The Checklist by Addie Woolridge (famous ebook reader txt) 📕

suck without you.” Dylan laughed, switching off the car. “Let’s grab a bite and see what program Tim has in store for us.”

“I’m excited about the food part. Tim’s program, not so much.”

Giggling, they made their way back toward the taxidermized palace. As Dylan reached for the door handle, the smell of bleach and something altogether unpleasant hit her. Looking around the room, she could see adults stuffed into lunchroom tables that reminded her of the second grade, while the line for food wrapped around the room.

“I have an energy bar in my purse. Maybe I’ll eat that,” Deep whispered, eyeing a yellowish substance on someone’s plate. “Do you think that is mac and cheese or pureed squash?”

“Does squash come in that color?” Brandt asked as he passed them, heading toward a table under a dusty black bear.

Wrinkling her nose at her friends, Dylan followed Brandt toward the table. Settling in, she relaxed as Brandt and the other interns began to grill Deep about some TV show all of them were following. Apparently, Deep had taken the unpopular stance that this season’s villain was the best character in the show’s history, upsetting nearly every other fan at the table. Dylan hadn’t seen the show, but she did her best to needle her friend while taking in the feel of the room. Sure, the food looked marginally inedible, but people seemed to be having a good time. She was about to jump up and grab cookies for the table when Tim started making his way to the newly acquired PA system.

“Good evening. I hope everyone has settled in nicely.” Tim’s voice carried over the hall, instantly quieting everyone down. “I know today has been a busy one, so I won’t let this run too late. I thought that for tonight’s prime-time session we could all use some inspiration, so I wanted to talk about why I started Technocore. Like many companies before it, Technocore started with an idea.”

“Oh God.” An intern with short curly hair sitting next to Brandt slumped. She waited a beat, then got up and wandered toward the cookies, her face lit by the aggressive glow of a cell phone that had appeared faster than anyone could blink.

Tim started into his childhood, which sounded more mundane than he seemed to think it was. He clearly envisioned this as his own inspirational TED Talk. Unfortunately, Dylan didn’t find him nearly as interesting as the talk done by the biochemist turned radical nun or that kid who’d figured out how to print new computers using a paper clip and some recycled shoes. Looking around the room, she saw that René from sales had put his head on the table and fallen asleep, and the guy next to him was about fifteen seconds from unintentionally joining him.

“No one is watching,” Dylan said under her breath.

“That’s not true,” Brandt whispered back, nodding at the giant cross above Tim’s head. “God is always watching. And in case he gets bored, the animals are watching too.” Brandt snickered into his Styrofoam cup.

“Stop it,” Dylan said, trying unsuccessfully to suppress a grin as the curly-haired intern returned with a plate full of cookies. As Tim droned, she lost track of how many stay-awake cookies she ate, as well as the number of times René woke himself up snoring.

“So that is the true meaning of what we’ve done here. And what Technocore really means to the world. Thank you for being a part of that. Have a great night, and let’s do some inventive thinking tomorrow!” Tim said, then paused for thunderous applause. Instead, he received a polite smattering of claps mingled with the grunts and scratches of people trying to free themselves from the cafeteria benches.

Dylan cataloged as many employee responses as possible. She always felt that specific feedback was particularly helpful in instances of clueless failure. And this was nothing if not a spectacular failure to read the room. She took a full-body breath, trying to imagine the way she felt in yoga class. It almost worked, except for the part where her inhale smelled like burnt popcorn. Extracting herself from the table, she looked around the room to find Tim missing. She had to hand it to him; the guy knew how to exit the scene of a catastrophe.

“You won’t get out of feedback so easily,” Dylan whispered to herself, making her way toward Joe, who was still holding his precious bullhorn and a stack of maps.

“Hi, Joe. Any chance you know which cabin Tim is in?”

Joe eyed her with an impressive display of nausea and suspicion. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because I’m an ax murderer, Joe,” Dylan said, before she could stop herself. Gritting her teeth as Joe took a small step back, she added, “I want to give him feedback on tonight’s session, and as you can see, he is gone.”

Joe’s frame relaxed. “He does need feedback,” he said, nodding his head aggressively. “Cabin twenty-three. Medic’s hut. Need a map?”

“I know where it is. Have a good one,” Dylan said over her shoulder before making the short walk to the hut across the way. Of course this schmuck was staying in the medic’s cabin. It was a single with a private bathroom.

Dylan let her fist hit the door with more force than was strictly necessary, hoping the act would warm up her fingers.

“Who is it?” Tim’s voice called from the other side.

“Dylan. Thought we should go over some feedback from today,” she said, beginning to do the it’s-cold stomp on his doorstep. The latch popped, and Tim cracked the door open and stood aside to let her in. “Thank you,” she said, gliding into the warm cabin and rubbing her hands together.

Dylan’s eyes darted around the room, looking for the animal heads that had come to be the hallmark of her time at the campground, and was pleasantly surprised to find there were none. Instead, the cabin sported the rustic shellacked wood one expected to see in a medical hut.