Last month, I stayed at the presidential suite of a famous hotel hosting some global affairs conference — just a few blocks away from the basement that I stayed in for the hot, sweaty summer as an intern years ago. A shithole job with subgrade pay where I was also sexually harassed. No one bothered me last month. “I’m in the elevator with X!,” the bellman excitedly announced as he delivered my luggage.

If only my former bosses could see me now …

I think they might have. I’m quite “the big deal now.”

Years of discipline, focus, and hard work have paid off. Despite numerous physical obstacles, betrayals, and saboteurs, I’m almost ready for the next step. I look out the window to the sunset over the city’s skyscrapers as I skip class — the instructor, a diminutive plain man, enjoyed nitpicking on me, perhaps to compensate for the lack of female attention in his younger years. I send a text to an uppity acquaintance who begged me for favors and contacts in my field — “We’re not friends,” I clarify. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

A week before, a classmate got dropped from the program due to his unnerving sexual advances, which I reported. Just another day in the office.

“They’re jealous,” my long-time mentor confides to me. “You’re on your way to the top. It’ll be lonely. They’re copying you.” I have to be more reserved, play my cards more carefully.