“Mm hmm. Adrian Westinger, who always said, ‘GRAAAIIIINS’ like a zombie to make fun of your vegetarianism? He was a jerk, but I’m pretty sure you used the word ‘hate’ with him, too—”

“Okay, I get it, I get it.” Annika threw ZeeZee at June, who caught it midair and threw it back in one fluid motion. “So maybe I’ve hated a few more people than I thought…”

June laughed. “You’re ruled by emotion. Messy, conflicting emotion. Just admit it.”

Annika looked past her friend into the hallway outside the office. “Well, I’m feeling a lot of messy, conflicting emotion right now.” She wiped her palms on her skirt and tossed ZeeZee back into her stress drawer. “Because I think Mr. McManor from the Bank of California is walking up.”

Annika had never met Mr. McManor in person before. He turned out to be one of those extremely tidy, precise people who likely arranged their silverware drawers for fun on weekends and had a pair of monogrammed socks for every day of the week. He kept pushing up his little round glasses as he spoke, probably because his nose was so tiny. Annika was afraid they’d go tumbling right off his face if he made too sudden a movement. Thankfully, he was placid to the point of seeming half-dead, so sudden movements didn’t seem to be a concern.

“Well.” He sat very still on a floral-patterned accent chair, clutching his briefcase tightly on his lap. “I’m afraid the news isn’t good, Ms. Dev. You are what we call ‘grotesquely delinquent’ on your accounts. Thoroughly overleveraged.”

Grotesquely delinquent? Annika caught June’s eye. She had the feeling he’d made that up on the spot just to be spiteful. “Be that as it may, Mr. McManor, I believe if you’d just listen to this short presentation we’ve prepared…” She nodded at June, who hopped up to her laptop and began queueing up the Power- Point slides. “You see, Mr. McManor, Make Up is not just a burgeoning young business. It’s a statement about the greater good in life, about our basic humanity. The need to belong somewhere, the need to connect with another human being, the need to—”

“Press on.” Mr. McManor waved a hand. “We need to press on. I’m sorry, but the time for last-ditch efforts has passed.”

Annika stared into his dead-fish eyes. Coldly unsympathetic. And the bank he’d sworn his ruthless allegiance to owned both her business loan and the building where she worked. Awesome. “But … I sent you a payment. Last month.”

“Ah, yes.” Mr. McManor consulted his notes quickly. “Your payment of four hundred eighty dollars and … seventy-four cents does not come close to overcoming your rather monstrous debt, I’m afraid.”