Shipped(2)

But the truth is: except for a handful of trips to Colorado as a kid and one generic spring break in Cancún when I was nineteen, I’ve never been outside the Pacific Northwest. No, I’m not a fraud. I’m a marketing manager for a global adventure cruise line.

So all the posters and prints? Office swag. Thanks, Seaquest Adventures, for the cheap decorating.

It’s not that I don’t want to travel. When I took this job three years ago, I had high hopes of seeing the world. Then life happened. Career ambitions. Grad school. Student loans. The vague, persistent headache that is adulting. But mostly my career. It’s hard to take time out of the office when you’re trying to climb the corporate ladder and make director before the age of thirty.

Setting my dinner and drink on my Ikea coffee table, I plop onto the sofa and yank the elastic band out of my bun. My hair tumbles over my shoulders and I shake it out, massaging the roots to ease my sore scalp. I wish I could turn in right now, just crawl into bed and clock out for the night, but my task list is burning a hole in my to-do app. I won’t be able to sleep until everything is checked off, so I might as well get it over with.

Taking a sip of wine, I pull up the list and read the first item.

Task #1: Confirm Graeme posted British Columbia social media content.



I fish my laptop out of my bag and flip it open. Noodles hops up next to me and nestles against my thigh, purring. Thirty seconds later I’m scanning Seaquest Adventures’s Twitter feed. I shove a bite of quinoa salad into my mouth and chew. I barely taste it as I scroll. Scanning tweet after tweet, I put down my fork, eyebrows furrowing.

When I reach yesterday’s tweets, rage swells inside my chest. I log on to Facebook. Same. Instagram. Same. I squeeze my eyes shut and pinch the bridge of my nose. “Graeme.”

He didn’t do it. He said he would, but he didn’t. So freaking typical of Mr. High-and-Mighty Social Media Guru. I was right to make “confirm social media posts” the number-one item on my to-do list.

I glare at the tiny photo beside Graeme’s name, at his strong, smooth chin and short brown hair. I hate to admit it, but the first time I saw his picture, I actually thought the arrogant jerk was handsome. And when we spoke on the phone on his very first day over a year ago, oof. I nearly melted. His voice is deep and rich and husky, like a lumberjack dipped in a chocolate fountain.

Then we started working together, and it wasn’t two weeks before Graeme The Rotten Troll showed his true colors.

It started when some gem video footage from one of our Costa Rica cruises landed in my in-box. Most of it was typical—guests having fun on a hike, beaming smiles, high energy—but toward the end, the videographer included B-roll showing two capuchin monkeys grooming each other. It was blink-or-you-miss-it fast: one monkey appeared to sniff the other monkey’s butt, made a sour face, then lost its balance and fell out of a tree. Hilarious, right?

I figured, hey, people love funny animal videos, so let’s cut in some other wildlife clips from our cruises, set it to music, add clever captions, and post it on social media with hashtags targeted to boost engagement. I put my halfway-decent video editing skills to good use, and when I had a version I was happy with, I forwarded it to Graeme, our newly minted social media manager, for posting.

And the damn thing went viral.

I didn’t know it went viral until the next morning, when our boss, James, pulled it up at our weekly department meeting. More than fifty thousand views and climbing. Post engagement was up 67 percent and our website traffic had shot through the roof.

After the clapping and laughter died down, James boomed his approval in the general direction of the speakerphone where Graeme was dialed in.

“Fabulous, brilliant. See, everyone? This is what ingenuity looks like Well done, Graeme.”

“Well done, Graeme.” Not, “Well done, Henley.”

And what did Graeme say in response to our boss wrongly giving him all the credit? After a few seconds of staticky phone silence, he simply said, “Thank you.”

As if that wasn’t enough, James decided to smear salt in the wound. “I wish all of you would take Graeme’s initiative,” he said to the group, then looked directly at me. “Especially you, Henley. Costa Rica is your region, after all.”

I know, I know. I probably should have said something right then and there—corrected James on the spot and told him exactly who was responsible for the viral video. But my mouth was too full of shock to do anything except hang open like a drowned fish. And James hates being told he’s wrong, especially in front of other people. Once the meeting was over though, it was too late. Going to James at that point would have been like tattling, and who wanted to look petty in front of their boss?

So Graeme got away with it. He got away with swiping the credit and the praise right out from under me.

That asshole.

Ever since then, he’s used the incident to launch himself to BFF status with our boss. The beginning and ending of every staff meeting is positively packed with testosterone-filled chatter.

How’s your son? How was boating last weekend? Did you catch the latest Mariners game? There was enough brownnosing masquerading as bro bonding to make me want to smash the speakerphone into smithereens under my pointiest heels.

Here’s the thing: I’ve worked with Graeme’s type before. He might have the whole nice-guy facade down to a science, but I knew the truth. He was a sneaky, entitled user who was willing to do whatever it took to get ahead.