spread across her face again. “I just got off the phone with the designer of the dress, Yun-Hee Lee. She’s a lovely person and I explained how in love you were with her gown. She agreed to drop the price to eleven grand, but it’s conditional. She wants to style you, and outfit your bridesmaids in her signature dresses, too—at a discount, of course—if she can do a photo shoot of you in her dress for her marketing materials. Would that work for you?”
Yun-Hee Lee dressed A-list movie stars and country music celebrities. Her tasteful wedding dresses were popular among the Microsoft and Amazon nouveau riche in the Pacific Northwest. And now Jane would be famous by association. Jane asked, “Does Yun-Hee do maternity bridesmaid dresses? This one is preggo.” She swept her hand in the direction of Candace.
“She can absolutely accommodate her, she’s so tiny!” the sales clerk chirped.
Candace beamed. “I won’t be tiny for long. My baby’s the size of a small baked potato.” I always thought it was weird that people compared their baby size to food. But cooked food seemed even more disturbing.
Jane looked at Candace and me and said, “You swear to god this dress doesn’t make my arms look huge?”
“NO!” we shouted again.
I whispered to Candace, “We’re lucky. You know why? We’re done with wedding dress shopping!” She giggled and covered her mouth.
“Hey, could one of you help me out of this dress?”
One, two, three, scissors.
Candace was rock.
Damn it.
Chapter Fifteen
With his noise-canceling headphones on, Asher couldn’t hear me cursing at the email on my laptop screen.
“Melody, please work with Kat and the rest of your team to make a prerendered trailer for Ultimate Apocalypse, and a demo build. Someone dropped out of GameCon Northwest and we got a screaming deal on a show booth. We’re going to GameCon Northwest with your game reveal at the end of the month!!! —Ian”
GameCon Northwest? Where Xbox and Nintendo first announced product release dates? I needed to talk sense into Ian. This deadline was impossible.
My stomping shook the floor as I stormed over to Ian’s office. He was hunched over his desk, swaying to Debussy with his eyes partially closed while drinking a French press coffee that he brewed on his desk. Could he be any more pretentious?
Before I uttered a word, and without even looking up, he said, “I see you got my email.”
“Yes. I did. And I have some questions.”
He gestured for me to sit on his couch while he pressed more coffee. “Would you like some?”
His craft brew smelled amazing. But screw him.
“No thanks.”
He poured himself a cup. Then he poured a second cup and placed it on the glass table in front of me. He looked me in the eyes, ready to talk. God damn that tantalizing coffee aroma.
Leaning back on his stuffed leather chair, he took a small sip. “For several early mornings and late evenings, Joe and I have talked through some PR ideas that could save this company from imminent doom. As you know, we’re still going to launch your game with you at the helm. We haven’t found another lead female producer yet, even with all our recruiters working on it, so you’ll be the one to take this to the finish line. You need to get used to unplanned marketing and PR opportunities popping up here and there before the launch. We need to take the ones that are worth the time. It’s something a producer needs to handle when these situations come up.”
I took a teeny sip. Heavenly.
He continued. “We already have over a thousand names on our newsletter list, thanks to the collection of email addresses on the site. And we finally caught a break when I snagged a canceled booth at GameCon Northwest! That booth was originally for the new WarMaster game by a new Korean studio, but the company’s president died while playing it. Isn’t that fucked up? Imagine that PR nightmare! Anyway, we’re go
ing to have an amazing booth, and all we need is Asher and you to be on the floor, talking to the press, promoting the game. Sound good?”
That was a ton of information to sift through, and I wasn’t ready to speak just yet. So instead I sipped the delicious coffee some more. Mmmm. It didn’t even need sugar or milk.
“So you need a demo and a trailer from me. In like three weeks?”
He nodded.
“With no concept or storyboard?”
He nodded again.
We only had a few scenes from the game we could use, and we had no art assets to make a full video. We were so screwed.
He poured himself another cup. “Well, Kat and you can figure it out. You can hire whoever you need, as long as they fit reasonably within our budget.” Thanks to my advertising background, these types of video projects were right in my wheelhouse. I had some friends who could help me get them done, but we would be cutting it close.
“Oh, one more thing. We need to hire some cosplay actors. To walk around and pull people into the booth.”
Cosplay was something I was familiar with from my comic book fandom days in high school. Tons of GameCon attendees would be dressed up as game characters. “So you want actors that look like the characters from our game?”
Ian’s phone rang. Before he picked it up he said, “Your main characters are male strippers, so go hire some strippers. I need to take this call. Feel free to take the coffee with you.”
I shut the door behind me and headed back to my desk with my drink. He really wanted real strippers in the booth? Maybe I could add this new job duty to my résumé. Production responsibilities include: establishing long-term feature schedules, communicating project milestones and deadlines, and recruiting male strippers.
I texted Jane and Candace about the stripper casting call.
Jane: BEST NEWS OF THE WEEK. COUNT ME IN!
Candace: Can we go recruiting later tonight?
I had the best friends ever.
AFTER A JAM-PACKED day of meetings with production, legal, PR, and marketing, I had dinner with Candace and Jane to talk about weddings, babies, and strippers.
