Her tone softens. “We had a great run together, Vera. I cared about you. I still care about you. But as the CEO I have to make tough decisions, and one of them was letting you go. Permanently. You did get a severance package. I’m sure you’ll land on your feet. As I said, you’re smart, you’re capable.” She stands up, pushing her chair delicately into the table. “And now I have to go. Best to you, Vera.” And she leaves, her boots click-clacking against the floor, the folder that I spent so many hours on lying on the table in front of me. She didn’t even bother to take it.

“Fuck you,” I shout at her receding back, garnering the attention of a few other Starbucks patrons. The barista on call gives me a please let yourself out look. And I do, stuffing the folder into the nearest garbage can.

By the time I get up to the Bronx Botanical Gardens, I’m still livid. Shopping for my mother’s dumb herbal tinctures and overpriced tea leaves didn’t help much.

I find Quinn in the rose garden, where we’d planned to meet, AirPods in, a lilac-colored bucket hat on his head. I come up to him from behind, reach up and put my hands on his shoulders so he jumps a little before turning around. He pushes me back slightly. “Jesus, V. Way to be a freak.” He takes out his AirPods and embraces me. No longer accustomed to physical affection from anyone except my mother, I stiffen and he steps away. “Okay, someone woke up on the wrong side of their mother’s guest twin bed this morning.”

I roll my eyes. “Nice to see you, too.” He studies me, one perfectly plucked eyebrow rising underneath the brim of his hat.

“The country has not done you good. You’re like the first person who somehow comes back from fresh air looking paler and more distraught than before.”

“Yeah well, I’m not leaving there anytime soon.” And I tell him about my meeting with Huda.

Quinn grimaces. “Oh, God, Vera. There are gentler ways to beg for your job back. Why do you always have to act like you’re better than everyone at their own job? It’s not cute.”

I follow him through the garden, not even bothering to admire the landscape around us. “Because I am better than everyone at a lot of things.”

He shakes his head. “Defense mechanism.”

“What, like you’re such a saint? You haven’t seen me in months and the first thing you’re doing is berating me.” I follow him out of the rose garden and toward the conifers.

“Because you look angry! You have that pinched look between your brows. You’re going to get premature wrinkles that way, you know.”