Page 18 of Tempt Me
“Anyway,” she said, “I don’t need or want your help. I’ve got everything handled, so you don’t need to worry about me.”
Another protest rose to my lips, but I swallowed it down. She was right. I wasn’t qualified to help her. Nothing I said would change her mind.
She stood. “Thanks for coming by.”
I rose from the couch. “Anytime.” I really meant it.
She led me to the door. “Tell your family I said thanks again for brunch. And, um, maybe don’t come back here. I wouldn’t want your family to think I invited you. You, of all people, understand the importance of appearances.”
Reeling, I barely registered the slamming door.
It wasn’t until I was back on her porch that I remembered the message from her neighbor. It served Jamila right to miss out on a basket of avocados. I stared at the pot of daisies, wanting to rip them out of the pot and shred them right there on her porch. Then stomp on them in my Valentino Garavanis.
That was childish, and I didn’t need to give Jamila any more proof that I was young and foolish. She’d witnessed the aftermath of my culinary school disgrace. My deplorable behavior at the Christmas party. Not to mention the whole acne-and-braces phase, and before that, my pigtails.
So I walked slowly and gracefully down the front steps as if she was interested enough to watch me go.
6
I couldn’t have missedthe news of Jamila’s fall if I’d tried.
With no school to go to Monday, I was still in bed as I grabbed my phone to check what was going on in the world. Jamila was the first video on my TikTok page. It had half a million views. By the time I’d refreshed it for the third time, it had two million.
I recognized the front of Jamila’s building from my visit two days ago. Only one photographer was outside. She could have easily sidestepped him the way we’d done on Friday.
The video was edited to start after the journalist asked his question, so I didn’t know what he’d asked that made her get up in his face. Her dark eyes flashed, and her shiny red lips curled into a snarl. “You sonovabitch. Say that again.” I couldn’t decipher what he said, and the closed caption was nonsense. But Jamila’s words were crystal clear, and the text printed at the bottom of the video assaulted my eyes.
“You think you know me? You know fuck-all about my community or me or my goddamned business. You can kiss my paranoid ass.”
By the third viewing, I couldn’t tell if she’d intended to give him the bird or an uppercut. Her arm swung up, and he reared back, making the video swing wildly as an arm in a long-sleeved chambray shirt came around Jamila’s waist and pulled her away, cursing.
The comments blew up. A few said, “I support you, Jamila!” but most denounced her as paranoid, insane, too loud, too crass, or simply not the icon people wanted their daughters to emulate. Some questioned the value of a company led by someone so clearly unprofessional.
It was a disaster.
Groaning, I dragged myself out of bed, showered, pulled my hair back into a bun, and put on a black business suit with a red floral blouse. I found Mother puttering in the conservatory. Kissing her cheek, I told her not to expect me for dinner and caught a rideshare to Mountain View.
With the securityguard mobbed by journalists, it wasn’t difficult for me to catch a Jamilow employee outside Jamila’s building, flirt with him for a minute, lie about having forgotten my badge, and tailgate him into the secure area. After I promised to find him at the next happy hour, I climbed the stairs to the second floor and caught the door to the executive suite as a harried-looking man scuttled out clutching a fistful of papers in one hand and his laptop in the other.
Every office I passed was lit up, and people paced behind the frosted glass doors. In the open part of the floor with cubicles, employees gathered in clumps, whispering. Some groups clustered around phones, probably watching the TikTok or reading the comments.
So much for productivity before their big launch.
Striding unchallenged to Jamila’s office, I smiled at Felicia, who glanced up for only a second before she dropped her forehead back to her hand and rubbed while she pressed the phone to her ear. Channeling all the confidence I could muster, I sailed into Jamila’s office.
The CEO wore the fabulous oyster-pink pantsuit from the video, but she’d taken off the jacket, revealing a sleeveless ivory shell and a string of pink pearls. She leaned back in her chair, almost flat, with her hand flung over her eyes.
Winslow leaned against the windowsill staring through the glass at the news vans parked beside the road that led to the building. He looked like he wanted to jump through it. His pants were lime-green today. They didn’t look any better with the two-tone brogues than the pink ones had. The back of his white shirt was rumpled like he’d sweated in it.
A couple of employees clutched their laptops to their chests and shifted their feet on the plush tan rug in the center of the room. After glancing at me, their focus darted between Jamila, Winslow, and the two people seated in front of Jamila.
A man and a woman I didn’t know faced her. Staring at her phone, the woman barked about the stock valuation, so she must have been the chief financial officer. The man stared at Jamila’s glass desk.
“Can you not do that, Hope? Please.” Jamila moaned without lifting her forearm from her eyes. “It’s giving me a headache.”
“Sorry,” CFO Hope muttered. “I find comfort in numbers when I’m stressed.”
“Maybe you can watch the numbers more quietly,” Jamila said. “What I need right now is—”
