Cutting Loose

by Westlake, Samantha

  “How’d you know that it was me?” he asked, as he always did, his brown eyes sparkling beneath the unruly shock of brown, nearly black hair. Jack insisted that he wore his hair perfectly styled in ‘fashionably mussed appearance,’ but a part of me suspected that he just spiked it up on purpose to accentuate his bed head, give him more of a rumpled and relaxed appearance.

  I looked flatly back at him, extending one hand for my coffee. “It’s seven thirty, Jack. You’re always the first to come into my office, because everyone else knows not to disturb me until after I’ve had my morning coffee.”

  “Ah, but what if I was your boss, though?”

  “If you were my boss, I’d be fleeing this sinking ship of a company,” I told him, smiling. “But if Mr. Sanders needed to speak to me, I doubt that he’d knock before entering.”

  Jack shook his head, passing me my coffee and taking a long pull on his own. “My gosh, Eileen. You really think through everything, don’t you? Have you ever had a surprise party in your life that you didn’t know was coming?”

  I pretended to muse on the question, playing it up. “Strangely enough, I don’t think that I’ve ever been caught off guard by one.”

  “Figures. You’re like some sort of superhuman business robot, sent here from the future to ensure that Integrated Technologies grows to become the next Skynet, aren’t you?”

  “Skynet?” I frowned.

  “You know, from the Terminator series? ‘I’ll be back’, all that?” When my face stayed blank, Jack sighed, throwing up his hand theatrically. “My god, girl, you really don’t have any time for any sort of pop culture at all, do you? Have you even heard of the movies? Do you know who Darth Vader even is?”

  “He’s not from those movies, is he?” When Jack looked like he was seriously considering slapping me, I laughed. “Come on, Jack, I’m pulling your leg. I’m not a robot. Besides, if I’d really been sent from the future to rule a business, I’d be a man, wouldn’t I?”

  “Being a woman doesn’t seem to have held you back,” he retorted. “I don’t think that you can use that as any sort of excuse.”

  I smiled, pleased despite the obvious flattery. I’d poured my heart and soul into my work over the last decade, since I graduated from college with my heard-earned business degree clutched in hand, and my current office and title showed the fruits of my labors. I’d climbed rapidly up the ranks of several companies, landing myself my current role of Associate Vice President of Business Development. When asked by friends and family what the title meant, I just laughed and told them that I was the main fireman of the building, putting out all the metaphorical fires that broke out in and between the other various departments.

  “I do have to ask, honey,” Jack continued, as I shook off his flattery, “have you ever taken a single vacation day?”

  “I take my vacations!” I only added mentally that I usually didn’t get to a lot of relaxing. Even when I was at home or enjoying a day at the spa, I kept my work phone close at hand, ready to deal with any last-minute panicked emergency emails that landed aflame in my inbox. “Like I said, Jack, I’m not a robot. Now, how about getting back to your desk to screen my visitors so I don’t have every single department in here, demanding my attention for their every issue?”

  “Sure thing, Miss T-1000,” Jack said, reaching back behind him for the handle to my office door. I smiled back at him, not sure of the reference but unwilling to receive more teasing for not getting the connection.

  Before leaving, however, Jack paused. “Oh, I did bump into Paunchy on my way into the building,” he added. “He mentioned that he needed to talk to you about something.”

  “Don’t call him that.” My boss, Ford Sanders, the VP of Business Development and my boss on the hierarchy chart, was in his late fifties and regrettably out of shape. Most of the employees treated him with the respect that his elevated position deserved, but I’d never quite managed to get Jack to be respectful of anyone – including myself. I settled for still chastising him, even though I knew it made no difference, and trying to ensure that none of his victims ever heard the nicknames he assigned to them.

  Even now, Jack just puffed out his stomach, pulling his hair back from his forehead with one hand and, I’ll admit, managing a credible impersonation of my boss. “Whatever you say, boss,” he uttered in a low, rather breathy voice.

  “Stop it,” I told him, without much heat behind my words. “What did he want?”

  Jack shrugged, slipping back to himself. “No clue. I’m just your lowly personal assistant, not privy to the whims of the high and mighty executives.” He broke down and gave me a salacious wink. “But I’m sure you can handle it, Superwoman.”

  I waved him out of my office with a smile and a chuckle. Jack had been with me for several years, and despite his lack of respect and sometimes inappropriate sense of humor, I’d developed a heck of a soft spot for the young man. I remembered back when, just out of college, I’d had a similar flippant attitude, convinced that I could breeze my way to the top of the business food chain.

  I took a sip of my coffee, savoring the warmth as it flowed down my throat. I pulled a meal replacement bar out from my desk, tore open the wrapping and ate it in a few bites, using the coffee to keep it from scratching my throat. I ate and drank with one hand, my other flying over my keyboard as I cleared half a dozen small tasks off my to-do list. My day was busy, as always, but I didn’t foresee any real problems coming up.

  I was a little curious, however, what Mr. Sanders might need from me. Usually, my boss preferred to keep a more hands-off approach, only sending me an email or a text message, usually rife with misspellings, if some issue arose. I always had a prompt answer ready for him, ready to soothe his easily ruffled and panicked feathers.

  My mind jumped to the recent BaseSpace deal, a big contract that we’d been hoping to land, but had been tied up in lengthy back-and-forth negotiations for months. Maybe there’d been some news on that front, and we’d finally be able to plan out the rest of our fiscal budget, now that we had the extra income from that deal.

  Still, I figured I’d stay here in my office, let Sanders find me. He was rarely in his own office, and I had plenty of other work to occupy my time. He’d show up soon enough, let me know what new problem was landing on my plate.

  I had full confidence that, whatever the problem might be, I’d know how to tackle it.

  Later, I looked back on that morning with a good bit of nostalgia. That morning, before Sanders found me, was the last time for quite a while that I’d feel confident and secure in my future, not knowing what cruel trick Life was about to throw at me.

  Chapter Two

  Eileen

  * * *

  Three calls and two meetings later, Ford Sanders finally found me.

  “Good morning, Mr. Sanders,” I greeted him sunnily as he stepped into my office, somehow perpetually out of breath and panting slightly as if he’d just climbed a dozen flights of stairs. “Everything going well?”

  He glanced at me for a moment, dropping one thick-fingered hand onto the back of one of the chairs in front of my desk. As always, Mr. Sanders gave me the impression of a man who’d never discovered how to properly press and clean his clothes; he owned half a dozen suits, but they all seemed equally ill-fitting and wrinkled, as if they conformed to wrinkles in his body from the moment he put them on in the morning. He’d started losing his hair at least half a decade previously, but he still combed the few remaining hairs forward to cover his pink and shiny dome, as if unwilling to admit what was immediately apparent to anyone else who looked at him. He wore a wedding ring, looking uncomfortably tight as it cut into the thick flesh of his stubby finger, but I’d never heard him comment anything positive about his wife, and I’d never had the pleasure of meeting the woman at any of the company events.

  Not that I was one to talk, given that I’d never even had a significant other to bring along to any of those events. I showed up, greeted everyone, indulg
ed in a single drink, and then made sure to duck out before any of the real craziness, the kind of antics that got my coworkers fired, could begin.

  “Ah, Ms. Davies,” Sanders greeted me once he’d caught his breath, as if he’d expected to find someone else sitting instead in my office. “And how are you doing today?”

  “As well as can be expected.” I had no trouble making small talk, but Sanders always seemed to struggle with it, like he was reading off some script that he’d found in a Dummies book. Still, he always insisted on muddling his way through, so I let him get it out instead of trying to jump ahead.

  “Good, good, that’s good to hear.” In the back of my head, a little alarm bell began to chime. Whenever Sanders used a positive word over and over in quick succession, it tended to mean the opposite. “Would you mind if we stepped into my office for a minute?” He glanced down at my hands, still positioned over my keyboard. “You can finish up on what you’re doing, if you need to.”

  “No, it’s no trouble.” I saved the agenda I’d been drafting – and then paused, frowning. “Why don’t you just tell me here, Mr. Sanders? You can shut the office door behind you, if you need privacy.”

  “No, my office is probably better, if that’s okay,” he replied, glancing behind him at the door as if relying on it as his exit. “See you there in...?”

  “Five minutes,” I promised, answering his unspoken question.

  After he left, I finished typing out my thoughts for the agenda, locked my computer, and grabbed a pad of notes out of my upper desk drawer. Ready and prepared, I left my office and headed down the hall to Sanders’.

  His office was bigger than mine, although not by much. His window also looked out at the trees behind the Integrated Technologies building, instead of down at the parking lot like my own. Instead of a modern desk with an option to lift the deck for standing, like I had, Sanders had dragged an ancient, massive wooden desk that looked like someone had shaped it out of an ancient redwood they’d illegally felled. The heavy and blocky desk suited Sanders, who’d settled behind it. I heard his office chair groaning whenever he shifted his weight.

  “You can close the door behind you, Ms. Davies,” he said, as I stepped into the room. Another bell started sounding inside my head alongside its companion, but I did as requested.

  Turning around, I found Sanders gesturing to the chair in front of his desk. I sat down, my concern mounting as I watched him mesh his fingers together, then undo it, not sure quite what to do with his hands. My anxiety meter continued to rise inside my head as I waited, fighting the urge to growl at him to just get started, stop delaying! Did he have any idea how much tension he was putting on me? I had a million other things to do-

  “I’m not sure if you’ve been listening to some of the news about Integrated Technologies recently,” Sanders finally began, and I felt my hopes plummet. I didn’t need to be a psychic to see where this conversation was headed; I’d had it myself with other employees, usually ones that weren’t performing up to the standard.

  But that was exactly why this didn’t make sense! I was one of the hardest working employees at the entire company, and I never failed to hit my monthly targets, often exceeding them! I might not have a boyfriend, or a husband, or much going on outside my career, but this was where I focused all my energy! I shouldn’t be at any risk!

  I pulled out of my mental shock to see that Sanders was waiting for a response. “Sure, I know the company’s been going through a downtown,” I said, my voice a little faint, sounding almost like it was coming from someone else’s mouth. “But I didn’t realize that it was this bad!” Maybe I just had to lay off some of the direct hires who reported to me, my own job was safe, and Sanders was just the worst ever at delivering this news-

  “It’s come down from the top that we need to get leaner,” Sanders droned on, totally oblivious to the agony his words inflicted on me. “And so there have to be cuts at every level of management, including at the highest executive levels. Even one of our C-levels is going to be stepping down.”

  Probably with a fat compensation package, I suspected sourly. Millions, to help him ease into unemployment without too much pain.

  Sanders was starting to say something else, but I couldn’t bear to sit and wait any longer. “Just tell me straight, please, Mr. Sanders,” I cut in. “Am I getting fired, or is my job safe?”

  He didn’t answer, and the pain on his face answered my question without having to use any words.

  I slumped back in my chair. For a second, I couldn’t manage to hold onto a single thought; they all flitted away whenever I reached out to try and grab them. They buzzed like flies, all circling around that central message, the one I could barely bear to even contemplate.

  I’d been fired.

  I, Eileen Davies, the one who put my career first, unlike all the other women I knew, had just been fired.

  Me. The one who passed up multiple relationships, the opportunity to settle down and be a good little housewife, because I instead wanted to climb the corporate ladder. I’d made myself into the perfect corporate woman, the kind of woman who would easily grace the cover of a business magazine or a quarterly newsletter. I didn’t have any scandals in my closet, always had remained loyal to my company, did everything I needed to climb that ladder, pulling myself up past the glass ceiling.

  I was supposed to be one of the success stories.

  And now, instead, I’d just been told that I’m getting fired, all because some CEO with his head stuck up his ass wanted to reassure the stockholders after a bad quarter?

  “Eileen,” Sanders said, his voice sounding as though it was coming from a long distance away. “Eileen, are you okay? You haven’t said anything.”

  My eyes snapped to focus on him, and he leaned back further in his chair, eliciting a squeak of protest from its tortured springs. “I know that this isn’t what you wanted to hear at this time,” he said.

  “Isn’t what I wanted to hear?” I echoed. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  The swear word slipped out without conscious thought, and a tiny little part of my brain, the part not recoiling in shock at recent developments, noted that this probably wasn’t a good attitude for a successful businesswoman.

  I ought to accept this gracefully, discuss severance packages, make sure that I didn’t burn any bridges. I’d need to find another job, and that would require recommendations from my previous company, more specifically from my former boss. If I started cursing at Sanders, I might ruin my carefully cultivated business image.

  But screw that business image. The shock was finally starting to drain away, but red-hot anger poured in to take its place. I stood up, felt a tiny little prickle of gratification to see Sanders lean back further. The oaf was afraid of me!

  “Do you know how much I’ve done for this company?” I spat out, realizing that I was shouting but not caring. “Do you know how much I’ve sacrificed? Do you know how many things here would fall apart without me, because I’m the one who has to do everything to cover for everyone else’s shitty half-assed attempts?”

  “Eileen,” Sanders said, but I wasn’t stopping.

  “No, you don’t,” I answered my own question. I stabbed a finger out towards the man, and he recoiled like it was a striking snake. “You’re just going to sit there, fire me so that you can preserve your own fat ass, after everything that I’ve given up for this company! Why me? Why not any of the other Associate VPs?”

  I glared at him, demanding an expression. Sanders’ mouth worked up and down a couple times before he could produce any sound, giving him the appearance of a drowning, gasping flounder.

  “It wasn’t my decision,” he finally got out.

  Of course. Just covering his ass, as usual. I opened my mouth, ready to send out another torrent of long-deserved abuse, but Sanders scrambled to grab the phone off his desk.

  “Look, Eileen, this isn’t a bad thing,” he insisted, despite all evidence to the contrary. “Since you’re
being let go, you’re going to get a severance package, and I’ll make sure that it’s generous. You can find a new job, take on a new challenge, explore doing something else that you might have wanted. Think of this as an opportunity!”

  “What are you doing with the phone?”

  He hesitated. “Don’t make me call security to have you escorted out,” he said. “It won’t look good for the others.”

  Really? “I’ll leave,” I told Sanders, stabbing a finger towards him again, “but not because I care about what the others see. Especially after you just treat me like this, after my years of putting in work for this place.”

  “It wasn’t in my control-“

  “Don’t even try,” I cut him off. “If you cared enough, you would have fought for me to keep my job. Instead, you’re going to get to see how quickly things fall apart without me here. I hope it all comes back to bite you in the ass.”

  I turned around, intending to stalk out the door on that last comment, but even Sanders couldn’t let me have that little victory. “That’s not very nice,” he muttered behind me.

  That was it. The last straw, the one that broke the camel’s back – or in this case, shattered my last ounce of control on my temper.

  “Not very nice?” I shrieked, spinning around and flying towards him, hands up in claws, vision burning red. “Not very fucking nice? You just fucking fired me, and you’re upset because I’m not being super fucking nice to you?”

  He scrambled for the phone. “Security!” he bleated into the receiver.

  “You better call the medics, too!” I found my pad of paper in my hands, threw it at him. It fluttered to the ground, so I switched to my pen. That, at least, bounced off his sweaty, gleaming forehead. “Call everyone!”

  Security arrived more promptly than usual; maybe they’d been briefed that they might have to remove a few unruly employees. Charlie gave me an apologetic look as he took one of my arms, gently but firmly led me out of Sanders’ office.