CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
“I don’t golf like I used to believe it or not,” Mike was saying as he stood beside William’s desk small-talking with the boss. “There was a time I’d be on the links from sunup to sundown every Saturday. It was my passion.”
William’s intercom buzzed. “I’m sure your wife was pleased-as-punched with that passion of yours,” William said and Mike laughed.
William pressed one of the buttons on his desk phone. “Yes?”
“Miss Johnson is here to see you, sir.”
William had a pile of work to attend to. That Cory situation was already a distraction he didn’t need. “Tell her not now. I’m in a meeting.”
“She says it’s urgent, sir.”
“What part of not now did you not understand, Rita?”
“Yes sir. I apologize sir.”
William released the button.
“But I’ll tell you what,” Mike said, “she should have let me continue golfing. Now my other passions aren’t so nice.”
They both laughed. “Get out of my office,” he said as he turned back toward his computer screen.
But his door flew open and Joy, with Cory nervously behind her, hurried in.
“Here we go,” Mike said when he saw Cory with her.
“Yes here we go,” Joy said with hot attitude when she saw Mike standing beside William’s desk.
“Didn’t I say I was in a meeting?”
“He fired Cory for no good reason.”
Mike was astounded. “Sexually harassment is not a good reason to you? Is that what we’re doing?”
“I’m not talking to you!” Joy said forcefully to Mike. Then she looked back at William. “Cory did not sexually harass anyone!”
“You need to calm down,” William said bluntly to Joy.
Joy frowned. “How could you let Mike fire him over nothing?”
“I fired him for cause,” said Mike, “whether you wanna believe it or not. He was sexually harassing one of my trainees and that’s not tolerated.”
“But that’s not true!” pleaded Cory.
“He didn’t do it,” Joy added.
“Were you there, Joynetta?”
Everybody looked at William when he asked that question. And then Mike looked at Joy. But Joy held firm. “No, I wasn’t there. But I know Cory wouldn’t do something like that.”
“Were you there, Joynetta?” William asked her again.
Mike smiled. Joy had to take a deep breath. “No sir.”
“Then shut the fuck up!” William yelled. “Nobody is going to besmirch the reputation of this firm I don’t care who they are. Sexual harassment is taken seriously around here and it will continue to be taken seriously.”
Joy couldn’t believe he would just take Mike’s word for it. “Have you even heard Cory’s side of the story?” she asked him.
“There’s nothing to hear,” Mike said.
“You shut the fuck up too!” Joy yelled at him. “You shut up!”
Cory wanted to run out of that office. He knew he was doomed for certain now.
Mike was pissed. “I will remind you, Miss Johnson,” he said, “that I am your superior in this organization.”
“And?” Joy asked him defiantly.
“And I can fire you. And I can fire you summarily.”
Joy wanted William to defend her and fire Mike’s ass on the spot, but she knew she was out of line and Mike had every right to warn her of the consequences of her belligerence. But she also knew what was happening to Cory was wrong too.
She decided to ignore Mike and look to William again. “Harassment isn’t what this is about anyway,” she said to him.
William looked at her. He knew she would explain.
“Cory is the model student in that training program. He’s on pace to finish at the top of the class and nobody else is even close. But he’s got a problem.”
“I’ll say,” said Mike. “He sexually harasses people.”
“Shut up, Mike,” William said. “Go on,” he said to Joy.
“His problem,” Joy said, glancing at Mike, “is that he’s a black man finishing at the top of an all-white class and the director of that program can’t deal with that. That’s what this is about!”
Both Joy and Cory stared at Mike. But Mike was chuckling and shaking his head. “That’s what they do. They play the race card. It never fails.”
But William wasn’t so dismissive. “Is Cory at the head of the class?” he asked Mike.
Mike seemed less sure of himself. “He is, yes sir.”
“And all this talk of me harassing another trainee didn’t start until the rankings came out today.
” Cory knew he had to speak up for himself.
“It wasn’t an hour after he saw my name at the top did he call me into his office and start claiming I was harassing somebody I’ve never said two words to in the whole time I’ve been in training, let alone harassing him. ”
“Wow,” said Joy. She didn’t even know it went that deep. She and Cory looked at William.
When he said nothing and seemed buried in his own thoughts, Joy pounced. “How could you just sit there? You heard what he said.”
“And he heard what I said,” William said and then looked at Cory. “Tell her what I said, Cory.”
“You said I was on leave, but that what Mike said goes.”
William stared at him. That was why he didn’t fuck with twentysomethings. They were too self-absorbed to even pay attention. Joy was a definite exception. “What else did I say, Cory?”
Cory tried to remember. Then he shook his head. “I don’t remember anything else. When you said what Mike said goes was all I needed to hear.”
“I told you that you were on leave pending an investigation. If the investigation bears out what Mike said then yes what Mike says goes. But if you didn’t do anything wrong you have nothing to worry about. And Mike has plenty to worry about.”
“That’s better than an outright firing,” said Joy, “and Cory was wrong for jumping to conclusions so fast like that. But you’ll be playing right into Mike’s hands with this investigation. Why should Cory have to miss class and lose his ranking while this investigation goes on?”
“He will not lose his ranking. And the investigation is already ongoing. I should know something by close of business today. That’s why I told him to take the rest of the day off. Now get out of my office I have work to do!”
Joy was disappointed. She wanted so much more out of William when it came to matters like this.
And although he did keep his word and hire an African-American over his Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion program, she was still putting her staff together.
And William didn’t believe in micromanaging anything. She and Cory began leaving.
“Stay back, Cory,” William said. “Get back to work, Mike.”
Cory and Joy glanced at each other, and Joy squeezed Cory’s arm as if to tell him to defend himself vigorously, as she left the office. Mike didn’t like it, and he gave Cory a look to prove it, as he left the office too.
“Sit down,” William said to Cory.
Cory sat down.
“Have Mike or any of the instructors shown any signs of racial animus toward you while you have been in JEP?”
“Overtly no. But there’s a lot of subtle macroaggressions yes.”
“Such as?”
“I’ll answer a question and they’ll claim it’s wrong, and then a white student will answer that question the exact same way and that student is lauded. It’s the right answer then. Stuff like that.”
“But despite that you still made it to the top of the class.”
Cory nodded. “Yes sir. But that’s because the tests are scored independently at a testing agency. If it was in-house, I don’t know, sir.”
“So my racial problem still exists.”
“Very much so, sir,” Cory said.
Cory was surprised when a look of regret appeared on William’s face. “I cannot believe how badly I’ve failed in that department, young man. Had Joy not pointed it out to me, I would not have seen it.”
“But how could you not see it, sir,” Cory boldly asked, “when all around you were a sea of white faces? I heard people of color call Skeffington clear vision because all you see are clear people working here. They believed the fact that I was the first face people met when they entered the building was for show.”
William considered him. “Did you believe that?”
“Yes sir,” Cory responded.
William’s desk phone buzzed. He pressed the button. “Yes?”
“London is on Line 4 sir.”
William looked at Cory. “What’s the name of the young man you supposedly harassed?”
“Wally McDermott.”
William pressed his phone’s intercom button. “I want the complete personnel files on Wally McDermott and Mike Castling.”
“Yes sir.”
“Cory, wait in my secretary’s office until I finish this call.”
“Yes sir.” Cory felt a great sense of relief as he grabbed back up his backpack and left his office.
William knew it was the Prime Minister’s office phoning. That man couldn’t seem to keep himself out of trouble. “Put the call through,” he said to his secretary.
But even after that call and after those personnel files were received, he still couldn’t deal with Cory’s situation because Max came in. With news, serious news he said, about the man who pulled that gun on Joy.