Voyager is the fastest-growing organic athletic shoe company in North America. It makes sense they’d want to team up with a firm in Southern California—the land of vegans and yogis—to make their all-natural shoes much cooler than I’m managing to describe them. And because Voyager initiated tomorrow’s meeting, I’m assuming the likelihood they’ll hire us is set to skyrocket. If I were to guess, they’re going to sign a contract in the twenty-four to forty-eight hours after the dinner. By my count, the biggest deal of my tenure at TIF is totally happening and I should probably tell Zareen what my statistics are showing.

“No, no, no. 9:30 p.m. is way too late,” says Zareen. “Keep trying for something earlier. Get creative if you have to. Pull out all the stops. Make something up. Where’s Marigold? Can’t she tell them it’s for Justin Bieber? Do something, okay?”

Zareen, who’s hovering over an intern’s desk with her fire-engine-red readers resting on the bridge of her nose, normally doesn’t talk to our trendy-named interns—Marigold, Scotland, Bentley, etc.—like this, nor does she encourage anyone here to “make something up,” but I’ve worked with her long enough to know she’s just edgy about Voyager.

“Can we chat?” I say softly, saving the intern from the wrath of a stressed-out boss.

“Follow me to my office, please.” She swoops her short salt-and-pepper hair to the side. She’s certainly rocking a The Devil Wears Prada look today.

She stomps the heels of her Christian Louboutin pumps into the hardwood floor all the way back to her desk, and I question whether our distressed wood floors came like this, or if they were hammered over time by Zareen’s four-inch heels.

She sits down, takes off her glasses, and mumbles under her breath as she checks her iPhone.

“Yoo-hoo,” I say, knocking my knuckle on her door to remind her of my existence.

“Charlotte, dear. Come in, come in,” she responds rather warmly given the tense situation. I may not be the cutest, spunkiest, most well-dressed employee, but as I take a seat in the purple velvet chair across from her sprawling black walnut desk, I’m reminded how satisfying it feels to be on this woman’s good side—and that’s a quality very few people who work here possess.

“So... Voyager?” I say with a hint of excitement in my voice.

“Yes. Voyager. The execs are in town for a running conference and want to do an early working dinner before they get on their flight home tomorrow,” she says. “So, we’re going to pitch how great The Influencer Firm is one final time and we’re going to do that over a few plates of tender filet mignon and expensive bottles of wine.”

“Are you sure these people even eat meat? None of their shoes are made of real leather, you know. That’s their shtick.”

“I thought about that, but I had Scotland comb through their personal Instagram accounts. All of them posted photos of barbecuing beef burgers over Memorial Day. Go figure. I think we’ll be good giving them a little reprieve from the monotony of the vegan day-to-day.”