Chapter Twenty-Six
We’re all a little loopy when we show up to the Ryser Cares office on Monday.
We’re still riding the high of the festival’s success.
Sunday didn’t bring as large a crowd as Saturday, but the park was still bursting with attendees and activity all day.
The close of the festival brought a long evening of folding up the tables and tents to be returned to the rental company, packing up our decor, and cleaning up the park grounds.
We didn’t stumble home until the sky was a dark shade of night—and still we dragged ourselves into the Ryser Cares office the next day.
We did take the morning off, at least. I’d have preferred to skip work entirely that day, but Marina said she’d come by when she got off work to go over the festival donations, and Jen wanted to send a post-event thank-you email to our vendors.
So, come Monday at one o’clock, we’re sitting at our desks in the Ryser Cares office, bleary-eyed but present, at least physically.
None of us has done anything remotely productive so far.
Tessa’s playing sudoku on her phone, Randy’s reading, Arun’s napping at his desk, I’m taking my time doing the crossword while sipping my tea.
Even Jen hasn’t made a move to send the vendor email yet.
She’s watching an episode of Love Island .
I think we’re waiting for Marina to arrive before we turn to business.
At four o’clock, Marina walks through the doors, lockbox in hand. “Afternoon!”
Our mumbled greetings are more subdued. Marina looks around at us, clearly not impressed.
“You could try to look alive,” she says.
“Too much effort,” Arun says, his head resting on his folded arms.
“Come on.” Marina strides into the meeting room in the back. “Don’t you want to know how the festival did?”
Slowly, we follow after her and take our seats around the table.
“That’s more like it.” Marina taps the lockbox in front of her.
“I counted this out last night, and—well, it’s not enough to keep the community center going indefinitely.
But it’s enough that I think…we’re onto something.
It’s enough to keep the community center open for the next six months, I think.
I was talking to some of the vendors yesterday, and they all said this should be a regular thing.
As long as Ryser continues to fund it, we can afford to bring the festival back every year and keep putting the profits toward Greenstead.
I really believe we could turn this town around in a few years. What do you think?”
Amid Jen, Arun, and Tessa’s cheerful exclamations and excited questions, a sense of anxiety curdles in my stomach. I share a look with Randy, who eyes me with that same worried scrutiny he gave me when I dodged his questions a couple of days ago.
I take a breath to confess the truth, but then Arun’s sharing his estimate for how many attendees came to the festival, and Jen runs off to grab her laptop to note down the specifics for an infographic she’s planning, and reality is slipping away from me.
When Jen returns to her seat, she’s frowning at her laptop. “That’s weird.”
“What?” Tessa asks.
“It’s not letting me log in.”
“Do you have Caps Lock on again?” Arun asks.
“No.” Jen types a few keys and hits Enter. Her frown deepens. “I don’t understand. My log-in worked fine a couple of hours ago.”
“Maybe you didn’t reset your password in time?” Tessa guesses.
A weight presses on my chest. Amanda said they hadn’t yet decided whether to close the Ryser Cares office. But they wouldn’t have made that decision without telling us, would they?
Unless we gave them reason to.
The only reason that pops into my head is the very thing that I thought might save our office: the apple festival.
Amanda had been clear about distancing Ryser from the festival, and from Greenstead in general.
But she hadn’t forbidden us from throwing it.
If our festival was more successful than Amanda counted on, how could she possibly hold that against us?
That’s when it hits me. Peter Guo. The article he was working on.
His last article kicked off a storm of bad press that sent Amanda into a frenzy. If he’s published another one today…
With a shaky hand, I pick up my phone and search Peter’s name. And there it is, published just this morning: The Small Town Making a Comeback Despite Ryser’s Best Efforts to Destroy It .
I scroll through it quickly, piecing together phrases and tuning out the sounds of the office trying to troubleshoot Jen’s log-in issue.
It seems that Peter grew suspicious of the way I danced around his Ryser-related questions and minimized Ryser’s role in the festival.
He points out that this didn’t align with the statement Ryser put out in late July, which talked up its efforts to support the apple festival.
He correctly guesses that Ryser pounced on the opportunity to support the festival as a knee-jerk reaction to his first article, then abandoned the strategy when it no longer suited them.
The article includes quotes from Greenstead locals he interviewed at the festival, who happily tell him how little Ryser Cares actually cares.
There’s a particularly condemning quote from Walt—riddled with ellipses, though it still somehow takes up two paragraphs even in its heavily abridged state—that details how Ryser’s support of Greenstead gradually diminished to nothing.
In short, the article celebrates Greenstead and exposes Ryser as a fraud. It would be enough to make Amanda furious. Enough to incite her to take action.
“Lauryn?”
I look up. Randy’s watching me with worry.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Yes.” Slowly, I rise. “I just have to…check something.”
I try to keep my steps even on the walk to my desk. Save for Randy, the others are still in conversation. Marina’s advising Jen to restart her computer. Jen says she doesn’t think that’s going to solve it, and I have a terrible feeling she’s right.
I sit down at my computer and slowly press the power button. When it boots up, I enter my password.
It’s denied.
I take in a shuddering breath and glance back at the meeting room. Randy’s leaning against the doorframe, watching me. I can see the pieces starting to come together in his mind.
I turn away. I can’t face any of them until I hear it from Amanda herself. I mutter an excuse about calling IT and dash into the parking lot. The geese are chillingly silent.
I call Amanda and lean against my car, my back to the office to avoid making eye contact with anyone through the window. It rings once, twice—and then she picks up.
“Hi, Lauryn.” There’s a knowing tone in her voice. Like she’s been expecting this.
I open my mouth to speak, but my throat is too dry to get out a single syllable. I clear my throat and try again. “I’m having some trouble logging on to my computer.”
“I know.”
Well, that’s not a great sign. Ignoring the way my muscles tense, I ask, “Can you tell me what’s going on?”
“I think you know the festival isn’t what we agreed on.”
“How? First you wanted to be more involved in planning, so we involved you. Then you wanted us to distance Ryser from the festival, so we did.” It’s a struggle to keep my voice even. “We did what you told us. How is that not what we agreed on?”
“It wasn’t supposed to draw this much attention,” Amanda says coldly. “It wasn’t supposed to get that reporter digging again, making up theories about Ryser.”
I let out a huffy breath and kick a pebble near my shoe. “I can’t control who shows up. I can’t control him deciding to write an article.”
“But you spoke to him.”
“Just about Greenstead,” I insist. “When he asked about Ryser, I gave our usual talking points and redirected the conversation.”
“Which he found suspicious,” she points out.
I sigh. If it’s suspicious, it’s because Ryser’s behavior is suspicious, and it’s not my fault he caught on to that. “What does this have to do with our log-in trouble?”
“I met with leadership this morning, and we decided it would be best to shut down Ryser Cares immediately.”
My breath leaves me. “Without any notice?”
“We felt it was safer this way. Dan was concerned that if we gave you a notice period, you might retaliate somehow. He thought it would be safer for the company if we removed access first and informed you after.”
I break into a bitter laugh. Just when I thought it wasn’t possible to hate Dan Gorland more. “Thanks for informing us,” I spit out. “I thought Dan was leaving.”
“He is.” She sounds surprised that I know this. “But he still works here until next week.”
“So he gets a notice period.” When she doesn’t respond, I breathe out a controlled exhale through my nose. I don’t want to ask, but the question claws at me, desperate and unashamed. “You said before…”
“Yes?”
I swallow and try again. “You said before that I wouldn’t get my old job back while Dan was still around. Does, um…does him leaving change anything? About the possibility of getting my old job?”
It’s humiliating to get the words out. Then I’m left stewing in the silence stretching out before me.
Amanda must be shocked I asked. She must be trying to understand how I could bring this up when the answer is written all around us.
But apparently this is what I’m willing to do for my FIRE spreadsheet, for a stable life.
I’m willing to make myself look like an idiot in front of my ex-boss who, I’m realizing, doesn’t understand me at all.
“No,” Amanda replies. She says it gently, at least. “With the festival, and the article…we’re past that now. You won’t be getting your job back.”
“So that’s it? We’re all just fired?”
She tells me to expect a letter from HR, and then the call is over. I’m left to stare at my phone and try to come to terms with the fact that I’m unemployed for the first time in a decade.
“What do you mean, we’re all fired?”