Page 1 of As a Last Resort

SAMANTHA

At any given time, there are twenty different imaginary conversations taking place in my head.

For example, reminding my mother (nicely) vodka does not count toward your recommended daily liquid intake of ninety ounces.

Or, reminding my coworker Robby (nicely) I’d prefer if he didn’t take credit for all the work I actually did. Again.

Or even, encouraging my sort-of boyfriend, Jack, (nicely) he should chew with his mouth closed because then he wouldn’t sound like such a cow when he eats.

I was in the middle of having one of these imaginary conversations, reminding the waitress (nicely) I ordered my salad with dressing on the side, as I shoved sopping wet lettuce into my mouth, when I noticed Jack staring at me from across the white linen tablecloth like I was supposed to say something.

“Did you hear me?” he asked.

“Of course, I did.” I hadn’t.

“So, you agree on our problem. It’s not me, it’s you.”

Right. It’s me.

Wait.

What’s me?

Servers zoomed by our table with fried spring rolls and chiming wineglasses. He gulped down the rest of his wine and snapped to get a waitress’s attention.

My phone dinged for the fifth time in three minutes.

“Sorry, just hold on a sec.” I grabbed it out of my back pocket and read the text from my coworker. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“What now?”

“It’s Robby. He’s changing the offer price on the contract for Rock Island. Again.”

“I don’t mean with your work, Samantha.”

My feet fished around for the heels I’d secretly discarded somewhere under the table and I reached for my purse.

“You’re leaving?” he asked with a mouthful of food. A piece of rice shot out and stared me down from the tablecloth.

“It’ll just take a minute. I can’t access the contract on my phone and the office is only two blocks away.

” Our acquisition team worked on the final draft of the development contract for hours— hours —and of course, the minute I leave for a microsecond of personal time, Robby sends an SOS that lands squarely on my plate.

A waitress appeared at our table. “How are your appetizers?”

“They’d be much better if we had wine to go with them.” Jack motioned to the empty glasses.

Her smile fell just a bit and I cringed.

“Of course. Just a moment.” She hurried off as I stood up.

“You can’t be serious,” he scoffed.

“Robby’s technically my boss on this project. I can’t just ignore him.”

“But you’ve barely touched your food.”

“I’ll be quick. I promise.”

As I pushed the key into my apartment lock two hours later, it hit me that I was supposed to head back to the restaurant.

After a slew of unanswered calls and texts, I backtracked to Pho Quyen on the off chance Jack was still there.

“He left this for you,” the hostess with bright blue eyeliner said as I walked in the door. She handed over the bill. A table of off-duty servers in the back eyed the host stand and grew eerily quiet, filling their salt and pepper shakers with a bit more aggression than necessary.

Jack had ordered another bottle of wine before peacing out for the night. I paid, vaguely remembering the end of our conversation. Had he broken up with me? I couldn’t completely remember the details. My brain was fried after working sixteen-hour days for two weeks straight.

I called Jack again on the walk back to my apartment. No answer.

I texted again. No response.

Now, admittedly, work was a little hectic, but nothing we hadn’t weathered before. There were more take-out nights and sleeping-at-the-office-again nights than usual, but we generally worked.

He worked a lot. I worked a lot. We just worked a lot. Separately.

It had been this way for almost six months and the convenience of it was marginally better than the stigma of being alone. I thought we were chugging along just fine. Not like, best-relationship-ever working out, but better-than-dating-the-creepy-taxidermy-guy-off-Tinder working out, for sure.

Until he’d said it wasn’t.

At least, that’s what I think he said. It was all still a bit hazy.

My alarm went off at 5:30 a.m. I checked my phone—no texts or calls. After a quick run and an even quicker shower, I pulled my hair back in a low bun and put on one of my seven rotating tailored suits.

I loved New York City. There were always a few ladies meeting on the street corner for coffee, leaning their heads together, gossiping about who their neighbor had come home with the night before.

Always someone running down the street, determined not to be late.

The loud flower guy on my corner, known by locals as Italian Marco, always called me sunshine as I walked by, even though I’m pretty sure the next warm body who passed got a similar greeting.

I walked the four blocks to work in my favorite nude Weitzmans as I checked my email. Somehow the chaos outside on the streets was the perfect accompaniment to the chaos inside my head, and made me feel just a little more in sync with the world.

The double glass doors of 44 Union Square opened to the familiar friendly eyes of Bo, the overnight security guard. He tracked me and tipped his head.

“Samantha Leigh. I hope I live to see the day you walk in after I’ve already clocked out for the night.”

“The early bird catches the worm, Bo,” I said, falling into our cheesy greeting for the early mornings.

“Yeah, but the second mouse gets the cheese!” he called after me as the elevator doors shut, hoisting me up to the top floor where Goodrich Equity Partners, LLC, operated from.

The doors opened to a darkened reception area. I stepped out and took a deep breath. This was my favorite moment of the day. The smell of paper and corporate carpeting accosted my nose, the space filling with the buzz of printers gearing up for a day of abuse.

Thirty minutes later the hallways teemed with chatter, clicking heels, and steaming stainless steel tumblers of coffee.

First on the agenda was a debrief of yesterday’s deal memo we’d sent down to Florida for the new resort development contract.

The land in this small town of Rock Island we bid on was nestled on the north end—a ten-mile stretch of undeveloped beachfront with a $20 million price tag. It was a perfect spot for a new resort.

It also happened to be where I grew up, though hometown wouldn’t be the first word to come to mind.

It was a fun fact I tried to avoid telling people, just in case they were the type to google police records and stumbled across my mother’s mug shot for disorderly conduct.

Or public intoxication. Or my favorite, where she’s giving the camera a thumbs-up for indecent exposure.

Luckily, Robby was managing it since I was already assigned to another project, and new developments from the ground up weren’t my thing anyway. They were Robby’s forte, thank God.

“Good work so far, everyone,” Glenn said as he walked into the conference room, Robby trailing closely behind our boss on an invisible leash.

“Rock Island verbally accepted the offer this morning. Legal’s got it in their hands and along with some minor requests we need to sift through, I think we’ll be able to call it officially closed by the end of the week. ”

You could hear the collective breath everyone was holding release at the same time.

Surviving weeks of late nights, countless rounds of edits, and Glenn’s never-ending commentary on the “lost art of professionalism” had finally paid off.

Everyone was exhausted and mildly traumatized, but we could smell the victory.

As president of Goodrich Equity Partners, LLC, the leading venture capital firm in the Northeast specialized in resort development deals, Glenn Goodrich is old-school in more ways than one.

He likes all offers printed, bound in leather, and hand delivered to the recipient.

He says if we can’t spare a few hundred dollars on a presentation for a $20 million contract, we’re not charging enough. First impressions are a big deal.

He’s also old-school in the sense that men do the heavy lifting and women are there to look pretty and fetch coffee. Not that he’d verbalize that out loud, of course. That would be an HR no-no.

“Don’t relax yet,” he said as the air puckered again. He grabbed Robby on the shoulder and squeezed. “Thanks to Robby for running point on this. This is an example of someone gunning to make director in the next couple years.”

Yeah, gunning to see how far up Glenn’s—

Robby looked at me. And winked . The hair on the back of my neck crawled to attention.

Now, on the surface, Robby was the poster boy of a vintage Ralph Lauren print ad shot on a Martha’s Vineyard back lawn at sunset.

You know the ones I’m talking about—Dad’s in pale pink, Mom’s wearing a skirt that a small village could fit under, the towheaded kids are wearing white.

Yes, he was objectively attractive. But he followed Glenn around like a lost puppy, and when he laughed, he snorted like a pug with a mild case of asthma.

The reality that Robby and everyone else in the room, including Glenn, knew I pulled together 95 percent of the work on this offer yet received 0 percent of the credit, solidified his douchebag status for me.

And this wasn’t the first time I’d been glossed over after pulling more than my fair share.

“Happy hour at O’Keefe’s after work,” Glenn called out as people started to file from the room.

“We’ll celebrate Robby’s thirty-day due diligence vacation in Florida.

” A little cheer erupted from the room, mostly celebrating the fact Robby would be gone for thirty days and we wouldn’t have to put up with him.

I gathered my folio and stood. My assistant, Ivy, snatched it from me and said under her breath, “He’s such a jerk.”

“Which one?” I asked. She smirked.

I walked past Glenn and Robby still cuddled up together on my way out.

“Samantha,” Glenn called out to me. “Stick with this kid here. You could learn a thing or two from him.”