“What about the women?” I asked.
They both shrugged. “We’re not really sure what went down. There was an exodus of almost a dozen people. Again, it was super hush-hush. A handful are still here, including Malina,” Gola said. “None of them ever answered any direct questions.”
“I heard from an acquaintance of a friend of a friend that there was some kind of settlement involving iron-clad NDAs,” Ruth explained.
“Wow.” I didn’t know what else to say. No wonder the vibe was so off here. It didn’t sound like a solution, it sounded like a cover-up.
“But things are better now,” Ruth insisted. “The sexual harassment policy wasn’t drafted in the 1950s. And a fraternization policy kind of sort of adds more protection.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Basically relationships can’t exist between executives and underlings,” Gola said.
“That’s not exactly what it says,” Ruth disagreed.
“It’s the spirit of the rules. They’re trying to prevent relationships with lopsided power dynamics. But it kind of comes across as ‘we fucked up, and now we’re holding the rest of you responsible,’” Gola sighed.
“She’s touchy because she’s in love with a junior VP in fashion,” Ruth teased.
“Used to be. And I’d say it was more lust,” Gola corrected her.
“He is really, really cute,” Ruth mused. “But not cute enough for either of us to lose our jobs over.”
I picked up my fork and cut my last bite of chicken in half, hoping to make it last. I was beginning to get a few ideas about where Dalessandra had gone wrong.
“So, how come you’re poor?” Ruth asked cheerfully.
“It’s a long, long story,” I sighed.
I felt an arctic breeze skim down my spine and looked up.
Two tables down, Charming was glaring at me while pulling up a chair next to the Linus guy I’d met in Dalessandra’s office this morning. I returned his withering stare with a phony smile and a finger-wiggling wave.
“Girl, you are the bravest person I have ever met,” Gola whispered without moving her lips.
“Your vagina must be made out of steel,” Ruth guessed.
“Aren’t they all?” My phone timer buzzed, and I sighed. “Okay, ladies. Back to work.”
I was a planner by nature. Things got lost or went undone if there wasn’t a plan in place. Commitment to me meant doing what I said I was going to do.
I just happened to have to commit to a lot of things. So I planned. Ruthlessly. There were dozens of daily alerts scheduled in my phone.
Plan out week.
Choreograph dance class.
Leave for dance class.
Teach dance class.
Buy more ramen.
Leave for bar shift.
Start bar shift.
End bar shift.
Catch train home.
Send design invoices.
Make payment on astronomical debt.
Go the fuck to bed.
Wake the fuck up.
Do it all over again…
If I didn’t schedule every single task, it might fall off my plate and get kicked under some piece of metaphorical furniture only to be remembered months later in the middle of the night. And if someone was counting on me, I needed to deliver.
“Let’s get drinks after work tonight,” Ruth suggested. “I feel like we have so much more gossip to impart.”
I grinned, standing. “I can’t. There’s that whole I’m poor thing, and I’m working tonight.”
“You have a second job?” Gola asked.
“I have four second jobs.”
“Girl, you need a vacation.”
And a mango margarita.
10
Dominic
I hated these kinds of meetings.
This whole face-to-face brainstorming thing was bullshit. How the hell was I supposed to know what designer should dress our models for a fall office fashion shoot? Or what makeup products were at the center of a social media maelstrom?
Photo shoots and everything leading up to them were more politically fraught than a UN meeting. Designers that clashed with models. Photographers that wouldn’t shoot certain designers. Inventory miscommunication. Too many editorial opinions. Sales reps who made promises they shouldn’t. Last-minute location disasters.
And I was expected to make the most diplomatic decisions. Ha. Some fucking joke.
“You ready?” Linus, the snarky production manager, asked joining me in the hallway. He adjusted his glasses
“I’m ready.”
I hated not being good at something. At the age of twelve, I’d been tossed out of a baseball game for hurling my bat over the fence when I’d struck out yet again. Baseball hadn’t been my game.
My dad—a high school baseball star of his own time who, for some inexplicable reason, actually made it to the game that day—told me I should focus on something I was good at… like watching TV or whining.
We’d had a similar conversation when I’d told him I was taking his position here. He’d given me the same sneer of disdain and wished me luck filling his shoes. I’d told him I’d rather burn his shoes and everything that was in this office to the damn ground.
It wasn’t a healthy sense of competition that drove me in this position. No, it was a pulsing need to prove to myself that I was better than the man who’d never earned the loyalty I’d once so freely given.
That’s what I’d done with baseball. I practiced every damn night. Spent hours in batting cages and running drills. In the end, I’d gotten good enough to earn a scholarship offer to play in college. Something my father hadn’t managed in his own life.
That was a good enough measure of success for me. Challenge conquered, point proven, I’d quit and never picked up a glove again.
I’d do the same here. Force myself to rise above an innate inability, do my fucking best, and when it was all over, never ever look back.
“Remember what we talked about,” Linus said, pausing outside the conference room door.
“Yeah,” I said. Then for some stupid reason remembered Ally’s passionate exit speech at the restaurant. About people deserving better treatment and all that garbage. “Thanks,” I said.
Linus’s eyes widened a fraction behind his tortoiseshell glasses. “You’re welcome?” he said after a beat.
I called it Proof of Asshole. It was something I tallied up on occasion. When someone looks at you cross-eyed for saying thank you because apparently you’d never said it before? Definite Proof of Asshole.
I stopped abruptly inside the door.
She was there.
Arranging coffees and pastries—that no one was going to eat because carbs were evil—like it was her job and not some cosmic joke.
Everyone else was already settled around the table and conversations came to a halt. I had that kind of effect on a room.
Ally looked up and didn’t bother hiding the eye-roll. “Oh, great,” she muttered under her breath.
Yeah, well, I wasn’t happy about seeing her either.
I ignored her and took my seat at the head of the table. “Thanks for being here,” I said gruffly. “Let’s get started.”