She was probably dismissing me, but I didn't get up and leave. I wanted to say something about Sean as well, but at this point in the conversation I wasn't sure where to start. Since I had nothing to lose, I just started anywhere.
“For what it's worth, I also wanted to apologise for leaking information about Pink,” I told her. “I didn't do it intentionally, but I definitely could have been more careful.” I wasn't sure how relevant it was, but I also added, “My girlfriend is struggling with a very difficult brother, and before Wednesday and the meetings with Sean and yourself, I don't think I really understood what that meant.”
Diane didn't look very impressed by my apology. “You can be sorry about your actions,” she told me, “but unfortunately that doesn't undo the lasting impact they've had on the organisation and people within it. By some miracle you actually sold that contract and you don't need to apologise to your team for missing out on their bonuses. If you did, they'd probably feel much as I do right now. You took an unacceptable risk, unacceptable. Of course I'm pleased we sold the contract, but with regard to your behaviour, the outcome is irrelevant.”
The lasting impact my actions had on people. “I know,” I said. “I'm aware of that. But I think it's still important to apologise.”
She looked even more unimpressed. “I think after your dealings with my brother you'll have some idea how little value I place on empty words,” she said. “If you break something, fix it. Apologies are useless.”
“I thought I did fix it,” I said, thinking of the pitch.
She exhaled. “You're in the wrong industry,” she said, almost as an afterthought. This time, she didn't leave any opportunity for me to think I was still welcome to remain in her office. “Now go and write me that email you promised,” she instructed me. “And afterward, collect your belongings and exit the building. Surrender your security pass on the way out.”
That seemed to be it. As I was standing to leave, reflecting on the fact that despite all expectation, she hadn't really dressed me down or made me feel particularly stupid, she stopped me. I wasn't sure what else she was going to say to me at first—maybe I was about to be burnt after all—but that wasn't what happened.
She didn't look away from her computer screen, and from her tone of voice I'd never have guessed what she was going to say. “Tell your friend to count her losses and give up on her brother right now,” she said impassively. “So that she doesn't waste half her life hoping he'll change.”
I gaped at her for a moment. I wasn't given the opportunity to seek clarification about what she meant, because she immediately bent over towards the phone and pressed the pager. “We're done now, Cadence,” she said, and then the door behind me promptly opened and I was shown out.
Sarah had been called off to some meeting while I was with Diane—as had most of Marketing, including Ian and Carlos—which meant I was able to sit down at my desk in relative peace and write Diane my resignation. I wrote about 15 versions of it, because now that I had some time to think, I regretted not standing up for myself in how inappropriate Jason's behaviour had been towards me. Eventually I wrote a version that encouraged Diane to seriously consider the complaint, because even in my absence Jason's behaviour would continue to negatively impact the department. While I was wondering if that was bitter and unprofessional, I just hit 'send' anyway. Whatever, it wasn't like I planned to work in marketing again and needed a reference.
While I was clearing out my desk and trying to decide which materials and prints I really wanted to keep and which I could shred, there was a gentle knock on the door. That was a bit weird; Marketing boys weren't generally known for their mild manners.
“Come in,” I called while I was elbow deep in one of my drawers. Now that the project was over there was probably no need for confidentiality.
When the door opened, I noticed the red hair before I noticed anything else. The maroon stockings were pretty obvious, too, especially under a black skirt. There was something a bit charming about them. “Gemma,” I acknowledged her, and then stood up from my drawer.
She let herself in and closed the door behind her. “Sarah said you might need some help with—” Her eyes dipped to my crotch when she turned to face me again; I forgot she hadn't seen the packer before, even if Sarah had definitely told her about it. She was surprised enough by it that she lost her train of thought momentarily.
“With packing up?” I finished, my word choice deliberate. When she gaped at me for it, I winked. I shouldn't have, because she flushed that glorious deep red that only someone with skin as light as hers could. I didn't let her suffer for long, though. “Yeah, I've got a few boxes I want to take back to my place. Maybe three or four, depending on how ruthlessly I cull this pile.” I gestured to the stacks of old marketing material samples that I'd kept.
Gemma tried to pretend she wasn't blushing so much her freckles had disappeared, and came over to inspect the materials. She picked one up and flipped through it. “Why are you keeping all this stuff?” she asked. “If all the things that happened to you here had happened to me, I wouldn't be able to even look at them. I'd be too angry.”
I continued to sort everything into two piles. “I think I've run out of emotions for this place,” I said. “I literally feel nothing. Almost like it wasn't even me who worked here and I'm cleaning up for someone else, as weird as that sounds. I'm not even angry at Sean.”
“Which pile for this one?” she asked about the brochure she was holding, and then put it on the one I indicated. “Why would you be angry at Sean?” she asked, reminding me that I hadn't told them about what he was like yet. “He paid for my coffee this morning for no reason, just because he was in the line behind me. He's really nice.”
Of course he did, I thought, remembering when we'd crashed into Gemma in the lift. “I'll tell you guys in a minute,” I said. “Not at work, though.”
She leant on the partition and watched me cleaning out my drawers. “Well, not that we ever hung out much, but it's sad you're leaving. And Sarah probably won't tell you because she's not like that, but she's really going to miss you.”
I looked up at her. No, Sarah didn't tell me that, and, yes, probably wouldn't have. “Thanks for letting me know,” I said, and then went back to packing and worrying about it.
I didn't have to worry for long, though, because Sarah arrived pretty quickly after Gemma did. “Sorry about bailing on you,” she said as she came up to me, “I wanted to be here when Diane was done with you, but...” She stopped talking as soon as she saw Gemma, turning back to me sternly and putting her hands on her hips. “Min,” she said. “What did you do. Why is she blushing?”
That only made Gemma blush more.
“Exertion, probably,” I said in the most innocent of voices. “She was just helping me work through some stuff that I wasn't sure about.”
“Oh, god...” Gemma mumbled and put her burning face in her hands. “I hate you both.”
Sarah mimed beating me up. “You!” she said, “I swear to god I will take out your other eye if you start drama with my friends. Stop flirting with her! You have a girlfriend!” She then turned around to Gemma. “And you, she has a girlfriend, Gem!” She stopped for a second and twisted back to me. “I can still say that, right, 'she'? Or is it 'he' now?”
I was never going to escape fucking pronouns. “'She' is fine, just not in front of people who don't know me.”
Gemma abruptly stopped pretending to cry. “Wait, you're not a guy now? But you got your hair cut and you have the...” She looked at my crotch again.
I blinked at her. That was a very difficult question to answer on the spot, especially when I didn't really know the answer.
At Gemma's expression, and despite the fact she had been telling me not to tease her, Sarah said, “Well, I guess that means you will have to question your sexuality after all, Gem.”
Gemma's face scrunched up and she put it in her hands again. “Sarah,” she said, but it came out as a pained whimp
er. “Why are you doing this...?”
We had to stop messing around, though, because the door opened again and Ian and Carlos came in. They weren't surprised to see me; apparently word spread fast.
“Is it true Diane just fired you?” Carlos asked, eyes wide.
After I'd explained everything and after I'd sorted everything into shred and keep piles, Ian volunteered to do that shredding and then Sarah, Gemma and I shared the other boxes between us to carry them back to my place.
I hadn't been out of Oslo for five seconds before people started jogging over to talk to me. I wasn't fazed by that at all until Sarah nudged me and made a frantic noise.
I saw where she was looking; one of the people approaching me was Jason.
Shit, I thought, and kept walking as if everything was fine and normal. Gemma didn't recognise him and pressed the button when we got to the lift. “So, is it far to your place?” she asked. “Not that this box is that heavy, but I made the stupid mistake of wearing heels this morning.”
Because Jason was coming up to me, the other clerks held back apprehensively. Technically Jason was their peer now, but he had been their manager and was likely to be their manager again, so their hesitation was understandable. It didn't make me any more comfortable, though.
I pretended to very casually answer Gemma as Jason stopped right next to me, his eyes boring holes through the side of my head. “I can't tell you what a relief it is to wear flats,” I said. “These are a tiny bit big, though. I should probably go shopping for ones that actually fit.”
When I didn't immediately acknowledge him, Jason cleared his throat. “Mini.” He still sounded like my manager.
Gemma glanced at him, but double-took when she saw his expression and looked surprised by how harsh it was.
“If those are marketing materials, that's Frost International property and you need to leave them on site.”
To be honest, closed marketing materials were a bit of a grey area. There was no real reason for me not to take them as long as I wasn't handing them out on the street, and that wasn't why he was saying it. He was just trying to flex his muscles because he was angry with me about the complaint and the pitch.
I'd had it with him, though, so when the lift dinged at that moment and the doors slid open, I said very politely, “Do I?” and from the tone of my voice it would have been clear to him I was humouring him.
He stepped directly in front of me when I went to walk into the lift.
Around me, people edged away from us. Even Sarah was too afraid to say anything to rescue me, and Gemma just looked really stunned. People down the other end of the floor stood from their desks, watching. Everyone was watching. Even the people in the lift were holding the door open for me under the guise of trying to be helpful.
“Excuse me,” I said to Jason as if he was anyone else, and went to step around him. He didn't let me.
“I said: those marketing materials need to remain on site, Mini,” he enunciated clearly.
When he definitely wasn't going to let me pass, I looked down at him. Being tall definitely had its benefits. “And when I get instructions from management to leave them behind, Jason, that's what I'll do.”
There was a hum from the floor as people shifted uncomfortably and whispered to their neighbours about that. It was like being at a very polite wrestling match.
He shook his head and chuckled dangerously. He was trying to start something. “You're lucky you quit, Mini.”
So he wanted to have it out here, did he? Really? In front of everyone? I understood why he thought it would work: two days ago I would have been terrified of this very situation. I would have been sweating and panicking and desperate to get away. Not anymore. If he thought I was still a shrinking violet, he was about to discover how mistaken he was.
“Why, Jason?” I asked him openly, jogging the heavy box in my arms. “Why? What else were you planning to do to me if I didn't quit? Were you going to move past yelling at me and insulting me to actually beating me up, or...?”
His expression hardened. “If you'd responded to simple instructions I never would have had to yell, Mini,” he told me. “But everything goes in one ear and out the other with you, because you think you know better than everyone else and the world revolves around you and your problems. Your carelessness nearly tanked a critical project. I think that warrants some—”
I cut him off. “Well, I think it warrants some performance management, personally,” I said. “Not my manager belittling me and bullying me. But I guess it doesn't matter what I think, the internal investigation will determine what should have happened.”
I went to step past him again, and he actually took a hold of the box I was carrying to prevent me from leaving. “So that's it,” he said, “you're just going to get in one parting shot at my career because you're bitter you weren't able to—”
“Let go, Jason,” I told him calmly.
He didn't. “—bitter that you weren't able to cope with the pressure that these sort of jobs entail. If you knew the sort of pressure I've had to endure daily and the sort of things I've had to do over the years to get my job and keep it, you'd—”
You know what? I really didn't care about his problems, especially since he'd shown nothing but callous disregard for mine. I couldn't be bothered listening to him rant on about them, either, so I talked over him. “—Diane's instructions were to get my belongings and leave. Do you think that, on top of all the other difficulties she's having with you, she's going to thank you for obstructing me?” I raised my eyebrows at him.
For a split second I saw something snap in him, and I actually thought he might punch me like Andrej had. He managed to contain himself, though, just aggressively shaking my box before he released it, instead. I wasn't intimidated by him.
“Thank you,” I said pointedly, and stepped around him, nodding at Gemma and Sarah, who were staring wide-eyed at me. “Let's go.”
Tailed by the other two, I went and stood in the lift. As marketing gaped at me, the doors closed.
There was oppressive silence as the lift descended; everyone inside it was staring at me, too. Jason's reputation obviously preceded him.
Sarah glanced around at everyone in the lift, smirking. “So, I hear it's going to be really warm this afternoon,” she said conversationally, to draw attention to the fact everyone was silent.
Gemma accidentally snorted, and then looked horrified she made such an inelegant sound in public and blushed again, and then then the three of us ended up trying to smother laughter for the whole rest of the trip down.
“I can't believe you did that,” Sarah whispered to me as we walked through the atrium, carrying the boxes. “I have been fantasising the whole time he's my boss of just shutting him down just like you did. Oh, my god. The level of vicarious triumph I get just by being around you is amazing. I think I'm just going to follow you around with pompoms forever.”
I grinned at her. “You going to wear those leotards and little skirts, too?”
She gave me a tired look. “Ugh. Down, boy,” she said as we walked through the rotating doors and out onto the street.
Sarah may have been joking before in the lift, but it was warm today, and the blue sky was reflecting off the mirrored surfaces of all the skyscrapers. I stopped for a moment and looked up at Frost International Headquarters and the black and white snowflake mounted on the top.
I remembered the first time I saw this building; I'd looked up at it, filled with terror and excitement and completely unable to believe that a company had valued me so much they'd paid to relocate me to another state. I'd thrown myself into the work—I could still hear the compliments people paid to my graphics and layouts when they first discovered I could do that stuff—and had enjoyed feeling important and part of something when people had asked me to stay back late. I'd spent four years in there. I'd met Henry there, and he'd gone on to be so important to me. I'd met these two there. Working for Frost had consumed me, and I'd put my blood
and sweat into everything I produced for them.
And now, right now this second, I was walking away from it. I'd resigned. That part of my life was over, and I wasn't looking up at my work anymore, I was looking up at another generic skyscraper.
Goodbye, I thought. I didn't regret any of it.
“I can't believe you're abandoning us,” Sarah said with exaggerated tragedy. “Who the hell am I going to buy Red Bulls for now? Everyone else sucks.”
“Gee, thanks,” Gemma said with a smile, even though it was obvious Sarah was talking about Marketing.
“Maybe they'll hire a really nice, really cute guy to replace me,” I suggested, and then started walking again. They followed me.
“There's already plenty of cute guys in Marketing, much cuter than the ones in Risk,” Gemma pointed out. “It's just that they're all either married, or gay, or egotistical bastards.”
Sarah laughed once. “So, exactly your types, Gem.” She leant over to me. “Gemma likes guys she can't have.”
Gemma groaned. “Shut up, Sare, that was one time. I didn't know he was married until it was way too late!”
Sarah didn't stop there. “He was older, too, what was he?” She squinted. “She was twenty-four and he was... forty? And rich...” She elbowed her friend as they walked. “If that's your type, word is Sean Frost gets around a bit...”
I made an angry noise, and both of them looked at me. “If a married, gay and egotistical bastard is your type, Gemma, then Sean Frost is definitely up your alley.”
They both frowned at me, and I spent the rest of our walk home detailing all the fuckery Sean Frost had exacted in the last several days, including his parting swing at Henry with the security footage. We were in the lift at my hotel before I was done going over everything.
They were both silent for a few floors, and then Sarah said, “Okay, it's not that I don't believe you because I absolutely do, but I can't believe he'd do all that. God... and all over this stupid brother-sister-rivalry thing they've got going.” She was frowning. “That conversation you overheard, did you find out what was going on with the Waterbank court case? Because I look at the listings every day and there's never any more info. It must be really important, though. Otherwise they wouldn't be so angry at each other and so secretive about it.”
Under My Skin Page 78
