Love Interest(15)

She has this policy—if you appear on the channel, you get paid. Brijesh explained it to me after the “Healthed-Up Hot Chicken” video, and then I saw it for myself on my next paycheck: there was a line item in the HR portal where they break down your earnings that said video appearance. The amount of money I’d earned was minuscule, but I appreciated it all the same.

In response to Saanvi’s suggestion, I dumbly mutter, “What?”

“No, seriously.” Her face is utterly calm. “I think you two would be great.”

Beside me (he always sits next to me, and I never understand why), Alex laughs. “How on earth did you get there from us debating the social media budget?”

“There’s no debate,” I half growl, growing heated again at what I was trying to explain moments ago. “Bite the Hand’s budget is too small to handle all these projects at the same time. You need to get your priorities in order.”

He leans back in his chair and taps a pen absentmindedly on his notepad. “We’ll get the budget expanded. I’m not worried about money right now.”

I shake my head, laughing humorlessly. “If I had a dime for every time that sentence has come out of your mouth, I wouldn’t be worried about money, either.”

“Oh my God, Saanvi,” says Amanda, the social media director. “You’re totally right. They’d be perfect for that work life segment.”

My mouth snaps closed.

Everyone in the room is looking at me and Alex like they just solved a puzzle.

“The Food Baby YouTube subscribers already love Casey,” Saanvi says, sitting up. “You’re relatable to them because your job is—”

“Boring?” I supply.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Simba,” Alex jokes.

“You’re both young and—forgive me—attractive, with perfectly typical day jobs, which I think our viewers will find endearing. We’ve featured chefs, professional athletes, TV personalities, Lin-Manuel Miranda, even a few politicians. But we’ve never had business professionals on the ‘One Day at Work’ segment.”

“I’m into it,” says Gus, Alex’s boss. “They can give our audience a behind-the-scenes look at the industry.”

I scowl at him. Gus Moskowitz comes second only to Alex in terms of flagrant spending. Bite the Hand was his idea, and he’s been heading up its mostly freelance editorial team ever since. When he interviewed me for Alex’s job, I’d been temporarily enamored with his big personality and disarming nature—but now, I’m flabbergasted I ever wanted to work for someone so fiscally irresponsible.

“Oh my God,” says Social Media Amanda. “They fit a totally untapped niche!”

My eyes widen and my heart rate spikes as I turn to Alex for support. Surely he’ll agree this is a terrible idea. When our eyes catch, I hold out hopes he’ll speak for the both of us. There’s a downturn to his lips, and his jaw looks tense.

But then he says, “I’m in if you’re in.”

Traitor!

I don’t even know where to start in rationalizing my forthcoming response of “No fucking way in hell” to the BTH project team.

First of all, what is Alex trying to accomplish here? Does he want to keep his enemy close? How can I justify appearing on a YouTube segment with him when that would be like welcoming him into the fold? It would signal that I’m okay with his presence here, which, to reiterate, I am not. Lastly, who in their ever-loving right mind could possibly think I’m interesting enough to hold my own through an entire YouTube video? And that’s not even to mention my childhood speech impediment, which still rears its head at the most inopportune moments.

“I’m not sure Don’s going to like this,” I say.

“We’ll be transparent with your boss about the time commitment,” Saanvi promises. “It wouldn’t go beyond normal work hours.”

Ha! Normal work hours. That’s a good one, Saanvi.

Everyone’s staring at me now. Waiting for me to agree. Because honestly, who’d pass up on the chance to be at the center of something new and fun and potentially career altering? After all, isn’t this what I wanted? Isn’t this why I applied for Alex’s job in the first place? To be a part of something that means something?

A grainy, sepia image of Mom floods my mind, the edges of her likeness blurred away after sixteen years. The problem with photographers is that they’re hardly ever in the picture, and whenever I hold her photos in my hands, I see what she saw.

I see everything but her.

Now, though, she’s clearer, and so are the words she spoke to me when I was six: It all comes down to what you leave behind.

It took me years to figure out what she meant. What she wanted so desperately to communicate to me on her deathbed. When I got older, I learned she was sick for a lot longer than either she or Dad ever let on. Years, in fact. Once I knew that, things started to click.

Mom saw death coming. She had time to think about it. Time to process what good could come from it. And for Mom, in the end, it was all about legacy.

It all comes down to what you leave behind.

I wrestle with that piece of wisdom a lot. Every day, probably. Because Mom has a real legacy, and so does Dad. They’ve both made works of art that are going to outlive them. But not me. There’s nothing I’ve ever done that might outlive me.