In the stall, she didn’t puke, but she had the dry heaves. She took off her blazer and blouse. Both likely ruined. She couldn’t stand to wear the blouse another second, so she shoved it into the trash. Then she buttoned the blazer over her wine-spotted bra.

She was about to exit the stall when she heard the sound of a door swishing open.

“… see her face when Rupert was droning on?” The voice came from someone entering the bathroom. Mandy’s voice.

Natalie froze. She stopped breathing.

“Yeah,” said someone else. Mandy’s friend Cheryl. “That’s her resting bitch face. Thank God we don’t have to look at that every day anymore.”

“Right?” Mandy chuckled. “Her so-called promotion is the best thing that ever happened to us.”

“You think?”

“That nice corner office? HR put her there so no one has to hear her constant nagging. She won’t be in our faces anymore. So really, her only interactions will be with a spreadsheet. Perfect. I thanked Rupert personally for getting her out of the pit. Sweet freedom!”

Natalie heard a snicker and the sound of a high five. Two hands clapping.

“Cheers to that and cheers to no more toxic bosses.”

One of them started humming “Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead” as they both entered the other stalls.

Now Natalie really felt like puking. Instead, she made no sound as she fled from the restroom, praying they didn’t know she’d heard.

2

A shower and a change of clothes helped a little, but Natalie still felt devastated by what she’d overheard. Devastated, yet on some level unsurprised. She would never deny that she was precise. Orderly. Exacting of both herself and others.

Looking around her modest apartment, she admitted to a penchant for neatness.

But did that make her a horrible person?

Finger-combing her dark, curly hair, which was possibly the only unruly thing about her, she thought about her clean, paid-for hybrid car, her tidy home, her secure little life … and—the tiniest voice inside her whispered—the emptiness.

She didn’t know what might fill it up. She had created the home she’d lacked as a child—predictable, simple, neat. The apartment, while pleasant enough, was missing some essential quality she couldn’t quite pinpoint. It was in a pink stucco building as small and sweet as a cupcake, furnished with the things she liked to surround herself with—comfy chairs and shelves crammed with books, and a soft bed for curling up to read.

It should have been the right fit. It should have felt like home, like the place she belonged. Yet despite the idyllic Sonoma setting, surrounded by vineyards and apple orchards, the emptiness yawned. It never felt quite like home.