The Bureau of Holiday Affairs

by Andi Marquette

  Hodges shot her a glance that was both accusatory and pleading. Frost looked at him, and Robin actually felt a little bad for Hodges. Maybe she should say something. But he should’ve asked for the figures last week. Right? Suddenly, she wasn’t so sure.

  “Why don’t you have the Asia figures?” Frost asked, and the air in the room seemed to cool several degrees.

  “Um—” Hodges shuffled through a folder on the table next to him.

  The door opened but no one else seemed to notice it. Frost was still glaring at Hodges, and everyone’s attention was glued to him. Nobody was moving or making a sound.

  “Hiya, Preston,” Decker said as she entered. She wore jeans and a gray sweatshirt that said UCLA across the chest.

  Robin stiffened. She glanced around, but still nobody moved. It was like being in a wax museum.

  Decker went over to Hodges and looked down at his file, then back at Robin. “I know you’ve picked up certain ways of doing things in terms of business over the years, but really?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know why Hodges doesn’t have the Asia figures.” Decker looked up at the image on the wall. “Don’t you?” She turned back to Robin, like a teacher waiting for a student to answer.

  “Okay, fine. I didn’t give them to him. I haven’t had a chance to get him up to speed.”

  Decker nodded. “So you’ll just let him take whatever Frost dishes at him for that?”

  It was actually on her, Robin realized. She glared at Decker. “I forgot.”

  Decker waited.

  “Fine. It’s a habit. But information can move you ahead here.”

  “Or knock you right off the ladder.”

  Robin knew Decker was right.

  “Two words, Preston. Jenny French.”

  “How do you—”

  “You did the right thing, then,” Decker interrupted. “What are you going to do now? Because your boss doesn’t look happy.” The expression on Frost’s face meant Hodges was probably about to get hung out to dry. Robin could prevent it.

  “It’s not his fault,” Robin said.

  Decker shrugged. “Do something about it,” Decker said, and she disappeared as sound and movement returned. The door to the conference room remained closed.

  “I—” Hodges said, and Robin saw, in the light from the image on the screen that he was sweating.

  “Mr. Frost,” Robin said, and everybody at the table looked at her. “It’s not his fault. I haven’t had a chance to brief him yet on Asia.”

  Frost’s expression relaxed, and Hodges flashed her a relieved smile. The tension in the room dissipated though nobody spoke for a few moments.

  “Take care of that,” Frost said.

  “Will do.” Robin nodded for emphasis and waited a bit to make sure he didn’t want any follow-up. He didn’t. Somebody put the lights on and the meeting adjourned.

  Robin gathered her things and moved to the door, not wanting to deal with either Frost or Cynthia’s husband or the fact that she had just gotten a smackdown from someone who may not have existed.

  “Thanks for that,” Hodges said. “I should’ve checked in with you. Got too busy, I guess.” He held the door open for her, and they stood out in the hall.

  “Sure. I’ll send you what I’ve got on Asia.” She was about to move away when she thought about Jenny French. “Sorry I didn’t sooner,” Robin added, and meant it.

  He gave her a puzzled look, similar to the one Laura displayed that morning. “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah, fine. Just a bit of congestion,” she fibbed.

  “No, I meant—” He glanced at the notepad she was holding. “Wow. Is that Haystack Rock?”

  Robin looked down at it, too, as if she was just seeing it for the first time. “Uh.”

  “It is. That’s the best place. Can I see?” He reached for the pad, and Robin reluctantly handed it to him.

  “This is really, really good. I didn’t know you could draw.”

  “Hobby,” she said as she took the pad back.

  “I don’t know much about art, but that could be more than a hobby for you.”

  “Thanks,” she said, dismissive. “I’ll go get those figures for you.” She turned before he could say anything else and went back to her office where she did, in fact, email him the Asia figures and projections. Normally, she wouldn’t give up information without some kind of deal, not even if she promised to. Never show your hand, Frost liked to say. But sending the figures to Hodges made her feel as if she was letting go of something that was weighing her down. She was trying to do the right thing, and she’d forgotten that it could feel good to do that, even if it might suck owning up to her part.

  Robin leaned back in her chair. She hadn’t thought about Jenny French in years. She remembered the night, junior year, she and Jenny had gone joy-riding in Jenny’s dad’s car without asking him. Jenny had let her drive, even though it was against Mr. French’s rules, and Robin had put a long scrape and dent in the right front fender when she clipped one of those short concrete poles at gas stations near the pumps.

  Jenny told her dad that she, not Robin, had done it, and got in a ton of trouble with her parents. It was expensive to fix, too, Robin remembered. Jenny had cried at school the following Monday, and Robin felt so bad that she went to Jenny’s house that evening and told Jenny’s parents that it wasn’t Jenny who was driving, it was her.

  They both got punished. Jenny was still grounded, though not as long, and she did have to pay about a quarter of the cost of the repair because, Mr. French said, she shouldn’t have taken the car without asking and she definitely shouldn’t have let Robin drive. Robin paid for the brunt of the cost by the end of the summer. She didn’t have much money after that, but she did feel somehow as though she’d paid a fair debt, and she’d learned a very good lesson.

  Robin checked her cell phone. Still no response from Frank, which made her anxious. Was he pissed? She hadn’t been the nicest the last time he called. How bad would that suck if she finally tried to get her life on track with him and he wouldn’t have anything to do with her? It would serve her right, she decided, and that thought made her feel even worse. Her phone dinged and she checked it, hopeful. Not Frank, but it made her smile anyway.

  Jill’s message was brief, too.

  Sounds great. Do you have time for a longer lunch tomorrow?

  That was Saturday, a day Robin usually worked. And she did have this presentation weighing on her. But the thought of coming to her office made her stomach hurt, while the thought of a couple hours with Jill made her feel good. A little worried, because she wasn’t sure what Jill would have to say about their past, but good nonetheless.

  Yes, she texted back. You pick time and place. See you then. She set her phone down and opened the slides for her presentation. Thirty minutes later, she was still bouncing idly between them, doing nothing beyond that. Her phone sounded with a text. Jill, again, with a time and place. Robin approved. It was near the piers. Jill had always loved being near water. She texted a confirmation and returned to staring at her presentation, wondering why Frank still hadn’t responded.

  She opened Google and typed “children” and “asthma” into the search bar. She played with her pinkie ring while she read the information on various sites. After a while of doing that, she called the HR department on her desk phone.

  “Yes, Ms. Preston?”

  “Hi—Mary?”

  “Yes.”

  “Uh, I was wondering. What are the chances of hiring people back once they’ve been laid off?”

  Pause. “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I asked. If we—I—lay somebody off, can I hire them back?” She had laid plenty of people off in the past, no problem. There was no reason for it to bother her now. But it did. You couldn’t make it in this busin
ess if you went soft. Could you?

  Her personal cell started playing an R&B number that Robin remembered from Lady Magnolia’s limo. She stared at it.

  “Ms. Preston?”

  Robin’s cell went quiet, but the screen lit up. “Yes. Here.”

  “As I was saying, I don’t really know. I don’t recall that it’s happened in the time I’ve been here. It would probably be highly unusual, since the parties might take exception to what could be seen as wrongful termination in the first place and that could result in some kind of legal action.”

  The R&B song started emanating from Robin’s cell again. “Legal action?”

  “But I’ll find out for sure.”

  “Thanks.” Robin hung up and reached slowly for her cell phone, which was still playing the song. Somebody was calling her, but she sure as hell didn’t have that song on her phone as a ring tone. “Are you kidding me?” she said when she saw the caller ID. How was that even possible? “Hello?” she answered.

  “Hi, sugar,” Lady Magnolia purred. “Sounds like you need a little pep talk.”

  “For what?”

  “For all the good things you’re about to do.”

  Robin rubbed her forehead with her free hand. “I don’t even know what those are.”

  “Oh, yes you do. But right now you’re about as confused as a one-eyed dog in a house full of mirrors.”

  “How can I know what good things I’m going to do and be confused?” Was she really having this conversation? Maybe she only thought she was, because nobody in their right mind got phone calls like this.

  “Sugar, you know what you have to do. And I know that some things you haven’t done in a while might feel a bit strange when you try them out again. Sometimes you have to break a new pair of shoes in, a little at a time. But with a little patience, they’re your most comfortable pair.”

  “I didn’t get this far in this company without having to make hard choices.” The words sounded flat, like a well-rehearsed speech she’d been reciting for years because she felt she had to, but as she sat there, she didn’t have a solid reason for why.

  “Honey, you’ve been singing that verse so long, it’s lost its meaning,” Magnolia drawled, low and sultry. “So go ahead and change the tune. You’ve got a little rebel streak in you, sugar. Or you wouldn’t have put those rings on today.”

  Robin gripped the phone harder.

  “As my mama says, we keep singing the same song because we know the words. Doesn’t mean it’s the right one. Bye, now.”

  The line went dead, and Robin set the phone carefully on her desk, as if it might blow up in her hand. She studied the ring on her left pinkie, the tiny skulls grinning up at her. She’d bought it at a flea market in northern California, the semester before she’d met Jill. Robin had worn clothing and jewelry then that looked kind of goth, kind of punk. She’d been listening to a lot of ska then, too. The skulls seemed to wink at her.

  Rebel?

  Maybe she was. Hiring people back after you fired them was definitely not part of the corporate world. Was it rebellion if she did it? Or getting back to herself? She wasn’t sure, but it did feel good to think about Joe Spinelli being able to get medicine for Annie.

  Robin brought up the company contact list on her laptop and dialed another number on her desk phone.

  “Ramos,” said a guy who sounded as though he should be calling an underground boxing match in the Bronx.

  “Hi. This is Robin Presto—”

  “Please tell me you’re not cutting more of my staff.”

  “No, nothing like that. I was just wondering—how was Joseph Spinelli as an employee?”

  “Is this a joke?”

  “No. What was he like?”

  “Christ, he was one of the best guys I had. Picked everything up really quick, had manager potential. And now that position’s been closed, I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

  Robin frowned. She’d forgotten about that. When they closed a position, they then renamed it and brought somebody on at lower pay. “Okay, so if I get Spinelli back, would you work with me to bring him on at the same rate, maybe more?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes.”

  “Currently, we’d have to hire him at the lower pay, because the new position calls for it.”

  “Have you posted with HR yet?”

  “No. We were waiting until after the new year.”

  “So HR doesn’t have the new job description?”

  “No.”

  “Can you piggyback off that position and do a proposal that’ll get Spinelli hired at his old rate of pay or a little better and send it up to me ASAP?”

  “Jesus. You are serious. What about the higher-ups?”

  “I am a higher-up. So get that to me as soon as you can so I can approve it for HR. The faster we get this done, the sooner we can notify him.”

  “Will do.” He hung up and Robin dialed Lydia Evans’s former department and made the same request of her supervisor, who was just as shocked as Ramos had been.

  The phone rang just after she hung up.

  “Hey, Mary,” she answered.

  “Well, Ms. Preston, I couldn’t find anything with regard to your hypothetical situation because, like I said, it’s just never been done. Legal seems to think it’s a can of worms, but legally, it apparently is okay to do it, but the former employee could cause problems, depending on the circumstances of the layoff.”

  “But you’re saying it could be done.”

  “It seems so. Between you and me, I doubt Mr. Frost would approve of such a thing.”

  No, probably not, Robin thought. Good thing he set the company up in such a way that he wouldn’t have to approve every last hire and fire. “Well, I’m only interested in keeping the best talent on board, and I’m sure that’s something Mr. Frost would approve of. Thanks for checking for me.”

  “Is this situation something more than hypothetical?”

  “At the moment, no,” she hedged. It was too soon to show her cards, and if Frost or his inner circle found out what she was up to, she’d pay in some way. It would probably cost her the promotion she’d been trying to get. Which didn’t explain why she was doing this, other than it seemed as though she should. “But it occurred to me that letting people go to save money actually doesn’t save money because we lose an investment, and we end up replacing those people with less experienced employees at smaller salaries, which guarantees they won’t want to stick around. Sometimes I wonder if we miss the potential in human capital.”

  “I see,” Mary said, but not in a way that convinced Robin that she got it. Hell, Robin wasn’t even sure where she’d gotten that stuff she had just said, but it sort of felt as if it made sense. From some damn bleeding heart, Frost would probably say. “If I find anything else out, I’ll let you know.”

  “Thanks.” Robin hung up before Mary could dig any more. She wasn’t sure what exactly she thought she was doing, but it felt better than the alternative, which was doing nothing. “Maybe I’m making amends,” she muttered as she gathered her things to leave. Her cell dinged with a text. Frank, finally. She read it. He was out of town with Deb for the weekend and he’d call when they got back. OK, she texted back. Hope you have a good time. He texted a goofy grinning emoji back. She smiled. Maybe that was a little bit of progress between them. And how sad was that, finding hope in a damn emoji?

  She slipped her phone into her coat pocket just as it signaled another text message, this one from Cynthia. Robin tried to be angry, but all she felt was empty. The message was brief. I have tomorrow night free. Call me.

  She didn’t want to talk to Cynthia. Not now, and maybe not ever again. She texted back. Might have a cold. Will probably stay home. She’d never refused Cynthia twice, but now she had to be careful, because Cynthia might decide to make her life miserab
le, and there were any number of ways she could do that. Robin put her phone in her pocket and left her office.

  Laura looked up at her as Robin shut the door behind her. “Ms. Preston? Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “It’s, um, early for you to be leaving. Do you have a dinner tonight?”

  “I hope not. Because I’m not going to one.” She waited, though, for Laura to check the calendar.

  “I don’t see one scheduled,” Laura said after a few moments.

  “Good. It’s five-fifteen, on a Friday. Shouldn’t you be leaving, too?”

  Laura looked at her as if she’d grown an extra limb or something. “You have nothing for me to do?”

  “No.” And it hit Robin, then, that she loaded Laura up with work all the time, and often late in the afternoon, which meant Laura also stayed past five. “I don’t,” Robin said. “So go home. Or out to dinner. Whatever you need to do. Have a good weekend.” Those were things she would never have said a week ago. She wasn’t sure where they came from, but it wasn’t as if she’d never said things like that in the past. Maybe her internal circuit boards were getting rewired. That would be a great thing to draw, Robin thought, and as she turned the corner to go to the elevator, she glanced back.

  Laura was still staring at her, and it might’ve been funny, but it wasn’t, because Laura was so used to Robin being an asshole boss that when it didn’t happen that way, she didn’t know what to do. So much shit, Robin thought as she got on the elevator. So much to unpack. The question she kept asking herself was why all of a sudden she felt the need to do it.

  CHAPTER 5

  It was pretty on the pier, even with the cold and the gritty urban backdrop and the stray plastic bottles floating in the oily water. Robin’s mom would’ve been horrified at the trash that bumped against the pilings. A group of stray clouds blocked the sun. Robin leaned against the railing and hunched further into her coat and scarf, glad she’d worn a winter hat. She inched her mouth above her scarf and sipped from the to-go cup of coffee she’d bought on the walk from the subway.

  A patrol boat cruised past. Robin watched it. That would be an interesting job, probably. Hard, but sort of cool. Being out on the water would be neat, and there would be great opportunities for photos. She glanced at the clock on her phone. Time to go to the restaurant and meet Jill. Good thing it was only a couple of blocks away. She made it in about five minutes and stood outside the entrance, moving a little to stay warm. She could just see the river from here.