“Hmm… Let’s see. Gym looking for part-time janitor, nope. Waitressing in Fisherman’s Wharf, pass. Dog walker, hmm, cute, but also nope. Wait.” He stopped, suddenly sitting up straighter. “What the hell is that?”

His brow furrowed as he tilted the paper closer to his face.

“What?” I leaned over to look.

He turned the paper so I could see it and pointed to an ad in big, bold font near the bottom.

ChimeIn Inc.

WOMEN-ONLY WORK ENVIRONMENT

Positions Available:

• Customer Support

• Creative Development

No prior experience necessary.

No resumes required.

Starting Salary: $5,000

Additional benefits include free lunch, mental health coverage, and paid menstrual leave.

Yes, you read that correctly.

SERIOUS INQUIRIES ONLY

We both blinked at it.

Then Aiden said, “Okay, what in the tech-startup-Twilight-Zone did we just read?”

I huffed a laugh, shaking my head. “That’s not real, Aiden.”

“It’s in the paper, Bev.”

“I don’t care if it’s carved into the side of the moon,” I scoffed. “That’s too good to be true. Five grand? Are they printing money back there? And what even is period leave? ‘Ugh, sorry, boss, my uterus is killing me again—see you Monday’? I didn’t even know we were allowed to say the word menstrual in a newspaper.” Narrowing my eyes, I took the paper from him, scanning the font again. “No resume? No experience? What even is ‘ChimeIn’? This is utopia. Or a scam. Or both.”

“Or,” he said, voice dropping like he was narrating a trailer, “the beginning of a very strange, very empowering new chapter of your life.”

I rolled my eyes but ripped the ad out anyway. Just in case.

Aiden grinned. “Says it’s based in the city. No office address, just a P.O. Box and a number to call.” He nudged my shoulder. “You gonna call?”

Exhaling a heavy sigh, I traced the edge of the paper as if that might give me some sort of answer. “I might.”

“You should. At the very least, we’ll get a good story out of it.”

The number stared back at me, impossible to ignore. $5,000.

There was something about five grand printed in bold, promising letters that made my stomach twist.

Not just in a bad way, but in a what if way.

In a maybe the universe is finally winking at me kind of way.

“Let’s just hope this doesn’t end in a hostage situation.”

* * *

Weeks passed.

Aunt Mary was finally back from her cross-country road trip, her face a little more sun-kissed than before, her arms full of dusty postcards and weird magnets from every state she crossed. She brought me a Nevada snow globe and a bag of maple candies from Vermont. I said thank you and smiled, but I didn’t really mean it. Not because I wasn’t grateful. I just wasn’t really here.