Chapter 74: Salad

“Why the hell did I decide to start a business?” Octavia moaned.

Gracie looked up from her laptop, a shiny new device that had been one of the first purchases made for their start-up.

“To make money,” Gracie said.

Octavia threw one of the couch throw pillows at her. Gracie dodged it.

“Is this the moment you make me regret going into business with you?” Octavia said, laughing.

“If this is the moment, I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like a year from now.”

When her laughter died down, Octavia shut her laptop. Like Gracie, she had also gotten a new model.

“Thank god Lauren knows how to write proposals and shit,” Octavia said, rubbing her eyes.

“And that for some reason she’d rather work for you than your boyfriend,” Gracie commented.

“I know, right?” Octavia said. “But shh! No one knows anything about that yet. Lauren still wants to finish up her internship next month…and then she’ll officially be employed by O.G. Idea.”

“I still feel like that name is weird,” Gracie said.

“Gracie, we agreed on this,” Octavia said coolly. “You choose the company colors and logo, I get to choose the name. Besides, I like it. O.G. can stand for ‘original’ or our initials. Isn’t that clever?”

Gracie snorted in response. “Or for ‘Original Gangster.’”

“I don’t mind that association, honestly.”

They had been camped out on the couches all weekend, working on their business ideas.

It almost seemed like getting the program up and working had been the easy part. Implementing the system into Curie’s facilities would take a lot of ingenuity.

Octavia had spent the weekend in the same pair of sweatpants and the same turquoise sweatshirt, hunched over her laptop and munching on whatever available snack there was.

When Gracie wasn’t walking out the door to meet potential hardware sellers and inspect equipment at the Curie facilities, she was right there with Octavia.

Octavia reached for the last doughnut in the box sitting on the coffee table.

“Fuck,” she grumbled, “we’re out of doughnuts.”

“Order some more,” Gracie said.

“That will still take a whole hour before they get here. The downside of living miles away from your favorite doughnut shop.”

“You could always just order from a place nearer here.”

“Nuh-uh. That would mean a bougie doughnut shop. I’m not eating bougie doughnuts. They’d probably be something gross like sugar-free. What’s the point of that?”

They heard the front door opening, and seconds later, Sierra came in.

“Jesus, what a fucking awful day!” she exclaimed. She flopped onto one of the couches.

“Is the stylist business not going well?” Octavia asked, her eyes still on her screen.

“It’s going great, actually,” Sierra said, “that’s the problem.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Too many people want me to style them. I can’t keep up with the demand. I even tripled my fee. But the requests doubled!”

“You poor thing,” Gracie said.

“Apparently, someone spread a rumor that I turned down Lila Scott. Now every model in the country wants me to style them so it will mean they’re better than Lila Scott.”

A pained expression entered her eyes. “I’m having to turn away people I’ve idolized for years! It’s so painful!” She threw herself onto a cushion in despair.

“You’ll get through it,” Octavia said.

Sierra responded with a muffled groan.

“Hey, if you’re going out again, could you pick up some doughnuts?” Octavia asked Sierra.

Sierra sat up. “More doughnuts?” She gave Octavia a critical look. “How long are you going to be here?”

“As long as it takes,” Octavia said, staring at her screen.

Sierra grimaced. “And you’re going to be eating doughnuts the whole time?”

“Not just doughnuts. For breakfast, I had leftover pot roast.”

Sierra suddenly jumped up and snatched the doughnut out of Octavia’s hand. Octavia was caught unaware mid-bite.

“Hey!” she protested.

Sierra stood above her and held the doughnut loftily.

“Octavia, I’m doing this for your own good,” she said. “If you keep eating all this junk food, you’ll gain weight!”

“I already have gained weight, as a matter of fact,” Octavia said. “Three pounds in the last month.”

Sierra gasped. “How did that happen?”

“Doughnuts. Bagels. Chips. Cake. Muffins. Pizza…”

“I mean, how did you let it happen? You need to go on a diet real fast!”

“Why?” Octavia said.

“Do you want to get fatter?” Sierra demanded.

“I wouldn’t call her fat, exactly,” Gracie said.

“Plump?” Octavia cheerfully supplied. “Stout? Rotund?”

“From some angles, I’d say you could be called ‘curvy.’”

“Of course. Unfortunately, all that ‘curviness’ doesn’t only go to my ass.”

“Octavia,” Sierra said in all seriousness. “You need to act on this. What would Raemon think?”

Octavia grinned. “I’d imagine he’d be happy about having more of me to grab. And if he isn’t…” She shrugged. “Oh well.”

“You think you wouldn’t care? You think you’d be so carefree if he dumped you if you gained twenty pounds?” Sierra said.

“That would be a dumb thing for him to do,” Octavia said, “but I’m sure I’d survive.”

“I’d care,” Gracie said. “I like the free rent here.”

“So you’re saying you want me to hit the gym too?” Octavia asked, looking to her friend in mock astonishment.

“If it’s the only way for you to keep this very expensive roof over our heads,” Gracie said gravely, “then you gotta do what you gotta do.”

Octavia stood. “I’ll start doing crunches immediately!”

“Yes, Octavia. Get to sweating. Our fate is in your hands. And abdomen,” Gracie replied.

“I won’t let you down!” Octavia said fervently. Then she snatched the doughnut out of Sierra’s hand and fell back onto the couch.

Sierra rolled her eyes at the two of them and turned to leave.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she said darkly as she left.

Octavia mused on this. “This is getting annoying.”

“What is?”

“This has got to be the second time someone’s suggested lifestyle changes to me, and cited Raemon as a reason for it.”

“If you’re going to change your life for someone, it might as well be for a billionaire. Think of all those poor people turning their lives upside down for mere peasants.”

Octavia sighed. “It’s all bullshit really. But…I probably could stand to eat more salad or something. And like, actually go to the gym. Like for once, at least.”

“The experience might be rewarding,” Gracie said.

“Easy for you to say,” Octavia grumbled, “you could live off of doughnuts and still be that skinny.”

“And have a heart attack in my thirties, all the same,” Gracie replied. “I like how people assume skinny people are more healthy. I basically live off fast food and haven’t eaten a salad in years.”

“That settles it!” Octavia said. “From now on, we eat salad.”

“And we become the kind of people who think of them as a whole meal,” Gracie agreed.

“Right. And whenever we have a plate of salad in front of us, we’ll just look at it and laugh.”

“Because veggies are funny.”

“Especially in the way they make you shit like a camel.”

With that, Octavia held her doughnut up in the air.

“The age of veggies will commence!” she announced.

“Hear, hear!” Gracie cheered.

“Starting tomorrow, of course.”

Octavia took a bite out of the doughnut and settled herself behind her laptop once more.

Gracie then stood. “Right. I’m out of here. Got to see a guy about a shipment of SSD drives.”

“Bring back some doughnuts?” Octavia said.

“And salad?”

“Sure. Why not?”

Gracie smirked and started for the door. She called to Octavia as she left, “You got it, partner.”

Octavia worked in silence for the next hour. She was so deep in her thoughts, she almost didn’t hear the doorbell when it rang once…then twice.

Octavia’s head snapped up, and she hurriedly set her laptop aside. As she made her way to the door, she wondered if it was Lauren stopping by to talk through the latest draft of their proposal.

But it wasn’t Lauren’s smiling face Octavia opened the door to. It was someone she knew but never would have dreamed would be standing on her doorstep.

Because of this, Octavia wasn’t able to immediately respond to the sight of the person who stood before her.

“Octavia, isn’t it?”

To accompany her aloof question, Marjorie Kentworth wore a haughty gleam in her eyes.

“Uh…uh…yes,” Octavia said, still trying to process what she was seeing. “You’re Marjorie…”

“Mrs. Kentworth,” Marjorie said frostily. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”