by Kaira Rouda
“I have looked, and interviewed. As I said, I have several offers I’m weighing. I will negotiate them all and select the best package. I’ll announce something soon,” I answer. My champagne glass is long empty, and I need a drink. With the waiter both ignoring and hating me, I will most likely be devoid of a beverage for the remainder of this miserable meal. I scan the restaurant, the tables nearest to us and make eye contact with a young, stout woman who is the waitress for the next table over. She nods in acknowledgment of my wave, as if she’ll be right over. Hopefully, our waiter hasn’t warned her off.
“So that’s your plan, then?” Mia says. Her arms are folded across her chest, and she’s leaning forward, like a principal at school who has called you into her office so you can create your own punishment. Who would comply with that? I wouldn’t. “Your severance, if you received any, has been gone for a while. Our accounts are all almost empty. You don’t feel any sense of urgency?”
This meal will go on record as the longest dinner ever. I fight the urge to check my wristwatch—it’s a sleek Apple Watch but if I don’t turn my wrist exactly the correct way the display remains black and I must quite obviously push a button on its side to illuminate the damn time. I long for the olden days of watches that simply told you the time. I wonder where my old Nashville watch is. Unfortunately, I never did get the bloodstain off the band.
It’s fine. I already know time is moving as slowly as my youngest son when you are waiting for him to complete a task. I appreciate patience is a virtue and applaud those who have it, as long as they stay out of my way. Here we are, though, the money/job question. But it’s fine. As noted, I have been expecting this.
“I did receive some severance, as a matter of fact,” I say. That is a lie. When you’re fired, you don’t receive much. They gave me two months’ pay as a token gesture. Whatever. You just get called into the idiot HR woman’s office and told you are fired. Your things are packed up into boxes by strangers. Security guards escort you out of the building as if you were going to go postal or something. As if you knew you were to be fired and had brought a gun with you. But you didn’t, because these people are sneaky. No, they don’t give you warnings, I suppose, so you can’t bring a gun and blow off the head of the droopy-eyed, twelve-year-old-looking head of HR. I hate HR people. I never really had closure with mine, come to think of it.
She sat behind her desk, pointing to the chair in front of her. Her name was Rebecca More. The entire space behind her was filled with potted plants, like an untamed nursery, and smelled like fertilizer. The plants blocked the window so the effect was a perpetual cloudy day. This was not, of course, our first meeting. She had called me in almost three months earlier to inform me that a coworker had filed a harassment claim against me. I had been stunned. Two reasons. First, her outfit. I mean, we were supposed to be the top advertising agency in the region and this woman was wearing, I kid you not, something straight from Kmart. Black polyester pants, a light pink blouse that barely stayed closed over her gigantic breasts. Her droopy eyes were accented by black cat-eye shaped glasses. I almost started to laugh, thinking the creative team had tricked me into a television commercial shoot right here in our offices. Rebecca More could not work at Thompson Payne. She wasn’t cool enough.
“Sit down, Mr. Strom,” she said, motioning toward the white leather chair. I sat, playing my role.
“Call me Paul,” I said, pouring on the charm. I looked around her office, trying to find the creative team’s hidden cameras behind one of the potted palms. Any moment one of the young guys from that department would appear, his hair pulled back in a ponytail, and say, “We got you, man.”
“Is something funny, Mr. Strom?” Rebecca asked. I bit my bottom lip to keep the grin off my face. Perhaps this wasn’t a commercial shoot. No problem. She would be putty in my hands by the end of the meeting, that’s what I had thought.
“How long have you worked at the agency, Rebecca? Welcome,” I said.
I could tell by her head-tilted snarky look that was the wrong thing to say.
“I’ve been with the agency as director of HR for two years, Mr. Strom. We have been in meetings together. But that isn’t important. This is a formal warning. You are to have no unnecessary contact at work with Ms. Caroline Fisher. You are to cease inviting her on to your account pitches. She was given the option to take this a step further, but she is giving you a chance here, Mr. Strom.”
Rebecca closed the file on her desk, my file I supposed, and placed her glasses on top of it.
I sat across from her and blinked. I wasn’t so much shocked as angry. How dare Caroline, someone I’ve helped grow and prosper at the agency, turn on me? We had something special at first. Something rivaling the connection Mia and I had. I know she felt it, too. Caroline had been new to the agency, new to town. I’d noticed her the day old Mr. Thompson was showing her around. But her second day, she was on her own. She needed a mentor, someone to show her the ropes and I would gladly apply for the job. When I saw her walking across the parking lot, I headed for the elevator and wouldn’t you know it, we ended up sharing a ride up together. Just the two of us.
You know by now I have a type. Thin, young, long hair. Caroline is no different. She has long, dirty-blond hair that swings past her shoulders, green eyes and she wears tight jeans, high heels and blazers to work. She takes my breath away.
“You’re head of account services?” she asked once I’d introduced myself in the elevator. “That’s my dream job. I mean, someday.”
She blushed, uncertain if I’d take her gunning for my job the right way. I didn’t feel threatened, of course. Just turned on. Really turned on.
“Well, to prep for your eventual takeover of my position, how about if I assign you to the essential oil account? It’s our most fun consumer-facing account at the moment.” I offered the position as I imagined rubbing Caroline with lavender oil, her shoulders, her thighs.
“That would be amazing, thank you, Mr. Strom,” she said.
“Call me Paul.” I shook her hand as the elevator doors opened, holding it a bit longer than usual. The sexual energy was there. It had been a promising start.
And then, boom. Once she found out I was married, suddenly I was a stalker. We had been working long hours on the essential oil account, preparing for the big pitch when my secretary interrupted, explaining my wife was on the line and it was urgent. It wasn’t. Mikey had a fever, that was it. But it was enough. After I took the call, Caroline had changed.
I tried to joke around with her, put my hand on her shoulder like I had before the call. She shook it off.
“Paul, I didn’t know you were married.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest.
“Yes, so?” I said, focusing on the presentation scattered on the conference room table.
“Kids, too?” she asked. She blinked her big eyes at me and shook her head.
Of course she was surprised. I’d never met with her in my office, where the photos of my perfect family are displayed. And recently, I’d gotten into the habit of forgetting to wear my wedding ring. I’d been keeping her busy on the essential oil pitch, so busy she hadn’t had a chance to bond with anyone else at the agency, hadn’t had an opportunity to get the real scoop on me. But so what? So she didn’t know about my family, but they didn’t have anything to do with us, with Caroline and me.
We hadn’t even made out yet, I hadn’t kissed her full lips. I had been just about to make my first move. Such a missed opportunity. She didn’t seem to be as sad about this development as I was. She seemed mad, come to think of it. Ah, the folly of youth. I knew she’d come around, welcome me into her life once she got over the little shock of my wife, and kids. Of course she would. She could feel the electricity between us.
Back in the Little Shop of Horrors I said, “There are two sides to every story, Rebecca.” I sat up straight in my chair and
leaned a little forward, full of power and anger at being wrongfully accused of something by this woman. She was a rank below me, Rebecca was, and should call me Mr. Strom. Caroline was several rungs below me—I thought of that and an image of Caroline’s young, beautiful body, naked and below me, sent shivers down my spine. I composed myself and added, “Caroline is a young, impressionable junior account executive, barely out of college, and fully delusional.”
Rebecca did that annoying, snarky head tilt again and said, “So you’re denying the harassment?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Do you know what harassment is, Mr. Strom?” Rebecca asked.
“Of course I do. That’s why I can say with authority that I’ve done nothing of the kind. There is nobody who loves and cherishes women more than me, Rebecca. I’ve promoted women all of my career. I prefer working with women over men. That is the opposite of harassment,” I said. I was growing tired of this meeting. I wanted her to hand me the file, and then I wanted to go to Mr. Thompson and have her fired.
“You call her cell phone five times a day, both during work hours and in the evenings. You text her sometimes fifteen times per day. You are angry she will not go out with you, Mr. Strom. You are angry that someone has told you no, aren’t you?”
“Of course not. I’m calling her for work-related issues. She is assigned to many of my accounts,” I said.
“You are clever, Mr. Strom. No voice-mail messages except to call you, no threatening texts. Just to contact you. Why is it so urgent that she call or text you, all the time? What work-related topic, Mr. Strom, could possibly require that type of constant communication on weekends even?”
“We are a busy agency, Rebecca. Surely you know that clients don’t care if it’s after hours or on the weekend, not if they need things,” I said. Everyone has needs, I thought. I wondered what Rebecca needed. Unfortunately, she was not my type. We both knew that.
Rebecca had put her glasses back on and opened the file again. She appeared to be reading some sort of printout, a list of some kind. “This is Caroline Fisher’s personal cell phone record from last month. She has not turned over any other communications from you to me, and won’t if you cease.” I wonder what I was forgetting about, what else Caroline might have from me. I swallowed. Rebecca stared at me and waited for an answer.
“Sure, fine. I’ll immediately assign Andy Pool to my accounts and replace Caroline Fisher. He’s a great kid, much better at his job than Ms. Fisher, actually. Maybe she will enjoy working on the technical manuals? Those high-tech clients just churn through our young people. You should place her there,” I said. “My accounts will be fine. They’ll love working with Andy.”
“Great. So glad we understand each other,” Rebecca said. “This is your one and only warning, Mr. Strom. As you know, we have a zero tolerance policy in regards to gender discrimination and sexual harassment. You are a director of this company and you should be setting the appropriate example. You have not. Unfortunately, without more proof or evidence from Ms. Fisher, I cannot fire you today.”
Rebecca stood and placed both hands on top of my file. She glared at me through her ridiculous glasses. And said, “But I assure you, I know the proof is there. If you go near her, threaten her, call her, or otherwise just cause her to have a bad day at the office because of your actions, your career is over here. Understand?”
I realized that I had never been threatened by a woman before this moment. I had a new feeling inside and I didn’t have a name for it. Suddenly, I felt claustrophobic. There were too many potted plants crowding the back wall of her office and the smell was disgusting, like a moldy jungle. The plants seemed to be droopy, either from lack of sunlight, overwatering or pure boredom. Otherwise, her office was unadorned. The walls were white, the shelves barren, except for a few books about HR policies and procedures. Boring manuals for boring rule-following people like her. Everything about Rebecca More was drooping, musty and irritating. I was anxious to be done with her. And she was waiting for my answer.
“Understood, Rebecca,” I said, standing and leaning ever so slightly toward her over her desk. She startled and stepped back, bumping into her chair, which knocked into a potted tree. A leaf poked through her hair and that made me happy. I had said her name as if it were toxic, a poison making my tongue thick by its mere presence in my mouth. And then I turned and walked out of her office, never expecting to be summoned there once more only three short months later.
I told myself there would be no more empowering Caroline Fisher. A shame, really, after all I’d done for her. After all we’d worked on together. I also reminded myself that there would be other young women drawn to the agency, that I had a great wife, a brilliant life and two sons who everyone said were the most handsome boys they’ve ever seen. And of course, there would always be someone new on the side, someone like Gretchen, a young woman who would simply cross my path at the right time. Although I hadn’t met her yet, I knew she was out there. There were always Gretchens. I mean, look at me. Women love me, almost all women. But Caroline? She never even put out—such a tease. Who needed Caroline Fisher?
Mia interrupts my reflections. “Excuse me. I just need to powder my nose.”
Of course I stand as she pushes her chair away from the table. The waiter is faster than me, though, and pulls her chair out for her. She smiles up at him sweetly before walking away from the table, the champagne-colored silk of her dress shining in the candlelight. I watch the waiter as he refolds the napkin and places it on the table, as if she were never there. He ignores me completely. That’s fine. My thoughts are elsewhere.
8:45 p.m.
15
Turns out I did need Caroline Fisher.
It is my fault, I know. But I thought if we could just talk one more time, she’d see what she was missing. It had been more than two months of no contact and two long months of watching my back. Or, more precisely, two months spent on full alert, watching to be certain that no one would see me watching Caroline. Rebecca More was not a fan of mine, of course, she had told me as much. I had no way of knowing who else in the office she had turned against me, who else was watching me.
As for Caroline, if I saw her walking down the hall, I’d duck into someone’s office before she could see me. Andy had taken over all of her accounts, and the transition had been seamless. Caroline’s new cubicle was on another floor of the building; she was handling our automotive accounts with a senior account executive, a ballbuster woman named Judy. Fine.
But for some reason, I couldn’t get my mind off Caroline. I couldn’t stop myself from stealing a glance at her as she walked into the office each morning from the parking lot, for example. It was something to look forward to, a moment I cherished, catching a glimpse of Caroline stepping out of her car, looking lovely. This particular November day, there was a chill in the air, and Thanksgiving was just a week away. Somehow, we ended up alone together in the same elevator. I swear I hadn’t planned it. It just happened. Serendipity. She wore a tight-fitting navy knit dress and high-heeled leather boots, and she smelled like apricots. She tried to get out of the elevator when she spotted me, but it was too late and the doors closed.
“Hello, Caroline,” I said. Friendly, nonthreatening salutation, but my voice was husky with desire, I’ll admit.
“Paul,” she said. She nodded but kept staring at the doors as if willing them to open.
“Good to see you, it’s been a while,” I said.
Caroline kept her gaze on the closed elevator doors. “Yes, it has.”
“Drinks tonight, for old times’ sake?” I asked. That’s all. I promise. I may have added, “You look amazing,” or “God, I miss you,” but that’s it, really.
She turned her head and looked at me as if I’d grown horns. Her face was white, her eyes wide as if she was afraid, which was ridiculous. How could she be afraid of me?
“You are unbelievable. You’re sick. You really are sick,” she said, and as soon as she stepped out of the elevator, I knew I was in trouble.
It took Rebecca an entire week to summon me to her jungle-like lair that last time, which is why for seven days I had convinced myself that Thompson or Payne had saved me. We were the good old boys. We did what we did, and we got a slap on the wrist. That’s what I had thought. In the end, I didn’t get anything more than two months, Mia is correct.
Rebecca stroked a fat green leaf on one of her plants and smirked as I walked toward her desk. She’d won, she knew it. “Mr. Strom. Have a seat.”
I closed the door behind me, but it opened again immediately. A stout short guy dressed in a rent-a-cop uniform appeared behind me. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.
“I can assure you this is no joke, Mr. Strom. It’s over. You’re fired. Your things will be shipped to your home address. The partners have generously given you two months’ severance, although I recommended against it given the severity of your crimes.”
Rebecca was enjoying this. I was not. “Crimes. Really? I’ve been a loyal employee, I’ve made this place what it is.”
“We’re finished here. Please escort him out.” Rebecca smiled, a tight-lipped smile. I felt the meathead’s strong hand around my arm.
I shook him off. “Big mistake, Rebecca,” I said, and walked out the door, my head held high, a smile on my face until I reached my car. Inside the Flex, I began to formulate my plan.
I have been draining my 401(k) although minus the company’s match for last year. I lost that when I got terminated. I’m considering it to be my severance package. I lost a lot in penalties using it, but it is what it is. Back then, when it happened, it wasn’t long before Christmas rolled around and Phyllis and Donald’s gifts rolled in. I had imagined we could make the 401(k) money stretch to another Christmas, get the gifts from good old Phyllis and Donald again. That was as far as I’d gotten, back then. Oh, and my special credit card. I know now it was not a solid financial plan. This money thing is my only weakness, I told you that.
