He was bothered by what she’d said the other night about his still being hung up on Steph, his ex. It complicated the narrative he wanted to hold on to: that he was the aggrieved party and she was wholly at fault. But he knew there was truth in what Cristina said, although Raymond would probably say what he wasn’t over was the idea he’d long had of Steph, and about him and Steph as a couple and the life they were going to have together.

“I hear what you’re saying,” she said. “I do. But there’s just one problem. All these boxes are going to get broken out by Monday anyway. Remember? What’s the point of organizing them right before we break them out. It’s like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic when the boat is about to sink.” She giggled at her own analogy. It was a mean giggle, the laugh of a popular girl after fake-­complimenting an unpopular one.

Val was the type who’d have a hard time accepting that when you’re a low-­ or even a mid-­level manager at a large corporation like Town Square, you have to be flexible. Ordinarily that might be enough to tilt the scale toward Diego, but there were things that made Val an especially attractive candidate. Group manager of Movement was usually a guy. That Val was a woman was good, especially because this wouldn’t be the kind of thing where she was getting the job because she was a woman, the way Meredith putting in for Logistics was kind of cute because it was so unexpected, given Meredith’s girly, fashionista vibe. Val was far more suited to Movement than she was to more traditionally feminine areas of the store, like Customer Experience.

[...] Ruby felt bad that the teacher had taken the trouble to find “early literacy” materials for her—­but she’d just started at Town Square, was still getting used to the early hours. It wasn’t the right time. Besides, deep down, Ruby suspected she’d never be able to learn, no matter how hard she tried. When she was a girl, she got lead poisoning. A lawyer who’d filed a suit on behalf of the residents of a building Ruby had lived in when she was little said this was likely the reason some things were hard for her.

Over the years, Milo had gotten so much advice about women. Diego, for example, said not to worry so much, that if you didn’t care too much or try too hard, they’d find you attractive—­but what did Diego know about being Milo? Milo had tried every single approach—­acting aloof, acting nice, negging, complimenting—­and he still had been dumped and cheated on and rejected more times than he cared to count. He had thought Callie was different—­almost a reward for his patience, for everything he’d been through. But he had been wrong, again. After a few days’ reprieve, a few days of happiness and hope—­he was back in a landscape both familiar and bleak. In his head, he heard, Hello darkness, my old friend. (His dad’s Christian rock band covered that song, except they altered the lyrics to make it about Satan.) Milo knew people thought he was a happy-­go-­lucky sort of guy because he did comedy, but as he tried to remind them, people had probably thought that about Robin Williams too.

The first part—­about the store looking good—­he had followed, but Meredith’s interviews were remarkably good? She had learned from past mistakes? Mentor and role model? Beacon of kindness? What the fuck? Had Ryan gotten confused? It was possible. Ryan’s success in climbing the ranks at Town Square was not generally attributed to any particular quickness or skill, but rather to his having graduated from a more prestigious university than most people in the management training program. (For all its talk of egalitarianism, corporate had a fetish for people with Ivy League degrees, no matter how unexceptional many of them proved to be in practice.)

Katherine was the highest-­ranking person at the table. She had a master’s degree in psychology from an even more prestigious university than the one Ryan had attended as an undergrad. A retail trade magazine had recently profiled her, calling her a rising star and bright new talent. She’d made her reputation at Town Square by designing policies that were worker-friendly but cost-­neutral, and she spent a great deal of time traveling to stores around the country, talking to managers about the importance of praise in worker retention—­how much it means to employees to be complimented, how it’s often as valuable, if not more valuable, than raises when it comes to keeping workers happy. She called her approach the “well-­crafted carrot.” The idea was not to puff employees up so much that they up and quit, but to “make store-­level workers feel that Town Square is a place where they are seen and valued.” She had also formalized the policy of throwing storewide pizza parties at stores where union organizers were afoot and personally approved the language used in the flyers that were distributed at these parties, in which corporate’s case against unionization was laid out in friendly, upbeat terms, with only the subtlest insinuation that any union agitation would force corporate to curtail some of the generous benefits it currently gave to employees voluntarily. She was active, too, in arguing for the company to be a leader in terms of issues around inclusivity and equal treatment. “Especially for our team members who are people of color or LGBTQ+, or for women who’ve dealt with sexual harassment,” she explained to store managers, “working for a company that operates according to progressive values is its own kind of nonmaterial employee benefit.” Then she’d smile. “Of course, these policies also reflect what we believe is right.”