Today's Reading
When she asked the universe for her soulmate, fate delivered her hate mate instead.
CHAPTER ONE
Nami
Employee birthdays shall be celebrated with cupcakes and 50 Cent.
# UNOFFICIAL-TOGGLE-EMPLOYEE-HANDBOOK CHANNEL
TOGGLE INTERNAL CHAT
I hate birthdays like most people hate toilet paper hoarders.
It's probably because when I was six, I scarfed down four pieces of cake, downed a dangerous mixture of extra-large fountain drinks, and then went into a sugar-blasted frenzy at Lotza Cheese Pizzeria, which ended with me hurling in the ball pit in front of a dozen horrified kids and their parents.
Apparently, even at age six, I suffered an existential crisis about aging. My feelings about birthdays haven't improved with time.
I hate them more than ever. And I really, really hate milestone birthdays. Like today. I'm turning thirty, and the very thought makes me a bit queasy as I slide through the revolving doors of my Chicago high-rise building on the Magnificent Mile. The blissfully cool air-conditioning washes over me as I swim out of the swampy late-July heat and into the white marble lobby. My sleeveless linen olive-green jumpsuit clings to my sweaty lower back and I'm a tad worried the thin camel-leather soles of my strappy sandals might have begun to melt during the five-block walk from the L across the blistering concrete. I mentally cross my fingers my mascara isn't running down my face as I lift up my long dark hair, letting the AC hit my hot neck.
Is this what happens when you're old? You can't tolerate heat anymore? Ugh. I want to be twenty-nine again. I don't remember sweating this much when I was twenty-nine.
Then I remember I don't have time to worry about aging or what milestone birthdays might mean. I'm busy trying to keep my tech company, Toggle, afloat.
My phone pings as I walk amidst the swarm of people heading up to their offices or to the coffee kiosk nearby. Forecast for Series D: cloudy with a good chance of never happening.
That's Imani. My partner who's part finance magician and part trailblazer. She put the boss in girl boss. When people told her she couldn't get funding for a company run by women of color, she said Watch me. Then she proceeded to nab three rounds of funding in the many millions. She's meeting with our venture capitalists today, hoping to get an idea about how plausible Series D funding could be for Toggle, our app that connects people who want to share or swap cars, vacation homes, or parking spaces.
Things really that bad? I text.
Worse, Imani says, and I feel a pit forming in my stomach. This time, they're not going to just throw a Dell at us and call it a day.
After our last round of funding, one of the venture capitalists, Dell, came on as our third partner and member of the board. His hobbies are money flexes and casual misogyny. Imani and I didn't like it, but it was the price we paid for the investment cash.
What are our options? I ask her. Sixty employees are counting on us.
Not sure yet. That's not like Imani. Usually, she has about forty different angles she's working. This worries me.
We just need a little more time, I type. Not long ago, we were set to go public, grace the cover of Business Tech as trailblazers, but then the pandemic changed everything. Everyone stopped traveling. Nobody wanted to share a car with possible plague germs clinging to the steering wheel. We just need another round of funding to float us until we can get back on our feet again.
Preaching to the choir, sister.
I'm headed to the elevator bank when I realize a new set of ads have gone up near the coffee kiosk in the lobby. I'm focused on the biggest poster: a couple laughing together in matching pajamas, little foam hearts in their cappuccinos.
Even worse, the model looks like my ex, Mitch. Brown hair, the build of a former athlete, the smirk of a man who believes the world owes him everything.
No.
Not today, Satan.
...
