The Hating Game

“You got me, Shortcake.”

“Oh, I’ve got you all right.” We’re both breathing a little harder than the situation warrants. We each set down our mugs and face off.

“I will never work for you. There’ll be no polyester dress. I’ll resign if you get it. It should go without saying.”

He looks genuinely surprised for a fraction of a second. “Oh, really.”

“Like you wouldn’t quit if I got it.”

“I’m not sure.” He’s gimlet-eyed with speculation.

“Joshua, you need to resign if I get it.”

“I don’t quit things.” His voice gets a galvanized edge to it and he puts a hand on his hip.

“I don’t quit things either. But if you’re so certain you’re going to get it, why would you have a problem with promising to resign?” I watch him mull this over.

I want him to be my subordinate, skittish with nerves as I review a piece of his work, which I’ll tear up. I want him on his hands and knees at my feet, gathering up the torn shreds, burbling apologies for his own incompetence. Crying in Jeanette’s office, berating himself for his own inadequacies. I want to make him so nervous he’s tied in knots.

“Okay. I agree. If you get the promotion, I promise to resign. You’ve got your horny eyes on again,” Joshua adds, turning away and sitting down. He unlocks his drawer and takes out his planner, busily sorting through the pages.

“Mentally strangling me again?”

He is making a mark with his pencil, a straight single tally, when he notices me.

“What are you smirking about?”

I think he makes a mark in his planner when we argue.

“I’D BETTER GET to bed.” I’m talking to my parents. I’m also gently cleaning the two-dollar eBay Smurf I got a few weeks back with a baby’s toothbrush. Law & Order is on in the background and they are currently pursuing a false lead. I’ve got a white clay mask on my face and my toenail polish is drying.

“All right, Smurfette,” my parents chime like a two-headed monster. They haven’t worked out they don’t have to sit cheek to cheek to fit onto the video-chat screen. Or maybe they have, but they like it too much.

Dad is dangerously suntanned, bar the white outline of his sunglasses. It’s a sort of reverse-raccoon effect. He’s a big laugher and a big talker, so I get a lot of glimpses of the tooth he chipped while eating a rack of ribs. He’s wearing a sweatshirt he’s had since I was a kid and it makes me ridiculously homesick.

My mom never looks properly at the camera. She gets distracted by the tiny preview window where she can see her own face on screen. I think she analyzes her wrinkles. It gives our chats a disconnected quality and makes me miss her more.

Her fair skin can’t cope with the outdoors, and where Dad has tanned, she has freckled. We have the same coloring, so I know what will happen if I give up the sunscreen. They dapple every square inch of her face and arms. She even has freckles on her eyelids. With her bright blue eyes and black hair, tied up in its usual knot on top of her head, she always gets a second glance wherever she goes. Dad is enslaved by her beauty. I know for a fact, because he was telling her roughly ten minutes ago.

“Now, don’t worry about a thing. You’re the most determined person there, I’m sure of it. You wanted to work for a publisher, and you did it. And you know what? Whatever happens, you’re always the boss of Sky Diamond Strawberries.” Dad’s been explaining at great length all the reasons why I should get the promotion.

“Aw, Dad.” I laugh to cover the leftover bubble of emotion I’ve been feeling since the blog meltdown in front of Joshua. “My first act as CEO is to order you both to bed for an early night. Good luck with Lucy Forty-two, Mom.”

I caught up with the last ten blog entries while I ate dinner. My mom has a clear, factual style of writing. I think she would have been working somewhere major one day if she hadn’t quit. Annie Hutton, investigative journalist. Instead, she spends her days digging up rotting plants, packing crates for delivery, and Frankensteining hybrid varieties of strawberries. To me, the fact she gave up her dream job for a man is a tragedy, no matter how wonderful my dad is, or the fact that I’m sitting here now as a result.

“I hope they don’t turn out like Lucy Forty-one. I’ve never seen anything like it. They looked normal from the outside, but completely hollow on the inside. Weren’t they, Nigel?”

“They were like fruit balloons.”

“The interview will go fine, honey. They’ll know within five minutes that you live and breathe the publishing industry. I still remember you coming home after that field trip. It was like you’d fallen in love.” Mom’s eyes are full of memories. “I know how you felt. I remember when I first stepped into the printing room of a newspaper. The smell of that ink was like a drug.”

“Are you still having trouble with Jeremy at work?” Dad knows Joshua’s actual name by now. He just chooses to not use it.

“Joshua. And yes. He still hates me.” I take a fist of cashews and begin eating them a little aggressively.

Dad is flatteringly mystified. “Impossible. Who could?”

“Who even could,” Mom echoes, reaching up to finger the skin by her eye. “She’s little and cute. No one hates little cute people.” Dad seamlessly agrees with her and they begin talking as though I’m not even here.