Focus, Jane. Phone. Work. Important meeting. But thinking about the upcoming meeting doesn’t calm me. Instead, my heart races, my stomach twists into knots, black spots crowd the corners of my eyes, and my hands shake.

I breathe and stare at my phone until my vision clears and I can focus on pressing the power button down. It’s not working. I take a deep, calming breath—and choke on the fumes from the cologne of the businessman next to me, earning me dirty looks from the rest of the passengers.

“Sorry,” I cough into my hand.

I spend the rest of the train ride using a compact to try and fix my face and hair, but in the cramped train car it’s an exercise in futility. Business man is on the phone the entire time, yelling about assets and liabilities and bitcoins, all while waving his free hand and smacking into my elbow while I’m attempting to put mascara on. I end up swiping a thick line of black under my cheek and poking myself in the eye three times. Finally, I give up.

The train jerks to a stop, forcing me to grab on to the pole under business man’s hand and . . . ick. There’s something on there. It’s wet. I lift my hand. And it’s brown.

Please, universe, let that be chocolate.

I sprint through the train station and up the stairs, wincing at the waft of sewer stench as I reach the street, dodging people and holding my dirty hand away from my body. I have nowhere to wipe it. Ugh. Why is my nicest, most professional blouse also pale pink?

Mother. That’s why.

The office is a block from the station and I jog down the cracked sidewalk, my hair working itself into a truly remarkable frizzed-out halo surrounding my head. Of course I forgot to grab a hair clip.

When the glass-front entrance of the building comes into view, I nearly sob in relief. Almost there.

I’ve worked with Blue Wave Marketing for nearly four years. This meeting is going to determine whether I can be a senior marketer. It’s what I’ve been working toward, handling my own accounts, running my own campaigns. I can’t let one broken phone ruin everything.

I’m ten minutes late. What if they use this as a reason to reject my proposal? What if they decide they can’t have a senior marketer who arrives late to important meetings? What if they laugh at me and call me a ridiculous waste of space? What if—

Stop it, Jane.

I push through the front door and immediately get a disgusted look from Hannah, the front desk executive. She flips a sleek length of blonde hair behind her shoulder and avoids my eyes.

Blue Wave is all about giving people advanced titles, and “receptionist” is much too demeaning. So front desk executive it is.