The Hating Game

Lucy tries to get information about Joshua from his desk before he arrives to work. She assumes his password is about how he hates her, but she’s wrong. She finds codes written in his planner that she can’t decipher, taking a photo of them with her phone. She hears him coming up the elevator and races to her desk. His chair spins slowly from the movement; he knows she was there.

Joshua steps close to her desk to confront her. They engage in the Staring Game. Joshua is very tall and has “ink-blue” eyes; he looks like Clark Kent from the old Superman comics. Lucy keeps her eyes steady so she doesn’t look at his mouth: “Why would I want to see it up close? I wouldn’t” (18).

Andy the courier arrives with a package for Lucy. He reveals to Joshua, to her dismay, that it’s a rare Smurf figurine for her collection. After Andy leaves, Joshua comments on Lucy flirting with Andy. She says that she was simply nice to him. Joshua thinks she cares too much what other people think. He says: “’You’re chronically addicted to making people adore you’” (22). This stings. She tells the reader: “Joshua is like a mirror that shows me the bad parts of myself” (22). They try to get the other to show vulnerability, the ongoing game. The chapter ends with Lucy trying to decode the marks she found in his planner. She’s dubbed this the Spying Game.

Lucy initiates the You’re Just So Game. She begins: “You’re Just So predictable’” (26), and adds: “You’re just so inflexible” (27), one of the primary things that bothers her about him. Joshua mentions her upbringing. Lucy grew up on her parents’ strawberry farm Sky Diamond Strawberries. Joshua doesn’t know how homesick and lonely she feels when she thinks of her parents; he looks concerned when tears come to her eyes. She knows she’s lost this round.

At the staff meeting, Lucy talks to Danny Fletcher. She sees that he’s attractive, and they flirt. Mr. Bexley and Helene announce that they’ve established a third executive position of chief operating officer (COO). Helene tells Lucy she wants her to get it. Lucy wants it badly. For one, she’d be Joshua’s boss, and for another, she’d have enough money to go home more often and get herself a new car. Joshua tells her: “’The job is mine, Shortcake” (38), but Lucy is determined to win “the most important game we’ve ever played” (38).

Lucy and Joshua head to the office’s kitchen. Their coworkers watch, accustomed to Lucy and Joshua’s enmity. Jeanette from HR appears and reveals with irritation that she was called in to referee; their complaints about one another have become what she calls her “full-time job.” Lucy and Joshua start playing a new game, telling each other how they will treat them when they become the boss. The game grows more and more heated. Joshua makes a mark in his planner.

Lucy video chats that evening with her parents. They discuss the chief operating officer position, strawberries, and how Joshua continues to make her office life miserable. Lucy’s mother asks if she’s made any new friends since Val from work had gotten fired. (Val was laid off when Gamin merged with Bexley; hurt that Lucy didn’t warn her that she was losing her job, Val ended the friendship.) Lucy tells her she has no friends. No one wants to be her friend because of her relationship with and loyalty to the boss. She mentions having met Danny, and her parents grow excited about the possibility of Lucy dating him.

Before going to sleep she studies the photo of the marks Joshua made in his planner. She considers that some of them may tally their arguments, but doesn’t know what the others mean. She plans a sexy outfit for the following day that will throw him off his game.

Lucy has an erotic dream about Joshua and finds herself aroused. She arrives to work in a sexy, little dress. Joshua asks if she has a date. He makes a mark in his planner, and she tries not to think about the dream. He can tell something is up and asks what’s going on. She tells him she had a dream, and they play Word Tennis, in which whomever can’t think of a reply loses. When he asks who her date is with, she knows she needs to find someone quickly. He asks when and where the date is taking place. She makes something up. He says that coincidentally he’ll be there too at the same time. She invents an elaborate and sexy dream to tell him about, and realizes he’s turned on. Lucy finds Danny and asks him to meet her that night so Joshua will believe her lie.

Lucy suggests a team-building retreat to Helene to get the Bexley and Gamin employees to intermingle. At the same time Joshua suggests something similar to Mr. Bexley. Helene and Mr. Bexley argue about which idea they’ll choose, and Helene concedes defeat. She apologizes to Lucy; they’ll be playing paintball. She demands that Joshua and Lucy be on the same team.

Joshua offers to drive Lucy to her date, and stops the elevator on the way to the garage. He picks her up, puts her on the metal railing, and kisses her. The kiss is lustful and intense. Lucy is knocked off her senses. She accuses him of trying to throw her off before her date, and he learns she really has one.

When they arrive at the bar, Lucy jumps out of the car and finds Danny inside. He tells her she’s beautiful. Lucy excuses herself to the hall near the bathrooms where she cries. Joshua appears, bringing her coat, which she left in his car. He asks about her tears, and she gets mad that he’s seeing her like this. She tells him: “’You’ve broken me down so completely, I can’t even handle when a guy tells me I’m beautiful […] You’ve ruined me’” (76). Her hatred for Joshua has become much more complex.