The Calcium of Regret

Maya stood at the edge of the corporate retreat's infinity pool, nursing her third prosecco and watching the sunset bleed into the Santa Monica skyline. The retreat had been Richard's idea—Richard, with his PowerPoint slides about synergy and his shirts that were always one size too small. The man was a walking monument to mediocrity, and somehow he'd become her boss.

"You going in?" Richard appeared beside her, his reflection shimmering in the water. He'd clearly had more to drink than she had.

"Maybe later," Maya said, wishing she could dissolve into the water herself. She'd left her corporate cardigan on a lounge chair somewhere, and the evening air raised gooseflesh on her arms.

Richard splashed into the pool with a graceless cannonball. Water sprayed Maya's legs. "Come on! Live a little!"

The spinach leaf from her dinner at lunch was still lodged between Richard's front teeth. Maya had debated telling him for the past six hours—during the team-building exercises, the breakout session on "disruptive innovation," the unhurried cocktail hour. She'd chosen not to. The spinach felt like a small, green middle finger she could secretly extend toward him every time he smiled.

She thought about her apartment in Chicago, her boyfriend who'd stopped asking when she'd visit, the novel she'd been writing in her head for three years. This job was supposed to be temporary. Two years, max. That had been five years ago.

"The market's a bull, Maya," Richard had told her during her performance review. "You've got to ride it or get trampled."

She'd nodded and taken the modest raise and the vague promise of a promotion that would never materialize. The spinach watched her through three meetings.

Now Richard was treading water in the center of the pool, calling her name. Somewhere behind her, her coworkers were laughing at something meaningless. Maya thought about the novel she wasn't writing, the life she wasn't living, the version of herself who existed only in the quiet moments before sleep.

She set her prosecco on the edge of the pool and stepped in. The water was cold enough to make her gasp. Richard cheered.

As she swam toward him, Maya made herself a promise: Monday morning, she'd update her resume. And she'd finally tell him about the spinach.