This Could Hurt

by Jillian Medoff

  “I wish . . . Rob, I’ve been thinking . . . hold on a sec—” Jerry peeked around the corner to make sure the girls were out of earshot. “Rob, I just want to say that I often wish I’d been less of a prick when you were a kid. Had I been different then, things might be easier for us now.” His voice cracked a little at the end, making him sound sheepish and sad.

  Peering into the refrigerator, Rob had his back to his father. While gratified by Jerry’s words, he was at a loss for his own. “Thank you,” he said, focusing on a half-empty jar of Prego sauce. “I wish you had been less of a prick, too.” He felt resentful but also wanted to cry, the same way he felt at his mom’s funeral when he saw Jerry lean against his litigation partner and collapse into sobs.

  Elaine had died from a pulmonary embolism. Though she’d had a knee replacement two months before, it was a routine surgery, so her death came as a shock. After fifty-four years of marriage, it also appeared to have humbled Jerry. “She was the love of my life,” he said on his second night in Brooklyn. “I miss her every minute of every day.” To which Rob said, “I miss her all the time, too.” They reminisced about her, and for a few brief minutes, Rob felt like his father’s son, which choked him up all over again. The next day, while Rob was at work, Jerry used his venerable legal skills to stack the dishwasher, vacuum, mop, and wash four loads of laundry. Having never before seen his father do chores, Rob was astonished; it was like seeing a dog drive a car. “My house is so clean you can eat off the floor,” his father explained. “Helps pass the time.” That night, Jerry taught Allie and Jessie five-card stud, and then they all watched Titanic, which the girls had seen nine times, and couldn’t believe Jerry hadn’t seen once. “Oh my God, Grandpa,” nine-year-old Jessie said, climbing over him to grab the DVD. “You’ll die.” Jerry didn’t die, but he did blink back tears when the old couple clutched each other as the water roared in. It occurred to Rob, who blinked back a few tears himself, that his father was lonesome, a feeling he’d never associated with the man, largely because he’d never considered Jerry’s feelings before. His throat was thick with emotion when he invited his dad to extend his stay for the rest of the week. He wanted to add how grateful he was for Jerry’s help. Instead he said, “The kids are so glad you’re here,” which felt more appropriate—manageable, rather.

  Pleased, Jerry continued to cook, clean, and do laundry. When he went into the city to have dinner with Rob’s older sister and her family, he encouraged Rob to join him, but Rob declined for reasons he was ashamed to admit. Larissa, a lawyer like Jerry, had done everything right: Wellesley, Columbia Law, lawyer husband, kids at Dalton—the works. While Rob loved her, being with Larissa reminded him of all he’d lost—not just their mom but also the chance to make smarter choices. “Thanks,” he said. “Not this trip, though.” The next morning, when it was time to head home, neither he nor his dad was ready. “That went too quickly,” Jerry said. Standing on the street, he clapped his son on the back. “You’re doing great, Rob. For a while there, I wasn’t sure you could pull it together. You seemed so rudderless. But look at you! You chose a career and stuck to it. I’m proud of you.”

  “I was rudderless. You found my first job; I just showed up. Still, these days I feel lucky to be employed.” Rob reached out to shake his father’s hand, but Jerry grabbed him in a bear hug. “Keep up the good work!” Jerry’s voice was gruff. “Call me.” After kissing both girls, he jumped into his car, tooted his horn twice, then zoomed away.

  When Rosa called Rob into her office two days later, he was still feeling lucky. So when she said, solemnly, “I’m sorry, Rob. You deserve better,” he was drifting a bit, his head up in the clouds. She paused. “Brace yourself, Robert,” she said kindly. “This could hurt.”

  At which point Rob realized he should probably pay attention.

  “Oh,” Rosa said sadly. “It’s not right.” She looked into his eyes, and spoke slowly and clearly, as if he wasn’t fluent in her language. “Rob, we’re letting you go.”

  For a second, all the sound drained from the world.

  “Rob?”

  Blood rushed into his ears. They were letting him go? Letting him go? Rob heard the words, but they lacked context and floated in the air like dust particles, like dust in the wind. “Dust in the Wind.” He liked that song, once. He pictured his mother’s face, vivid red lipstick, sunny smile, liquid eyes. He saw his father’s shoulders shaking at her funeral, the curl of his hair against a starched white collar. He needed a trim, and now Rob knew why: Elaine wasn’t even in the ground yet, but his father was already falling apart. Poor Jerry. Just yesterday, they’d scheduled another visit. This news—that after everything, Rob got himself fired—would crush the man.

  “Hold on, Rosa.” Rob waved his hands as if clearing away smoke. “You’re firing me?”

  “Don’t say ‘firing,’ no. Let’s be precise, Rob. There are legal implications to the words we use; you know that.”

  Rob’s eyes darted around the room. They were alone, which was one reason for his confusion. Separations required an audience: HR rep, supervisor, department head; Legal, too, on occasion. (Last year, when they were processing twenty layoffs a day and tension was high, they stationed a security guard outside the conference room as an added precaution.) Also, Rosa should be following a script with fill-in-the-blank dialogue boxes and contingency wording for every situation. Instead, she kept veering off-message. “It’s so warm.” She stood up and cracked open her door. “Katherine? Some water, please?” She sat down. “Thirsty, Rob? I’m so dry.”

  Rob was silent. The only noise in the room was the faint hiss of the radiator.

  “Rob, this is a reduction in force, a business decision unrelated to performance. You’ve been an asset to Ellery, and I’ll give you a glowing reference. In fact, we’ll have Lucy draft a letter this afternoon. You’re not the only one; several other employees will be having this same conversation, three from HR. Of course I shouldn’t tell you this, but maybe you already know? We’re letting Maisie Fresh go. Also Kenny, though not yet; he still has projects to complete, so we’re waiting. To be candid, he was a disappointment; I expected a lot more. I misjudged him, I’m afraid.”

  “Kenny? Verville?” Kenny was a tool, but Rob felt a flash of anger on his behalf. “That’s not right!”

  Rosa was unmoved. “According to Lucy, he has another job lined up.”

  Why was she telling him this? Rosa never disclosed confidential details—and certainly not during a separation—yet she continued to list names. “Gregory Dwyer in Finance—he’s an asshole, anyway. Good riddance. Anna Fleischman in Legal. I always liked Anna, but apparently I was the only one. Oh, and Roxanne Walker. Her, I’ll miss.”

  It was truly over for him here, Rob realized. Why else would Rosa give up all pretense of decorum? “Does Lucy know?” It sickened him to think that his best friend—yes, that’s what she was, he realized—would willingly withhold this information. All these years, he’d also considered Lucy his peer, his equal, which, he saw now, was lunacy. They were never equals. Lucy had been standing on his shoulders from the day she showed up—not that he begrudged her any iota of success. Why would he? How could he? Lucy Bender worked her ass off. In his career, Rob had met lots of women like her: eager to please, happy to help—women who got shit done. (In business as in life, women were far more capable than men. What man could oversee a million-dollar implementation project, change a diaper, sew a SpongeBob costume, and drive carpool—without complaint? The gender wars could be summed up in one sentence: “Okay, I’ll take it on.” Nine times out of ten, this was a preemptive offer made by a woman, for which she expected—and received—nothing in return. “That’s okay,” Lucy would volunteer, “I’ll take it on”—thereby allowing Rob to go home while she and her incomparable work ethic stayed behind until dawn. The tenth time, when Rob would agree to do an assignment, it would be as a favor granted, a debt owed.) Of course this was how his story would end. He was a fool to ever think oth
erwise. I’ll miss her, Rob thought. He and Lucy had spent every weekday together for ten years. Who would he talk to? Who’d make him laugh?

  “Lucy knows,” he said, this time a statement of fact.

  Rosa shook her head. “No one knows. Just the board—and Peter, of course. I told Peter it was a shitty decision, and he agreed. He was furious about it.”

  “You talked to Peter?”

  “Peter?” Her forehead furrowed. “No, Peter and I haven’t spoken.” For a second, her face lit up. “Why, have you heard from him?”

  “Rosa, you just said Peter knew.” Rob was dizzy and disoriented. The air felt lighter, his breathing shallow. May 1 was two days away, but the temperature outside had dropped. Rosa’s office was overheated; under Rob’s shirt, sweat leaked from his pores and soaked through the fabric.

  “Excuse me.” She covered her mouth, embarrassed. “I meant Rutherford.”

  Though Rob could see Rosa beside him—her honey-colored hair, wide red mouth—her voice was coming from a great remove, as if they weren’t just sitting across a table but also divided by glass. The office had taken on a heightened, cinematic quality: this was a scene being staged, and he and Rosa were acting out parts. Is this shock? Am I in shock? Rob touched his chest. Everything worked; he felt his heart beating, heard his slow, raspy breathing. But why did his hand look so enormous? This is shock, right? Then Rosa started to pace, compounding his discomfort.

  “You need to believe one thing, Rob,” Rosa insisted. “Rutherford did not want to do this. The board forced his hand. You see the numbers. Business is lousy and will be for some time.”

  “That guy never gave a shit about me; he only cares about the bottom line.” Rob stopped, struck by his rancor. “All due respect.” Did Leo know? He hoped not. They’d been out to lunch a bunch of times since their brainstorming dinner, and while he didn’t think of Leo as a friend, he also didn’t want the man’s pity. Then again, when had he started caring what Leo Smalls thought of him?

  “You’ve been recruiting a long time, Rob. Since the beginning of your career?”

  “Yes, but at Nielsen I focused on training. That’s why you hired me, remember? I only took on recruiting because you asked me to.”

  “Maybe that was a mistake,” Rosa admitted.

  “It probably was. Training is a better fit for me than recruiting—less paperwork, less phone time, less aggravation. I’m not detail-oriented, as you know. Also, rejecting people takes its toll. I hate this part”—Rob waved at Rosa, then himself. “Layoffs kill me; it’s excruciating to watch people leave, even if they’re headed to a better place. Sounds like I’m a hospice worker, doesn’t it? It’s hard to fire coworkers; it makes me feel responsible, or what’s the word? Complicit? Still, I can see now”—he waved back and forth again—“it’s a lot more difficult to be the one getting fired.” His laugh sounded fake, but at least he wasn’t down on his knees, hugging the floor; at least he was still upright in his chair.

  “I know what you mean.” Rosa sighed. “Business isn’t emotional, but people are, so the lines get blurry; we cross them without meaning to. Rob, I don’t want to step over the line, but I feel you might be better served if you shift back to training. You’re a personable man. You’re also decent, which is a rare quality these days. Training plays to your strengths; you’ll also find more opportunity down the . . . the . . . the whatever, the path.” She patted her folders. “We should go through these . . .” But instead of opening one, she sat quietly, staring at him.

  “You okay, Rosa?”

  “Not really, Rob. I too find these conversations difficult, especially with someone I care about.” She squinted, as if trying to recall something. “People react so differently when they’re being let go. Some are silent. Others lose their filters and blurt out everything they’ve been holding back: you’re a bitch, you’re fat, I always hated you. Once a guy at Sony told me I stank; he was referring to my perfume, but I thought he meant my body. ‘You smell like my dead grandma’ was what he said. Howard had spent a fortune on a bottle of L’Air du Temps, but I threw it out. Who wants to smell like a dead person? But then the guy remembered he had severance coming, and didn’t want to fuck up the money, so he tried to take it back.”

  Rob couldn’t quite follow her logic but laughed anyway. Someday he’d remember this, how instead of making his execution horrible, Rosa had told him a story, offered him dignity.

  “You know who aggravates me most, though?” she continued. “The ones who say every day how much they hate this place, but when they get fired, they wail like someone died. I guess someone does die. ‘To lose a job is to lose a life’—Leo said that once.”

  “I do feel like I’m losing my life,” Rob said. “This was a life, right? Working here was my life, not my whole life but a large piece of it.” Any other time, Rob might have enjoyed this, sitting here with Rosa, musing over the big questions.

  She patted her folders again. “We should move on.”

  The next twenty minutes were a blur of numbers, dates, and details Rob found impossible to absorb, which was odd, given all the times he’d sat on Rosa’s side of the table. But the net-net was this: in exchange for two more weeks and his agreement (in writing) to take no legal action, he’d walk away with a decent package. His last day would be May 13. His benefits would end May 31 but he was eligible for COBRA, so he should talk to Maddy and—

  Maddy! Icy terror seized him, shrinking his balls. How could he tell her this? She was already so anxious about money. Leaning across the table, he looked Rosa in the eye. “Please don’t fire me. I’ll buckle down, come in early, stay late—whatever it takes. I’m almost forty-four. Who’s gonna hire me? Please don’t make me beg, Rosa. Please don’t make me beg for my job, please.”

  “Now listen to me, Rob. You’re still young. Second, this isn’t the end. Third, I’ll go through my Rolodex. So will Leo, Lucy, and Peter.”

  Her kindness was the only thing keeping Rob from shouting, Shut up, shut up! Shut the fuck up! “I need air.” He stood up so fast his chair turned over. “Excuse me.” He left before Rosa could protest, though in a move he only thought about later, he was careful not to slam the door, as if to demonstrate his professionalism despite his feral state.

  Out in the hallway, Leo headed toward him, but Rob didn’t stop. He must’ve looked stricken, because Leo caught his elbow. “You okay?”

  What a fucking reversal, Rob thought. Twenty years ago, Leo was the one in the hall, hair matted, face wet. “What’s the matter?” someone, not Rob, had asked. “My assignment’s over,” Leo moaned and continued to moan until a manager led him away. Back then, nothing about the guy made sense—not his crying or his black eyebrows, definitely not his neediness. But in retrospect, now that he knew Leo’s dad had been dying, the scene took on tragic dimensions. Rob could see he’d acted deplorably, giving Leo the cold shoulder when he passed by. “I’m sorry, Leo,” he said as he speed-walked to the elevator. “I’m really sorry.”

  Leo trotted beside him. “What happened with Rosa?”

  “I’m sorry about your dad. When we were younger, I was a prick. Maybe if I hadn’t been such a prick then, it would be easier now. I don’t know. But I’m sorry.” He saw that Leo’s brow was furrowed in confusion and concern; still, he didn’t stop. “I’ll call you.”

  Downstairs, Rob sped along Tenth Avenue. While cold, it was the kind of day he and Evan used to live for: bright sun, clear sky, birds swooping. They’d lock up the office and spend the afternoon at Murphy’s, flirting with pretty girls. Scrolling through his BlackBerry, Rob cursed his lot. Here he was, forty-three years old, fired from his job and without a single friend to console him. He spotted Evan’s name, which he’d entered into his contacts, believing they might actually see each other again. Of course that never happened.

  Fuck it, he thought, and tapped call. Evan shocked him by picking up.

  “Hey,” Rob blurted out. “It’s me. Rob . . . uh . . . Bobby Hirsch. You around?
I’d love to see you.” He faltered. “If you’re free . . . I know it’s last-minute.”

  There was a long pause.

  “We haven’t been able to connect, so I thought I’d take a chance . . .”

  Another long pause. Rob wanted to die, or at the very least, hang up.

  “Sure, Bobby,” Evan said finally. And then, as if it had been nine minutes, not nine years, since their last conversation, he told Rob where to find him. “I’ll be at the bar. Come down.”

  IT WAS ROB who had pushed for the business. Back in the late nineties, after almost a decade of eight-hour days in beige-on-beige cubicles, he’d started to feel like a caged animal. Evan, normally game for whatever, was reluctant. “We’re two dopes who like to get stoned. What do we know about running a business?” Maddy was similarly skeptical. Allie wasn’t even thirteen months old, she’d reminded Rob. Plus, she was no fan of Evan. “You really want this?” she asked.

  “Not just want, Maddy; I need this.” Although Rob had graduated from Dartmouth years before, he still hadn’t considered his career in any formal way. His degree was in English, he read a lot, he liked travel writing (as a magazine intern, he’d written about a summer vacation in Spain)—but this was the extent of his planning. What were his passions? What did he like to do? Where did he want to be in five years? In ten? He had no idea; he assumed the answers would appear at some point. In the meantime, his dad talked to the head of Legal at Revlon; they had an entry-level spot in HR—recruiting, training, that sort of thing. Sure, it soundly deadly to Rob, but a job was a job until he figured out what came next. A few years later, his boss went to Nielsen; Rob followed, and thus was on a “path.” So starting his own business was the first time he’d ever stared his career in the eye and wrestled the fucker to the ground.