Mia found herself standing in front of the Raging Bull for a full five minutes, cringing at the loud music spilling through the open doors. Alpha had arranged for the Klatch to gather together this one time, perhaps their last, to exchange holiday gifts. “I can’t stand this kind of place,” Eun-hee said, waddling up behind her.

“Let’s get it over with,” Mia said, grateful she wasn’t alone.

“Ladies of the Klatch, assemble,” Alpha shouted, waving from across the crowded front room. Mia, waif that she was, found it relatively easy to squeeze through the crowd and join Alpha and Beta by the front window. Eun-hee, however, with her baby bloat, had to continually shove people aside to keep them from squashing into her, wearing an angry snarl the whole way.

“Glad you two could make it,” Alpha said. “What you drinking?”

“Whatever you’re having,” Mia said.

“It’s called a Ballbuster. You too, Eunie?”

“I’m pregnant, remember? No booze.”

“Right, sorry. Wasn’t thinking. Maybe this wasn’t the best place to meet?”

“You think?”

“Let me get you a stool.”

Mia recognized numerous company employees among the noisy crowd. They were all talking too fast and laughing too loud and clutching each other’s shoulders in a desperate attempt to show how much they were enjoying themselves. The last time Mia could remember truly enjoying herself was … when? Nothing came to mind. The music, which they shouted along with and bumped hips to, only hurt her ears. Looking out the window, she could see the sidewalk crowded with hurrying people, the street filled with honking cars. Directly outside the bar a double-parked black SUV caught her eye. It had opaque windows and a sign on the door reading Typhoon International. That’s what she needed: a typhoon to carry her away, like Dorothy to Oz, away from the company, from Kansas Consulting, from those grisly Think Tanks. Somewhere over the rainbow. Even the witch’s castle would be an improvement. Although come to think of it, that wasn’t a typhoon that took Dorothy, that was a twister or a tornado or something. Looking again, Mia saw the sign didn’t say Typhoon anyway; it said Typhon. Figured. No typhoons here. No tornadoes, twisters; no redemptive winds. No rescue. Just the same grinding, slow motion descent into tragedy.

“And this is for you,” Alpha said. Mia took the package, thanked her sincerely and reached into her own bag to hand out gifts to the others. They were all impersonal, generic items; she didn’t know any of them well enough to give anything with genuine meaning.

“So who’s going to the company party?” Beta asked.

“No way in hell,” Eun-hee said. She was propped on a bar stool wedged in the corner, her arms firmly planted across her chest.

“Seriously? Why not?” Beta seemed shocked.

“Why the hell would I want to subject myself to that? So I can wear a big fake smile and tell everyone how great they look and act like nothing’s wrong while everyone’s scared to death of losing their jobs in January?”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“Missy, you and I are from very different planets,” Eun-hee said.

“Me, I wouldn’t miss it,” Alpha said. “If all we gotta do is pretend to have a good time and act cheery to seem like we’re contented company clones, then I’m in. I am definitely not above kissing select ass to make a good impression, especially when they’re still scratching their beards figuring out who to eliminate. How about you, Mia?”

“I’m not going,” she said quietly.

“What?”

“She said she’s not going,” Eun-hee repeated, louder.

“You’re making a mistake.”

“Leave her alone. She’s still got her self-respect. More than I can say for a lot of people.”

Eun-hee tolerated about ten more minutes before proclaiming loudly that if she stuck around here any longer she was going to upchuck, and asked if Mia would mind running interference to help cut a swath through the crowd to the street.

Hastily gathering up her things, including the new scarf, mittens and eBook gift certificate, Mia hugged her goodbyes to the Klatch and led Eun-hee through the partying throng.

“Thanks,” Mia said once they got outside.

“You, girl, need to grow a backbone. You’d have stayed there all night, wouldn’t you?”

“Not all night.”

“You know what? Politeness is overrated. You hungry?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“’Yeah’ as in yeah, really or ‘yeah’ as in I’m being polite and saying I’m hungry when I’m really not?’”

“Yeah, really. I’m hungry.”

“Let’s find a place to chow down. I’m famished.”

Most of the restaurants in the neighborhood were packed, with lines waiting to get in. Finding a cavernous coffee shop with a free table, they threaded to the rear and dropped into metal chairs next to the window.

“I’d like to say I’m disappointed in the two of them,” Eun-hee said, “but it would be a lie.”

“They’re okay people,” Mia said.

“That’s a spineless way of saying they’re assholes.”

“When are you going on maternity?” Mia asked, to change the subject.

“I’m working till the minute I feel a head sticking out. Then I’m gone, baby, gone.”

“How long do you expect to be out?”

“Permanently. I wouldn’t come back to that hellhole if they bought my daughter a stable full of ponies and a scholarship to Harvard.”

“Your daughter? It’s a girl?”

“It damn well better be. If it’s a boy I’m throwing him in the river with a brick tied to his toe.”

“So wait, you know the baby’s sex or don’t you? Did you get an ultrasound?”

“I’m not about to sit back and let some dope with a video screen tell me the gender of my child. I’d rather concentrate my willpower and make it happen the way I want.”

“You’re an original, Eun-hee, that’s for sure. Does your husband want a girl, too?”

“If I had a husband, I’d tell him what to want.”

Mia looked away, embarrassed at having asked the wrong question. Outside the window she noticed a black SUV like the one double-parked by the Raging Bull.

“Artificial insemination,” Eun-hee continued. “I picked my baby’s dad based on characteristics and traits. Genetics. Physical, mental, social, medical.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “Emotions are all well and good, but we’re talking about creating a human being here. I don’t understand how anybody can base that choice on some horny stud’s ability to tell a joke or mix a drink, you know what I mean?”

“Not really.”

“Liar.”

Mia smiled. “A little, I guess.”

“She’s gonna be a little Amazon. The man who crosses her is going to learn to pee sitting down.”

“I believe it. What’ll you do after leaving the company?”

“When I retire? Always wanted to write. Maybe publish my autobiography. Or an exposé of the company. Except everybody would think it’s fiction. Know what you want?”

“What I want?”

“To eat.”

“Oh. Yeah. I’m good.”

Already she had forgotten the black SUV parked on the street with its engine running and pale clouds rising from the exhaust.

***

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