“Mr. Destiny.”
“Oh. Yes, I think so.”
“And there’s another meeting.” It was a statement, not a question.
“With the consultant,” Vanessa said. “Whoever they are.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Charlotte.
“I don’t know. Keep trying, I guess.”
Charlotte picked up the neckerchief. “You know what? Let me run this back down to costuming for you. You take a load off for a few minutes, at least until the next crisis rolls in.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Vanessa said.
“I insist. It’s the least I can do,” said Charlotte. And with that, she retrieved her purse and went out the door.
Thomas
From his seat in the theater, Thomas spotted Charlotte coming through the back entrance of American Dream.
He leapt up to meet her. “Did you get it?” he asked in a hushed tone.
“I got it.” She pulled the papers out of her purse and handed them over.
“Thank God,” he said, flipping through the pages.
She shook her head. “There’s a problem, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“She saw me,” said Charlotte.
“Who saw you?”
“Vanessa. She walked in right as I was putting those in my purse.”
Damn. “What did she say?”
“Nothing. She just offered me a soda. Then I got her talking about her chat with Mr. Destiny. She tried to talk to him about the costume safety stuff. It didn’t go well.”
“Surprise, surprise. Still, points for trying. How’d you get free?”
“I offered to take the neckerchief back,” she said.
“Nice. Anything else?”
The show was winding up.
“She said the next all-hands meeting has a special guest. Some kind of consultant,” said Charlotte.
“A union buster, no doubt. Things are about to get complicated,” said Thomas. “Let me know if you hear anything else. And watch out for Dirk. I’ve seen him skulking around up here. He’s up to something.”
Vanessa
Vanessa waited until she was sure Charlotte was gone. She opened the lid of the copy machine. Charlotte had removed her copies, but in her haste, she’d left one of the original papers in the machine.
It contained a list of crew member names and home addresses.
Vanessa studied the list, then carefully placed it back on the glass just as she’d found it.
Chapter 8
Vanessa
Dirk charged into the office and brandished a flyer at Vanessa. “Have you seen this? ‘Why Legacy Crew Members Are Voting Yes.’ Guess who’s on it?”
Vanessa snatched the paper from his hand.
He crossed his arms and watched her read it.
Why Legacy Crew Members Are Voting Yes
My hours got cut again. –Paulina
Health care costs so much I can’t afford to go to the doctor. –Bob
Management doesn’t respect me when I go to them with an issue. –Maribel
Our wages aren’t high enough to cover basic living expenses. –Thomas
Vote YES and stand together for better working conditions!
“I found that one in the Ghost Factory break room,” he said.
“There’s probably one in Gold Rush and American Dream, too,” Vanessa said as she studied the flyer.
“I’ll go take them down,” Dirk said.
“No. Leave them alone. We have other priorities.”
Vanessa thought fast. These must be the Legacy organizers. Thomas. Maribel from Gold Rush. Bob from American Dream. And Paulina from Ghost Factory. “Mr. Destiny wants to use American Dream for the all-hands meeting this afternoon.”
“Why not the usual meeting room?”
“He wants everyone there. Area managers, assistant managers, management interns, you name it. All supervisors.”
“Must be big,” Dirk said.
“See what you can do about making sure everything is clean and in good working order for the meeting. I don’t want any surprises,” said Vanessa.
“On it,” said Dirk. He left.
Vanessa went into her office and closed the door. She sat down and laid the flyer on her desk.
Thomas. She remembered his offhand remark about a living wage, and how he refused to admit to an opinion on the union when—unknowingly—she asked him that forbidden question.
The evidence of his allegiance tangled with the memory of his hands in hers on the night of the carriage wash.
It was all too much.
She cradled her head in her hands. What am I going to do?
She had no good answer.
Being a manager put her squarely on Mr. Destiny’s side whether she wanted to be or not. She feared what he would ask her to do.
There must be a way to protect my crew and keep my job. To do that, however, she needed more than information.
She needed help.
Charlotte wasn’t on the flyer, but she had to be involved. Her furtive photocopying couldn’t be a coincidence. She had no personal need for employee names and addresses.
The only possible explanation was that someone needed them for the organizing effort.
“Charlotte?” she called.
Charlotte opened the door. “Yes?”
“Have you seen any of these around?” She held up the flyer and watched Charlotte’s expression.
Charlotte might have made a good poker player. “Nope. Why?”
“Just curious. Dirk took this one out of the Ghost Factory break room.”
“Is he supposed to do that?” asked Charlotte.
“As a matter of fact, no. He’s not. That’s why I was wondering if any other union flyers had gone AWOL.”
Charlotte’s expression turned even more unreadable, as if she was reacting on the inside but was determined not to let it show. “Is that all? I was about to take my break.” She gestured to the spiral notebook she held.
“Of course, go ahead.”
Charlotte turned away, then stopped in mid-step and turned back to Vanessa. “You want to come upstairs for a minute?”