@BLMbabycakes: roger ludermore canceling himself in real time lmaooo #HeinRandC2018
@HeinULaborUnion: Pretty sure @RogerLudermore just violated Title IX in this commencement address, y’all. @FrontEndReview #HeinRandC2018
Charlotte laughed. His Twitter notifications were already destroyed. People tagged Front End’s account in their tweets too, and she spared a thought for the company’s social media team.
But Roger was only getting started. He knew he had lost his audience and he clearly didn’t care. He fed off their disapproval the way he fed off Charlotte’s discomfort at the office.
“If you want that job, offer to do it for free. Set yourself apart from the pack. Hate to break it to you kids, but no one is gonna hand you opportunities. You need to get off your entitled asses and fight.”
@JustineDanielPerry: Did @RogerLudermore just tell #Hein2018 graduates to work for free?
This might be the best moment of her life.
Charlotte pulled up a new draft and did her best to remember Roger’s exact wording. He wanted her to live-tweet this train wreck? She’d share quote after quote, word for goddamn word.
She was just typing out hate to break it to you when she caught her name.
“I was just talking to my assistant Charlotte about this.”
Oh god. Oh no.
Her eyes snapped back to the stage across the Lawn. Roger’s eyes held a manic glow.
“Nice girl, but nothing special,” her boss confided like he was trading gossip in the executive lounge. “A few months ago, she gets all bent out of shape about her salary, thinks she deserves more. Now she’s upset she didn’t get a promotion.”
Roger knew she was listening. He knew this was her school too. He knew and he didn’t care. She was just a useful anecdote to illustrate a point. Just some entitled millennial who drafted his strategy proposals and coordinated terse lunches with his wife. Just some failure in an ill-fitting blazer with the gall to ask for an industry-standard salary. Just some girl who thought if she worked hard enough, something might finally go right for her.
Roger slouched on the lectern, one arm propped on the ledge while the other gestured aimlessly toward the sky. She could hear the peppery loathing in his voice as he delivered his advice to her in front of an audience.
“Look, honey: If you’re not getting ahead at work, maybe you should ask yourself if you’re the problem.”
His words landed like a slap.
She shouldn’t be surprised. She wasn’t surprised. She understood. All her life she had been the problem. She was her mother’s problem, her shameful queer disappointment. She was Ben’s problem, his weak-willed girlfriend who couldn’t take a joke. And now she was Roger’s problem, his pitiful, entitled, talentless assistant.
She had asked herself if she was the problem ever since her fourth birthday party, when she was too scared to play piano in front of so many adult strangers and learned that her mother’s affection was conditional. She didn’t need some wealthy libertarian prick to tell her to consider that she might be the problem.
Unheeded, the memory of Reece’s voice blotted out Roger’s diatribe. She saw his sleepy face in the monochrome of the dorm’s early morning, his hand gentle against her face.
I can’t understand anyone choosing not to know you.
She didn’t deserve this.
I’ll tell you again anytime you need a reminder.
She deserved so much better than this.
My name is Charlotte Thorne and I feel fucking angry.
Charlotte looked down at her phone. She toggled from Roger’s Twitter account to her own, and she opened a new tweet.
@CThorne: Hey @RogerLudermore! I quit. Order your own ugly business cards, you obnoxious prick. #HeinRandC2018
A deep breath, the gleaming white of a decision made. And…
She hit post.
Immediately her tweet started racking up likes and retweets. A burst of laughter erupted from a group of students hunched together in the last row, presumably reading her post on someone’s phone.
@BLMbabycakes: @CThorne omg!! good for you bitch!!!
@HeinULaborUnion: @CThorne Is this really Charlotte? Would love to connect.
Roger continued to rant, oblivious. He moved on to berating his audience for something else, her name mercifully absent.
As the tweet ricocheted across the President’s Lawn, Charlotte waited for regret to hit her. When she reached for it, it didn’t materialize. She wasn’t disassociating. If anything, she felt robust and awake. She could smell the sunblock and sweat of the graduates sitting in front of her. A baby cried faintly in the distance. The sun bore down on the field and her heart beat hard and stubborn in her chest. Her phone vibrated in her hand as notifications continued to come in.
This part of her life was over. She was done taking anyone’s shit.
She took another deep breath and put her phone on silent.
Then, on second thought, she turned it off.
Sunlight nearly blinded her as she emerged from the tent. Charlotte blinked through it and turned toward the quad, ready to join her friends at the picnic. She needed to talk to Reece. She needed to fight for him, really fight for her happiness and her friends and her future stretching bright and open ahead of her. For the life she wanted to build next, whether or not Reece chose to be a part of it.
She needed to apologize to Jackie too. She needed to tell her she was right.
“Thorny!”
