CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
FOUR MONTHS LATER and Joy was well-entrenched at Skeffington.
But because of their relationship, William decided not to let her become one of the assistants in his office but, instead, he made her Bobby’s assistant.
Now that Bobby understood the boundaries, William trusted him explicitly to guide Joy properly.
It was a great decision. Joy had a great work ethic and within mere weeks she was out-performing every individual under Bobby’s command.
She worked circles around all of them, which began to create petty jealousies and backbiting and vicious rumors about Joy sleeping her way to the top.
She was out-performing her way to the top, and every one of them knew it, but they still spread those falsehoods about her anyway.
William became so angry when he heard about it that he considered firing every one of them. He’d done it once, when they disrespected Bobby’s authority, he could easily do it again. Enough was enough.
But on reflection he decided to leave them where they were, since they were good workers just not as good as Joy, and he, instead, moved Joy out of Bobby’s office.
He promoted her to Junior Executive under the supervision of one of his best vice presidents.
Although she circumvented JEP, she excelled even without going through the rigors of their junior executive training program.
She was a star in the junior executive ranks too.
Which her former colleagues hated. But they were so quick to falsely accuse her of sleeping her way to the top that William gave her a fast track to that top.
He gave them something real to talk about.
And to William and Joy’s delight, those same former colleagues hated that more.
That promotion also gave Joy a big corner office on the eighteenth floor with sweeping views of the Chicago skyline that was so far beyond the office job she had envisioned for herself that she sometimes had to pinch herself.
Although she and William were a definite item – she worked her ass off and made her own money, drove a car she purchased, and paid her own rent in a beautiful high-rise apartment.
Although she spent almost every night with William at his house, she still had her own.
God bless the child that’s got her own, was what Gramps always told her, and she believed it too.
She had no idea it was a Billie Holliday song until years later!
And Gramps, she thought as she sat in that office and reviewed the latest police report for one of her clients that managed to get himself arrested again. He wanted perfect PR, but he never wanted to behave perfectly. Now, for his latest offense, he was looking at serious prison time.
But Gramps was on her mind. She did everything in her power to get him to come and live with her in Chicago, but he refused outright.
And he refused with gusto: “They call that place Chi-Raq,” he’d say every time. “Like it’s worse than the real I-Raq. Like it’s a war zone. I ain’t living there!”
She told him countless times it was nothing like that, but he didn’t believe her. He wouldn’t even let William purchase him a house in Bridell! He’d lived where he was staying all his life. There was nothing wrong with his house, he said. He wasn’t leaving his home.
The only thing he did agree to do was to allow Joy to pay his granddaughter to be his full-time caretaker. She didn’t have to work a job. Taking care of him was her job. Which she loved and he loved and Joy was happy with too. But that was the only thing he would ever allow her to give to him.
She wanted to go see him again, because she missed him, but William forbid it.
Until they found Felicity, or at least figured out why that gunman had targeted William but put Joy in his crosshairs, he was not allowing her to travel outside of Chicago.
Everywhere she went, a security detail followed her.
Not because she was Joy Johnson. But because she was Mr. Skeffington’s Joy.
Which she wasn’t mad at. That was her favorite title!
“Miss Johnson?”
It was her secretary peeping into her office.
“Yes, Khadedra?”
“Your client, Miss Jarickson, phoned while you were on the other line.”
“Did she keep her court appearance?”
“Yes ma’am. She told me to tell you that your smear campaign worked and the judge tossed the case out.”
It wasn’t a smear campaign, it was a strategy, but a win was a win. Joy threw her fist in the air. “Yes!” she said happily. Then she looked at Khadedra. “Please tell me the judge tossed that case with prejudice?”
“She didn’t mention anything like that. What does that mean, Miss Johnson?”
“If he tosses the case with prejudice that means they can’t re-file it again. If he tosses it without prejudice, that means she’s still on the hook. Call her attorney and find out.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Joy’s cellphone began ringing.
“Do you want to speak with him when I get him on the phone?”
“No,” said Joy as she grabbed her cellphone. “That won’t be necessary.” And her secretary left and closed the door behind her.
When Joy looked at the Caller ID and saw that it was Contessa, she smiled. And answered quickly. “Hey girl, what up?”
“What’s up with you?”
“Work and more work. Did you turn in that application like I told you?”
“Are you kidding? I e-signed it and emailed it right back to HR as soon as they sent it to me. I can’t wait to be a receptionist at Skeffington PR. Remember when we didn’t even know what PR meant?”
Joy smiled. “You know I do. But it’s not that receptionist position you’re applying for.”
“Then what am I applying for?”
“The next junior executive training program begins next month. I reserved a seat for you.”
“What? Are you serious, Joy? You can do that?”
Joy smiled. Although she was Joy Johnson, a junior executive, she was also Mr. Skeffington’s Joy. Which was the worst-kept secret in the building. But it did give her certain privileges. “Yes, I can do that,” she said.
“So you’re saying after this training program I’m going to be an executive like you?”
“Absolutely. You run rings around me in terms of leadership, Tess. And you’re the most ethical person I know. You’ll probably be my boss someday.”
“Oh Joy, quit playing. But I’m so happy! The most I was hoping for was that receptionist job.”
“I know. Like when all I wanted was an office job. A clerk or anything would do. Just as long as it was in an office. But that’s because we’re accustomed to dreaming tiny dreams. We love and honor a big God. High time we started acting like it.”
“I know that’s right,” said Tess. “Thanks, Joy. Tony kept saying you forgot about me when you got your big job, but I knew you wouldn’t do that.”
“No way would I do that. But I had to get my foot firmly in that door first before I tried to drag you in. But what’s up? Why the call in the middle of the day? You usually wait until after work.”
“I’m not at Maylene’s.”
“You aren’t?”
“No.”
“Then where are you?”
“Me and Tony are here. In Chicago.”
“What? For real girl?”
“For real!”
“Where are you?”
“At the bus station. Tony wanted to drive the van, but I knew that hunk of junk wouldn’t get us all the way here.”
“Stay there. I’m on my way.”
“What will you be driving so we can look out?”
“I’ll be driving my car. It’s a baby-blue Lexus LC 500. With a convertible top girl.”
“Whaaat? When did you get it?”
“Just a few weeks ago. I didn’t want William to buy it for me, so I had to save up.”
“Now that’s smart. Y’all break up, that’s still your car, your apartment, your life.”
Joy wasn’t about to break up with William, but she understood what always-sensible Contessa meant. “I’m on my way.”
“Okay girl. Drive carefully.”
Joy ended the call, grabbed her suit coat from the back of her chair, and went to the mirror to check herself out as she put on her coat.
It was one of those skirt-suits that were among those racks of designer clothes Mrs. Humphrey, one of William’s clothing boutique-owning friends, brought to his house four months ago.
Every outfit fit her so well that she hadn’t bothered to buy any additional clothes.
She smoothed down her hair that dropped down her back in waves of bounciness and curls, and she hurried out of her office.
“I’ll be out of the office for the rest of the day, Khadedra. But call me if something pops off.”
“Will do, Boss,” her secretary said and she hurried away.
But when she got off the elevator in the building lobby and saw Cory stuffing papers into his bookbag over by the coffee shop, she smiled.
“Hey Core!” she yelled out, but he didn’t respond.
When she said it again, and he still wouldn’t respond, she knew he heard her. Which meant something was wrong.
She went over to him. “Didn’t you hear me calling you?”
But when he looked up, she could see the pain in his eyes. Her heart dropped. “Cory, what’s wrong?”
“He fired me.”
Joy frowned. “Who fired you?”
“Mike. He kicked me out of the junior executive training program.”
“But why?”
“He claimed I was sexually harassing another student. But that’s a total lie, Joy.
Being an executive here at Skeffington is my dream job.
My whole focus was to graduate at the top of my class, which I was going to do, so that I could get a good placement.
I would have never sacrificed my dream over some white boy I don’t even talk to and he knows it.
That white boy knows it, too, but he wouldn’t say a word. Mike knows it’s all bogus.”
“Then why would Mike fire you if he knows it’s bogus?”
“Because he don’t want a black man to be the top of nothing! He gets rid of me then his little pet Ashley will be at the top of the class. That’s all this is about.”
“I’ll be damn,” said Joy. “What did Mr. Skeffington say? Did you go to him? He told you to go straight to him if you have any problems like this.”
“That’s what I did. I went straight to him.”
“And?”
“And he believed Mike. He talked about how I’m on leave and woo-woo-woo, but then he said what Mike says goes.”
Joy was stunned. “Get your things and come with me,” she said as she began heading right back toward those elevators.
Cory grabbed his backpack and hurried behind her. “Where are we going?”
“Where you think? To Mr. Skeffington.”
“But he already told me what Mike says goes.”
“And I say like hell it does. He’s railroading you. But don’t worry,” she said as she began pressing those elevator buttons, “nobody’s firing you today. And you just have three weeks to go before you graduate? And you’re graduating at the top of that class? Oh hell no. No way!”
Cory smiled through his pain. “Meeting you that day in this lobby was the best thing that ever happened to me,” he said.
But as they got on the elevator, Joy was still nervous. William could be a hard, hard man when his mind was made up. And from what Cory was saying, it was definitely made up. But right was still right and wrong was still wrong. Mike was as wrong as he could be. Surely William would see that.
Or would he?
“Where were you headed?” Cory asked her.
“To pick up Tess from the bus station and take her and her old man to my apartment. She just called and told me they were in town. But I’ll do that after this,” she said as the elevator doors opened on the top floor, and they hurried to the suite of offices of the Chairman and Founder William Dabner Skeffington the Fifth.