Working as an editorial assistant in academic publishing was hardly what Maggie would call a dream job. She always envisioned herself working in the book world of her dreams, with book release parties, free advance copies, the chance to play a role in WHAT COMES OUT NEXT, but the reality was that there weren’t opportunities for advancement—it seemed once one became an editor, he or she REMAINED an editor until, well, death. Her main job was to pad the egos of needy authors while trying to stay within the marketing department’s goals for each book.

She hated it so much, but it paid the bills, as they say. With over $70,000 of student loan debt, there was little else she could do but put the pittance she made at work toward her education.

Maggie tried not to be bitter about it, but on days like this, it was hard not to. The head of academic sales was turning up the heat on all departments because the company stood to lose more than they earned in their fiscal year.

That meant that certain pressure was put on the editorial team to pull in more readable books. That meant that Maggie had to coddle upset authors whose books were put on the back burner to make room for more financially successful pursuits.

It would be one thing if Sarah, the head of academic sales, was easy to swallow. She had a tyrant-in-a-rage air about her all day every day and when she wasn’t tearing someone down about the quality or quantity of his or her work, she was TALKING about how she tore someone else down about HIS OR HER work. That’s just how it was and they all had to deal with it.

Maggie desperately wanted a new job, but the dead of winter wasn’t exactly hiring season. Besides, the five years she spent in publishing seemed like enough for two lifetimes and she was unsure of where she should or COULD go with the rather specific experience of an editorial assistant of an academic publisher. She felt both lost and stuck and so she put her time in from nine to five during the work week, occasionally half-heartedly applying for other jobs in her field, often wondering what the point was because all places will basically be more of the same.

By the time three o’clock on any given Friday rolled around, Maggie would start counting down the minutes to her weekend, and this Friday wasn’t any different, even if it was -10 with the wind chill that February. Weekends meant thick socks, leggings, big sweaters, and wine, lots of wine, lots and lots of wine, with her two roommates, Amy and Cait.

Three-thirty: emails to hopeful authors. Four: quick catch-up with her editor. Four-thirty: a lot of busy work pretending to finish up the week. Four-fifty: bathroom. Four-fifty-three: shut down computer. Four-fifty-five: put on coat and leave.

Five: flat fucking tire. Flat fucking goddamned bitch tire standing between Maggie and her weekend.

When she got her license, her father showed her how to change a flat. And he showed her again and again and again ad nauseam. She knew how to change a tire. She just didn’t WANT to with the winter winds whistling through the car park, accelerated and maybe even cooled down further by the nature of the structure, but that last part was probably just in her head. Changing her tire meant taking off her gloves and getting down onto the semi-frozen ground to complete the task. Some genius who parked next to her had dumped the remainder of one of those sugar packed 7-Eleven slurpees out of his driver’s side door onto the semi-heated ground—right where she needed to sit to change the passenger side front tire. The ground was frozen and goopy and smelled a little like artificial grape and motor oil. It made that empty feeling in her stomach a nauseous, vomitty feeling.

Maggie took the jack and the tools out of her trunk and she swore quite loudly that whomsoever dumped GRAPE SLURPEE on the ground next to her car better not come back until she was LONG GONE.

No such luck. That’s just when John appeared. John, her office crush. John, with the bright smile and the witty quip at the ready. John, the man she’d pined over for the three years that he worked with her. John, the grape slurpee spiller.

“Oh, hey Mags! What happened here?” he asked as he approached her very obviously changing a flat tire.

She didn’t have time for this. “You can see what happened here, John.”

“Alright, alright, sorry. Let me give you a hand with that.”

“I’m fine, really.”

“Maggie, changing a tire is a complicated task. A real man’s job. Why don’t you get in your car and turn the heat on? I’ll have this done in a jif.”

“Funny, my dad never told me it was a man’s job when he made me learn how to do it myself.”

“Well, there are some men who want women to act more independently than they can manage, Mags.”

She finished putting on the spare just as he finished mansplaining gender differences and stereotypes. All she wanted was to leave for her beloved weekend, but John insisted on inspecting the tire “for safety”. And just like that, the spell was broken. She no longer had an office crush. There was a small, electric-feeling shift in the atmosphere that told him so.

They both felt her adoration waning. Maggie even felt empowered by it while John seemed to wilt in front of her.

He said, “Well, looks good to me. Have a nice weekend, Mags.”

She loaded the tools and flat tire into her car and wished him a good weekend, full of mansplaining, beerz, broads, and whatever else anti-feminist bastards do in their spare time.

She got into her car and drove away, but not before she saw him slip and fall in grape slurpee through her rearview mirror.