Regardless, her fresh meal triggers a battle of scents. In one corner, there’s the smell of heavily seasoned meat and cilantro. My mouth wants to water. My stomach wants to growl. I haven’t eaten yet today and a flavorful lunch, a free one at that, should sound good. But in the other corner, all I can smell is the sterile odor of a hospital room clinging to my nostrils as if my nose hairs were dipped in patina.

“You’re staring, Charlotte. Want some before I dump half a bottle of hot sauce on it?” Marigold asks.

I’m staring because that’s the last meal I was supposed to eat with my husband, you dipshit.

“No, thanks,” I say. “I’m good.”

“I read in Cosmo that sriracha speeds up your metabolism. So you can pretty much eat whatever you want, as long as you drench it in this first,” she explains as she proceeds to douse her burrito bowl in the reddish-orange sauce.

I put my headphones on and scoot my chair closer to my computer screen to mask the serious eye roll I’m directing toward Marigold. Antisocial as it may seem to block her out of my most basic senses, I just can’t help it. I’m no longer interested in conversing with a girl who has little-to-no life experience and a pumpkin-spiced latte tattooed on her ankle.

As I look to my right, I notice that the rest of the intern pod resembles a United Airlines call center on the busiest travel day of the year. I know there’s no shortage of Botox in LA, so how everyone’s faces look so scrunched and frantic right now is beyond me.

I peel my headphones off and get Marigold’s attention by tapping the back of her computer monitor with a pen. As much as I can’t stand engaging with her, I’d like to know—

“Why are the rest of the interns on the phone right now?”

She puts her hand over her mouth and holds up the “one second” finger as she finishes chewing. There is a single shred of lettuce, half-covered in her purple lipstick, hanging from her mouth.

“Voyager just emailed Zareen. Three of their top execs are going to be in town this week and want to do an impromptu dinner before they catch their red-eye out of LAX. She’s got us trying to secure dinner resos at BOA. If we get in, it’s going to be a total schmooze-fest with these guys. Wining and dining at its finest.” Marigold stuffs another spoonful of saucy rice and beans in her mouth, pushing the lipstick-covered shred of lettuce back in her mouth. I wonder how much makeup she eats in a given year.

I don’t know enough about the difficulty of securing last-minute reservations at hot new Los Angeles restaurants, but I do know whoever scores this reservation is getting a job and a signing bonus. There hasn’t been a Zareen-issued, seemingly impossible task these interns haven’t been able to tick off their lists so far this summer, and my money is on the girl who currently has the receiver up to one ear and a finger plugging the other closed, as if she’s receiving very specific hostage instructions.