The Truth According to Ember

by Danica Nava

I looked up your résumé, and you have a basic accounting certificate from a crap community college. What makes your ignorant ass think you can understand anything that is going on at a tech company after two weeks?” “Associate’s degree,” I mumbled. I knew what I made up on my résumé.

Natalie was wasted as an executive assistant. She could run a company. I didn’t fear her. I wanted to be her. She was the most incredible person I had ever met.

I guessed that was a sign that he loved the book and believed everyone had to read it? I was wary of self-help books, especially ones that touted taking advantage of situations. My people were historically always the ones getting taken advantage of for individual, corporate, and government monetary gain.

In my customary Ember-not-giving-a-fuck fashion, I kicked my flats off my feet and high into the air. Where did each land? I didn’t know. That was future Ember’s problem.

“Be careful, Danuwoa, I wouldn’t want to ruin you,” I said, laughing. He sat up and rested his arms on the bed. “It’s funny. I woke up this morning thinking, ‘I hope this girl destroys me.’ ”

I was the dependable one. I was, if you could believe it, the honest one.

“Forced proximity works, I read about it all the time.” She shrugged. “In romance novels! This is the real world.”

“You lied so much, and I thought it was all just stupid stuff because you were embarrassed about not having money. I felt like I knew you.”

“I wish you had come to talk to me about it. I’m a grown man, and I don’t need protecting. We are supposed to be partners and face these things together.

This was what I was most thankful for and would be celebrating today. On the day we Indians saved the pilgrims.

You see, this older generation of executives, in my experience, loved to ask me how I paid for college, with a twinkle in their eyes and a distorted sense of glee—probably because they knew they ruined the cost of education for all generations after them. When I mentioned I received help from my tribe, weird things started happening. Stories of great-grandma Cherokee princesses I could handle, but not other things, like a former executive asking me if my grandmother was a derogatory slur referring to Native American women.