A sense of unease swept through me as I remembered Asher, sitting over at his desk, reciting excerpts from that stupid handbook. How smug he looked when he thumbed through the pages, spouting off all the reasons why I couldn’t be thinking about Nolan this way. And Asher had been right: I was a supervisor, and Nolan was an intern.
Jumping to my feet, I paced back and forth. This was getting dangerously close to overstepping boundaries. Companies turned a blind eye to some people breaking the rules, but I wasn’t one of them.
“You keep doing that and you’ll wear a path through that carpet,” Nolan joked. He continued to input numbers into the spreadsheet while I paced to and fro in the background. After a half hour passed, Nolan squinted at the monitor and said nonchalantly, “I think I’m finished. Want to grab a bite to eat?” He saved the file and uploaded it to the shared drive.
Worst-case scenario, this was one of those misconduct simulation scenarios in the making. No thanks, I couldn’t afford the risk. “Nah, I better get home.” I didn’t bother to elaborate. He didn’t need to know Friday nights it was just me, a frozen pizza, and more Shark Week reruns.
“Maybe a rain check then?” He stood up to stretch, his shirt lifting to reveal his firm lower abs. Oh my god.
I replied, “Maybe.”
But most likely not.
Chapter Twelve
For the first time ever, I got the prime parking spot directly in front of my apartment garage elevator, which opened immediately as soon as I pressed the button. Could the universe be signaling to me that my life wasn’t all gloom and doom? I unlocked my door and exhaled quietly, comforted by my messy, lived-in apartment, with its familiar smell of Bounce dryer sheets and old coffee grounds. Home at last.
Firing up my laptop before dinnertime turned out to be a terrible idea. Out of morbid curiosity I searched my name online and HOLY HELL. My appetite disappeared, boom, just like that.
I found hundreds, maybe even thousands of disparaging messages and comments about me. A chunk of them were about the shittiness of the Ultimate Apocalypse game concept, and the widespread hatred of it, but most of the posts and comments were just personal attacks on me. The “fucking feminazi.” The “stuck-up asshat ho.” And my favorite, from @alfredfem: “cunty fuckign slut.” @alfredfem needed to spellcheck that shit before he put it online. Also, was ‘cunty’ even a word? And, me . . . a slut? That word was so contemptuous, and if any of these people actually knew me, they’d get why that was so fucking ridiculous to say. I had NO sexual game. Those fucking ignorant, vocal assholes.
Chewing my nails was a nasty habit I had stopped in high school and resurrected again during my current life crisis. My life derailed overnight, without any warning, and I couldn’t manage to get it back on track. It had already really taken a toll on my mental health and my body. Skipping lunch that afternoon, I needed more nourishment than a bowl of cereal from breakfast. I poured myself a wine, grabbed some baby carrots from the fridge, and nuked a Trader Joe’s corn dog. It felt like a corn-dog kind of day. Quite possibly a two-or-three-corn-dog kind of day. All these racist, sexist, homophobic messages and comments hit me where it tore at my soul and I needed some hot-dog-wrapped-in-cornbread sustenance to shoulder this torment.
While settling into my meal, Ian sent an email to Joe, Sue, and me at 8:53 P.M. “Joe, please draft a response to the online petition calling for action to fire Melody and boycott of Seventeen Studios. Let’s meet 6 A.M. tomorrow to discuss.—I.M.”
What online petition? I searched for “Melody Joo petition” online and fucking hell, a crowdsourced document with hundreds of signatures was the first search result, demanding my removal from Ultimate Apocalypse, as my involvement in game production caused “tangible detriment to the entire gaming industry.” The consequences according to the ranting petition, if the request was not met, would be a worldwide boycott of my game when it launched.
Anti-Melody online discussions were everywhere and I couldn’t stop reading all the angry and bitter commentary surrounding my femaleness. These misogynists were all over the globe, spewing vulgarities toward me at all hours of the day. Some cloaked their hate with anti-left-wing feminist arguments, hearkening back to the good old days when games were all about men, for