I give her a nod. She’s got a point.

“Anyhow, I predict that with full bellies, and with a little wine buzz, the Voyager crew will go on to sign the contract after the check drops. Which, by the way, we will pick up with our American Express Black Card so they know our company has some serious capital behind it. What do you think?”

“I think it sounds like a grand slam,” I say, making a mental note that my boss has referred to wine buzz as a legitimate business-closing tactic. “Who’s all going since Monica’s on her honeymoon?”

“Funny you ask. I begged and pleaded with Monica to come back. She thankfully obliged when I mentioned the words Christmas Bonus, so I’m paying for her to fly home ASAP on a red-eye. When the meeting is over, she can go back to Turks and Caicos and rejoin Danny for the rest of the week. She and I will take the lead on the dinner,” Zareen confirms.

I can’t believe Monica has to interrupt her honeymoon for this surprise dinner, but she is exactly who needs to be on the guest list if Zareen really wants to clinch the business. I nod my head in approval and agreement. They’ll land this, no problem.

“Oh, and you,” she says with a pointed delay.

“Excuse me?”

“There’s probably a 50 percent chance we’re going to get this account,” she says.

“I think it’s closer to 90 percent, actually.” I quickly interject my calculation.

“Well, then, 40 more percent of a reason you need to be there. You see, a big part of if they sign with us is going to come down to what we can show them insofar as reporting and analytics. They’ve stressed that from the very beginning. And that is all you, girlfriend. That’s your wheelhouse and no one else’s.”

Her words reassure me my job is secure even with all the minions proving their worth by Insta-Stalking our potential clients’ holiday barbecues. But still, I don’t want to be at the dinner if I don’t have to. I’m not a schmooze-fest kind of girl and, even though work is a welcome distraction, it doesn’t change the fact that there’s something in my apartment that kind of needs some serious attention.

“Why don’t you just tell them whatever they want, I can do?” I suggest it flippantly, but I mean it. I’ve yet to encounter a script I couldn’t run, a problem I couldn’t solve, a code I couldn’t crack. True, I may have come to Los Angeles to work in show business, but I’m a Numbers Queen now.

Zareen gets up from behind her desk, walks over to me, and puts her hands on my shoulders from behind. Her perfectly manicured fingernails tap me like she’s fanning piano keys. A B C D, A B C D.

“Telling them that some faceless, nameless employee can do ‘whatever they want’ is not enough. I need you to walk them through how you do what you do. I need that Charlotte Rosen razzle-dazzle.”