I'm Fine and Neither Are You(55)

She raised an eyebrow. “Penelope, I’m going to come right out and ask.”

I held my breath, expecting her to ask if I wanted to keep my job.

“Are you happy here?”

“Ha-happy?” I stammered. “Why do you ask?”

“I get the impression that you’re not pleased with the way things have been going lately.”

I needed to sound like someone who wasn’t begging to be pink-slipped. I didn’t know how to do that, so I decided to channel Nancy Weingarten. “As you may know, Yolanda, I’ve been going through a period of immense personal stress. I’m sorry if that occasionally surfaces, but I am doing my best to go above and beyond at work, and I feel that I’m still managing to accomplish an awful lot.”

She pursed her lips. “You don’t do face time, which makes some question your commitment to being a team player.”

“I may not go to happy hour very often.” And by often, I meant never. “Still, I’ve been logging fifty hours most weeks, and that’s not including the work I bring home. I’d say I’m very much a team player. For example, I fielded three of Adrian’s donor drafts while he was out sick.”

“You rarely travel.”

“You rarely ask me to. I’m just as available to travel as anyone else on the team.” This was a partial truth, which is known in some circles as a lie. But because Sanjay worked from home—at least for the time being—I could travel more than many working mothers. Not that our office employed them.

She said nothing, so I decided to continue. “I brought in two hundred and thirteen thousand more than anyone in medical development just in the last fiscal year alone.”

Yolanda eyed me as though she was trying to decide what she thought of me. This time, I forced myself to sit with the discomfort instead of filling the space. Unfortunately, this meant I also had to sit with a rapid-fire string of anxious thoughts about how quickly I could get another job and what it would cost to pay for health insurance for four people.

When Yolanda finally spoke again, she sounded more tired than upset. “Is there something that would incentivize your commitment to the medical development team?”

My stomach flipped as I thought of my family rolling their suitcases into Sanjay’s parents’ basement. What incentivized me was keeping my family in our home. But if she was asking, she wasn’t going to fire me—not yet. “Are you saying I’m not committed? Or that I’m underperforming? Because if so, I’m more than willing to work on that.”

“Not at all. I’m trying to unpack your core competencies. There are changes in the works, even if I’m not at liberty to share them yet. For the present moment, I’m trying to pin down the moving pieces and ideate the next steps.”

Yolanda had a corner office—lots of windows. She was good at what she did, and I did not begrudge her those windows. But as I looked out at the tree-filled nature reserve just beyond the building, it seemed to me that all of this—striving and providing and maybe the very act of caring about any of it—was largely pointless. As Jenny’s death had so painfully reminded me, we were all going to die, and the money wouldn’t come with us. Maybe that’s why, as I looked back at my supervisor, I felt strangely calm. I wasn’t being fired. For now, that was enough.

“Thank you,” I said to her. “I’ll work on face time and think about what my core competencies are. Please let me know if there’s something you need from me.”



“How did your interview go?” I had just walked in the door from work to find Sanjay in the kitchen, still dressed in a crisp button-down and tie. He looked relieved that the first thing I asked him wasn’t about Christina. Well, soon enough he would see that I wasn’t ever going to drill him about her. In fact, I was fairly certain I would never say her name aloud again. One confession might lead to another, then another; and before long one of us would be packing a bag, and our next conversation would be in front of a couple of lawyers.

“It went great,” he said, breaking into a grin. “Brian, the guy who would be my supervisor, thought my writing samples were terrific, and I met two other people in the department who are really sharp.” Sharp—this was practically the highest compliment Sanjay gave. “Brian already emailed to ask me to come in for a second interview next week.”

In spite of our morning conversation about She Who Would Not Be Named, it was impossible not to be happy for him. “I’m thrilled for you,” I said.

“Really? You were so hesitant when I told you about it before.”

“I know. But I can tell you’re excited, and that makes me excited, too. Plus, it would be a big relief if there was another steady paycheck coming in.”

He looked pleased. “Thank you. What about you? How was your day?”

It was a simple question—one I hadn’t heard in a while. I hoped he was asking spontaneously instead of because I’d asked him to be more present. “Not great,” I confessed. I told him about my conversation with Yolanda.

“I hate to say it, but maybe telling you to be more honest wasn’t the brightest idea,” he said as he pulled off his tie.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, sounds like Yolanda feels like you’re challenging her. I just worry . . .”