BACK IN THE office, Rosa was not happy. “What are you talking about, Lucy? You said you’d have another draft of the engagement survey today.”
“Rosa, you explicitly told me to wait.” Lucy pointed to Rosa’s wrist, which was swaddled in surgical gauze. “Wow, that looks painful.” She started to explain why the survey was delayed, but Rosa was preoccupied; her arm was killing her. “My keycard isn’t working again,” Lucy added.
“Don’t change the subject.” Rosa paused. “We wouldn’t have these keycard problems if Peter were still here. You should see the people Rob’s bringing in—very low quality, I’m afraid. You never realize how good someone is at their job until they leave.”
“You’ll find a new Peter, someone equally good. Rob will make it happen; he’s an excellent recruiter. Speaking of hiring, have you made any other decisions?”
Lucy didn’t care about operations, Rosa knew; she was angling for the number-two spot. Rosa was well versed in all her tricks. Not that the younger woman wasn’t capable. She was smart; she was diligent; she could do the work. But there were other factors to consider when choosing a successor, and those had less to do with the work and more to do with the job. Could Lucy commit? Would she get bored and leave? Stay and grow resentful? On the other hand, Lucy was here, and she was willing. Most important, she’d hold up under Rutherford’s scrutiny.
Rosa was studying a print on her wall, a serigraph of Les Velours by Matisse. “Peter bought that for me at MoMA. The next facilities guy should appreciate art.” She knew she wasn’t allowed to talk about Peter, but fuck the lawyers; he was her friend. “Lucy, has anyone heard from Peter?”
“Rob e-mailed him, but he never responded. It’s as if he just . . . I don’t know”—Lucy shrugged—“disappeared.”
During Rosa’s last dinner with Peter, she’d watched him cut his baked potato into small pieces and then butter each one individually. He ate slowly, savoring every bite, unlike most men—unlike her—who were used to solitary meals and gulped their food quickly without tasting it. Peter took care when he ate, the same way he once took care when he worked. He used to have respect for his employer; he’d taken pride in his job. How did he justify throwing all that away?
“Everyone is still stunned,” Lucy said. “It happened so abruptly.”
“Yeah, well. He was careless.”
“I thought you said he was good at his job.”
“People who are good at their jobs can still be careless.” Rosa ached to spill her story. Lucy, she’d say, being chief isn’t easy. It’s not just the long hours, complicated work, and difficult decisions. Or that to protect your people, you often have to choose between them. It’s because on occasion you’ll be made to look insensitive on someone else’s order, someone higher up. Can you do that, Lucy; can you act like an asshole because a situation demands it? Can you live with knowing people don’t like you? What will you do about Rob? And where was Leo, by the way?
Her phone rang. It was Leo. “Are you ready?” he asked.
“Ready for what?” How many times had she told him to be specific when he called?
“For your interview with Katie Reynolds. She’s with Kenny now. So far, everyone loves her.”
“Yes, I’m ready.” Rosa thanked him and hung up. “Lucy, did you talk to this Katie person?” She blanched again at the childish name. “What did you think?”
“She’s very personable. Smart, mature, and dependable. But it came up that she never finished college.”
“If she doesn’t have a degree, why did we invite her to interview in the first place?”
“It wasn’t clear from her résumé. Maybe Rob missed it?”
“Well,” Rosa said, considering this. “You don’t have to be a snob. I didn’t have a degree when I started. I went to night school and worked during the day.”
“How am I a snob? A college degree is a requirement of the job. It says so on our website.”
“We should change that. We can’t discriminate against people. This is America; long may she wave.” Rosa was interrupted by a knock. “Come in!” When the door swung open, she was shocked to see a familiar woman—a freckle-faced girl—wearing a baggy suit, pearls, and what looked like Prada shoes standing next to Leo.
The two women exclaimed at the same time. I can’t believe it’s you. Oh my gosh! What are you doing here? This is so funny!
“How’s your arm?” Katie asked.
Rosa raised her wounded wing, still wrapped up. “You’re a miracle worker.” Sending Leo and Lucy away, she ushered Katie into a chair and offered her water, chocolate, a handful of nuts. She couldn’t believe Katie was here! In her office! Coincidences like this used to happen all the time when she was younger. It was how she met Howard, in fact. He flirted with her at a newsstand one morning and then showed up at her door as a blind date the same night. Rosa was so giddy that even when Howard confessed that their earlier meeting wasn’t accidental, that he’d intentionally scouted her out, nothing took away from the thrill of his second appearance. In those days, the world seemed enchanted, as if everyone was connected and possibility abounded. Seeing Katie here, so unexpectedly, filled Rosa with similar joy. “I can’t believe it!”
They talked for a while, and then Rosa gave Katie a tour of her office, pointing out all her treasures: her crystal paperweight (MOST IMPROVED DEPARTMENT, 2001), the Baccarat vase for her tenth year of service, champagne flutes for her fifteenth. Watching Katie pick a thread off her skirt, Rosa was reminded of how the girl had dabbed at the coffee spill on her St. John, mindful of the delicate knit.
“So far everyone who’s met you has said wonderful things. We’re a close group, so I want you to speak to the whole team. But you’ll report directly to me.”
The two women looked at each other. They laughed again.
Rosa opened her arms. “If you take the job, you’ll sit outside my door. Being my assistant isn’t easy, but I promise you’ll learn a great deal, Katherine.” She paused, looked the girl square in the eye. “Is it all right if I call you Katherine?”
10
LEONARD SMALLS, VICE PRESIDENT, EMPLOYEE BENEFITS
FEBRUARY 2010
Leo wasn’t an early riser by nature, but Rosa liked having an HR manager on site before business hours in case of emergency, so he’d trained himself to wake up by five. This gave him enough time to shower, ride the train in from Cobble Hill, and reach his desk by six thirty, where he could enjoy his favorite Kenyan roast and a muffin, along with a few minutes of solitude, before the office shifted into high gear.
It was twenty minutes after seven. Finished with his muffin (cranberry lemon crumble), Leo bemoaned his gluttony. Tomorrow, he promised, loosening his belt. His suits were so tight he’d taken to wearing slacks-and-sweater combos, a wardrobe story that spoke volumes about his lack of restraint. He’d eaten piggishly through the holidays, and now it was almost Valentine’s Day and he was still off the wagon—not just off the wagon, he was being dragged behind the wagon; he was slipping underneath the wagon wheels; soon the wagon would run him over. But tomorrow he’d have Special K and skim milk—no muffins, Frappuccinos, or cheese bagels. On Facebook, when he posted his plan to lose forty pounds, he got twelve likes, one share, and nine people telling their own dieting strategies, so now he had to follow through lest he run into one of his two hundred and sixty-two “friends” in real life and have nothing to show for his efforts.
Outside his office Katie was making a racket: opening and closing drawers, dropping files, knocking over chairs. “Morning, early bird!” he called out. “You beat me in again.”
She peeked around his door. “Only by fifteen minutes!”
Katie was lovely, with a sweet freckly complexion, big green eyes, and white-blond hair that was pulled into a loose knot at her neck. But her skirt was too big for her lean frame, her jacket was similarly baggy, and her pleather shoes had a broken buckle. She is too pretty, Leo thought, to dress like a Hooverville street urchin—not that
he was one to talk.
“Why are you here so early?” he asked. “Every day, I mean? Too much work?”
“Oh no!” she said brightly. “Not at all. But getting in early helps me organize myself.”
Peter Dreyfus’s last day in the office had been December 14, Katie’s first day, January 11. For a whole blessed month, Leo had been alone every morning. He could blast soul music, log on to Chatroulette, streak through the halls—not that he would. Instead, he sat at his desk, buttered his muffin, and did his work. But it was so deliciously quiet! The only sound was the whoosh of a jet taking off or landing when he sent or received e-mails. (Leo’s ex-boyfriend Horatio had downloaded noises off the Internet for him, so he had the choice of jets, birds, honks, farts, monkeys, or boing-boings.) Then Katie was hired, and Leo’s me-time came to an end. Katie, it turned out, was a naturally early riser—a very early riser. From what Leo could tell, her internal clock cock-a-doodle-dooed at 3:00 a.m., allowing her to run ten miles, plow the fields, feed the village, build a cabin, and climb up and down Mount Everest, all before heading into work.
To be clear: Leo adored Katie. She was smart, plucky, kind, and full of energy. And he knew it was selfish and bitchy to want to eat his muffins alone, but he was a fat man pretending to diet. What could he do? Tell her not to come to work until he was done eating breakfast? As an alternative, he took Rosa’s advice and found his better self, using the early hours to give Katie the lay of the land. He showed her how to coordinate Rosa’s calendar, explained whose calls took priority, and made sure she could access Rosa’s desktop on her own computer. This last lesson was critical because it allowed her to skim Rosa’s e-mails and weed out anything unessential. Leo also tried getting to know Katie, but even when he asked basic, nonthreatening questions (where she lived, where she grew up, her top-secret superpower), Katie offered only one-word answers (Queens, Queens, invisibility). This puzzled him. Why was she so private? If she were older, he would’ve admired her reserve, but because of her youth, it was, paradoxically, a strike against her. The young were supposed to cross the line, if only so the old could feel superior.
Outside his office, Leo heard a crash. “Sorry!” Katie shouted.
Luckily, he could escape. Thanks to Manny Flores, head of Sanchez Security, Leo had access to the eleventh floor, which once housed a Bear Stearns satellite office and was now vacant. Two years ago, Leo had asked Manny for a key to the bathroom on eleven (“digestive issues”), and Manny obliged (“Don’t need the details”), in exchange for Knicks tickets Leo bought with his own money. With Manny’s help, Leo had smuggled up a desk, a chair, and a lamp to create his own private refuge.
Katie was still out in the hall—doing what, Leo couldn’t say. He just wanted to be alone. Quietly, like a jumbo-size ninja, Leo rose from his seat. Then, as soon her back was turned, he hustled upstairs to eleven, where he could eat his goddamn lemon muffin in peace.
THE NEXT DAY, Leo and Rob were alone in the conference room; both had laptops open, but neither was working. Rob was focused on his BlackBerry, and Leo was trying—and failing—to speak. “So . . . uh . . . Rob.” Leo cleared this throat. “How’s everything going?”
Silence.
“I saw the greatest movie last weekend!”
Rob looked up. “Are you talking to me?”
“My watch stopped.” Leo lifted his wrist.
This had been going on for an hour—Leo trying to talk to Rob and Rob oblivious to Leo’s distress. Earlier that morning, they had been exiled to this conference room while maintenance men repaired the ceiling above their offices. A large patch of tiling had collapsed during the night, exposing pink insulation material and raw wiring. Cracked plaster covered the floor, and portions of the wall looked unstable. Rob had said they’d be fine at their desks, but Leo refused. Look! His pants were covered in plaster! “Rob, these walls are full of toxins.”
“Don’t you think you’re overreacting?” Rob had asked.
“Maybe you’re not reacting enough,” Leo retorted.
“Can’t stay here,” the building guys said. “The area is unsafe.”
It had taken all of Leo’s restraint not to say I told you so as he and Rob packed up their laptops and headed down the hall. Their winter boots left a trail of white plaster prints on the carpet.
“Too bad Peter’s gone,” Rob observed as they walked past reception. “He would’ve had that ceiling fixed in no time.”
Leo nodded noncommittally. “Rosa said you can’t find his replacement.” I bet it’s hard to find an aging operations expert who stalks his coworkers and embezzles a hundred grand, he thought.
“Yep. Operations guys don’t know much about business, and business guys know even less about operations. You can’t get men like Peter anymore, guys who can manage three properties and hold their own in a finance meeting—not for what Rosa will pay.” Rob talked as he walked, greeting colleagues with friendly hellos. Passing reception, he stuck his hand into the glass bowl filled with Valentine’s candy and kept going.
“So maybe we need a younger guy.” Leo scurried to keep up. “Someone green . . . we can . . . train.” This is madness; I have to get to the gym, he thought.
“Someone green can’t negotiate with vendors, and someone with experience won’t want to be trained.” Rob had shrugged. “You see what I’m up against.”
It didn’t occur to Leo that this brief conversation, which had taken place five hours ago, would be their only exchange of the day. Now, aware the clock was ticking, Leo tried again. “What’s got you so occupied?”
Rob held up his BlackBerry. “Brick Breaker. I’m about to beat my high score.”
Leo didn’t know how to respond, though he bet Rob would have better luck finding a new Peter if he put down his BlackBerry. Not that Leo meant to be snide. He liked Rob. In fact, he was the one who’d spotted Rob’s résumé a decade ago and forwarded it to Rosa. When Rob came in and Leo saw how he’d matured since his callow Revlon days, he thought they might become friends, but whenever he suggested an after-work drink, Rob claimed to be busy. So Leo stopped asking, and then he was forced to watch from the sidelines as Rob gravitated toward Lucy.
“Did you say something?” Rob asked.
“Just checking the time. We have a meeting with Rosa at three, right?”
“Right,” Rob said, returning to his device. “In fifteen minutes.”
No matter how hard Leo tried to forge a connection, Rob blew him off. In many ways, Leo understood why. The office was a complex ecosystem with prescribed rules for social interaction. For gay men, corporate life held even more hidden dangers. Leo double-checked himself all the time, stayed away from phrases like “Hard day at the office,” “Getting it from both sides,” and “Servicing a client,” and rarely touched anyone, lest some asshole misconstrue an innocent atta-boy. But this made him lonely at work, and he was already lonely at home. Leo had always mixed and matched his work friends and life friends; but as the years passed, and everyone kept changing jobs, they stopped getting together. Now, too, his once-single gay friends were pairing up, having kids, and drifting away. Despite being the most romantic man he knew, it had been a long time since someone both cute and age-appropriate had loved him back. But if he couldn’t have a life-altering affair, he’d be content with a first responder. Not an actual fireman or EMT, unless he was cute and age-appropriate, but someone to love him, someone whose call he could count on in the event of a cataclysmic event. When the Towers fell in 2001, he, Rob, Lucy, Rosa, and Peter had watched the destruction on TV, right in this conference room. Leo was sure they’d all spend the evening together, the shared experience binding them forever, like family. Instead, a half hour later, people rushed home to their real families. At the time, Leo was living in Chelsea, so he wove through the streets like a refugee, the foggy air filled with pieces of ash, or what he thought then was ash. He stopped at St. Vincent’s to offer help, or blood, or whatever, but they didn’t need volunteers and couldn’t take h
is gay blood, anyway. At home, he ate leftover egg foo yung and watched TV until dawn, thinking about his late parents. His brothers both called from Miami, so despite the day’s horrors, Leo could look back, knowing he wasn’t alone. But he and the twins weren’t close, so he often felt like an orphan, tethered to no one, belonging nowhere. Where could a middle-aged man find a first responder in this godforsaken concrete jungle? Work? (God, no.) Not the gym. Not at cooking classes for singles, Sex and the City walking tours, or day trips to see New England foliage. Lately even Facebook, once Leo’s salvation, amplified his loneliness. When he first joined, he felt welcomed to a community culled from every stage of his life. He was a generous poster, timely (Obama makes history!), reverential (RIP Paul Newman), and ingratiating (More pix of your pooch Poncho, please!). At the outset, Leo’s Facebook self was the self he adored, his cocktail-party self without the morning-after blues, but like everything else, he took it too far. He checked his page way too often. If no one liked his comments, he plunged into despair. He deleted his posts and then reposted later to draw a bigger crowd. At some point soon, he’d have to bar himself from the site altogether to protect his own mental health.
“So what do you think happened to Peter?” he asked Rob now.
“Are you kidding?” Rob swiveled around. “They caught Peter stealing.”
Duh, Leo thought. He meant “Has Peter resurfaced?” But because he finally had Rob’s attention, he feigned shock. “Stealing? Really? I thought it was an expense-account thing.”
“You didn’t hear?”
Of course Leo had heard; Rosa had told him the day she found out. She told Leo everything. How could Rob not know that? He shook his head. “Who caught him?”
As Rob launched into the story of Rosa’s forensic accounting, Peter’s debt, and the gag order, Leo’s attention wandered. Rob got a few facts wrong along the way, but Leo didn’t correct him, given how hard it had been to get the guy talking. Still, Leo longed to blurt out the truth: Peter Dreyfus was a sexually confused stalker who went too far, freaked out, and got himself fired. Not that he could ever say this to Rob or Rosa—or anyone else except Dr. Saul.
This Could Hurt Page 9