Page 1 of The False Flat

5, 4, 3, 2, CHAPTER 1

Life was easier when you pretended people were numbers. I didn’t mean it in the typical way people mean this, like a faceless corporation with too many employees. Not a rating system either. I meant literal numbers: hard-edged, perfectly sequenced, constant, definable números. People had too many crevices, too many preferences, too many irritating qualities. People couldn’t be easily divided, added, or subtracted. Numbers were straightforward, uncomplicated—at least for me—even the decimal points: especially the decimal points.

That’s why I assigned nearly everyone I met a number. It had nothing to do with how attractive they were, their socioeconomic status, or their age. It was mostly decided based on their personality or the feeling they elicited when I was around them, occasionally their shape. It was a coping mechanism that had started at fifteen, when I saw a little girl conversing with the numbers she’d drawn on a piece of paper in a therapist’s office. My robotic mother had ripped me from the waiting room, insisting I didn’t need therapy. So, I hadn’t had it, but I’d kept the numbers.

I rubbed my hands together to warm them, then secured my bicycle to the rack located in front of the law firm next door to Twin Cities Financial, my office building in downtown Minneapolis. Several people used the rack, but I felt particularly entitled because my boyfriend was an aspiring partner at Simon, Crusler, and Bach. I pulled my high heels out of my backpack and clipped down the sidewalk, past the gold-handled front doors where thousands—no, millions—of dollars walked through every single day. More numbers. The best kind of numbers, the kind with decimal points. Money.

I slipped into the elevator and turned in time to see Lynn, a perky number eight from the marketing department in my office, running for the door, way too excited to see me. I eyed the gleaming side panel and contemplated pushing the “Door Close” button, but the smile under her expertly applied lipstick made me feel guilty. She meant well. I jabbed my finger into “Door Open” and forced my lips upward, a maneuver that made me feel plastic.

Smiling was ridiculous. It looked nice on Lynn, the perfect complement to the pencil skirt currently hugging the lower circle of her eight-ness, but a smile always seemed wrong on my face. If the corners of my mouth stretched too far, it was entirely possible my cheeks would crack and fall onto the elevator floor.

“Penelope! Hi!” Lynn cooed, shifting into the elevator, her red coat slung over her arm. Everyone—except my mother, and apparently Lynn—called me Pen. That sweet-as-sugar tone . . . I knew exactly what she’d talk about next—her most recent email. I could feel it. The polite request that would be posed as a question but really was a demand for me to do something utterly outrageous.

I should’ve pressed “Door Close.”

I pulled my wind-resistant trench coat around me like a shield. “Hi, Lynn.” This elevator was too slow and too small. I should’ve called maintenance, had a discussion about how slow and small the elevator was, which was surely a code violation.

“How has your week been?” She drew out the words, practically singing them.

Instead of contemplating ways I could hoist myself through the trapdoor at the top of this too-tiny box to avoid the inevitable, I concentrated on her assigned number. Eight. This wasn’t human Lynn with ulterior motives to find out more about my personal life. It was a congenial number eight. (Because if the number eight were a human, it would be congenial—a delight—most of the time.)

“It’s been great,” I said, desperate to think of another word or several more words to keep the eight from detouring to the email.

I watched the electronic number at the top of the wall, changing like molasses as the box moved through space like it was on a sightseeing tour.

This elevator!

I took a breath.

“I haven’t heard from you about this weekend. Are you coming to the dinner?” There it was. We’d made it to the fourth floor, our floor, and I’d failed. All I’d had to do was ask her about her week or where she’d bought her skirt—the woman knew how to dress—or mention my really good business news. But I’d panicked at the possibility of her asking exactly this, giving her the opportunity to ask . . . exactly this.

The doors finally opened, and I squeezed through them before there was room to exit. Lynn followed me. Why was she following me? Right, she worked here.

This weekend. Not a client dinner, which I never missed, but a company-wide family gathering where people would talk about gardening or football or the million other activities they had outside work, which I did not have and could not relate to.

Four weeks ago, when the event had seemed fictional, I’d told Lynn, “Sure! Count me in.” I’d even waved my hand like I’d bring the potato salad. But when she’d sent her follow-up email, I’d smelled the burgers on the grill, felt the wind from the passing Frisbee—did people play Frisbee?—and I’d deleted the email. The last thing I needed was for my coworkers, who respected my job acumen, to see my questionable performance at interacting with other humans in a nonwork capacity.

I adjusted my bag on my shoulder. “What are you talking about? What email?”

She hadn’t mentioned the email, had she?

She crossed her arms and stood in front of me, a demanding marketing professional’s stance and stare. She was going to get what she wanted.

“It’s just the office and their families,” she assured me. “Really casual. Everyone’s anxious to get to know the Pen Auberge under all the fancy clothes and spreadsheets.”

My face was doing that cracking thing again. “I’ll be there,” I heard myself say.

Thankfully, she walked down the hall. I turned in to my office and dropped my bag and helmet by my desk.

I needed to forget about Lynn. Today was my day. In about five seconds, I’d walk through Houston McGregor’s door and be lavished with congratulations. I smoothed my hair in front of his door. I’d risked helmet hair even after I’d freshly straightened my unruly curls, because riding was my medicine, something I needed a dose of every day.

“Pen,” Houston’s secretary said.

I turned toward Erin, who was chewing on a pen. I wasn’t sure if she was calling my name or talking to the writing implement. She opened her mouth, then shook her head as if I should disregard her sudden outburst.

I turned back to the door. I didn’t want whatever had caused her look of concern to ruin this moment.

I knocked, and Houston bellowed, “Come in!” As I stepped into his office, I was hit with the cloying scent that is Houston McGregor, the kind of stench only a man utterly in control and with an obscene income could get away with. His neck fat shook over the top of his collar, part of the overpriced suit that looked like it was trying to eat him. “Good morning, Pen. Good news.”