Chapter Thirty-Two
Thirty-Two
Monday, I went straight to the bathroom as soon as I got into the office. My nerves and all the caffeine I drank in the morning had me feeling sick. It was over with Danuwoa. It had to be. He didn’t respond to a single text message after the jewelry fair incident, and I really couldn’t blame him.
“Ember!” Mr. Stevenson boomed as he stormed from the elevator.
“Yes, sir?”
“I need you to come with me to take notes during my next meeting. We’re going downstairs in five.”
“You got it.” I scooped up my laptop and waited for Mr. Stevenson to put down his briefcase. The elevator ride down was quiet and awkward. I had yet to crack the small talk code with him and have an easy conversation.
I’d been in a few meetings with him since I’d taken over for Natalie. Nothing too serious, and he never actually asked for those notes. We filed into the Chuck Norris conference room, where finance and human resources were setting up the presentation on the screen.
I opened my document to start taking notes and got so far as today’s date when I was immediately bored. On autopilot, I minimized the document and opened Teams, clicking on my chat thread with Danuwoa.
Ember Cardinal: Hey!
Mr. Adams opened the meeting with an agenda slide and all the topics that would be covered and by who. I wrote the names and topics down and tapped my fingers, waiting hopefully for the gray dots to show up in the chat window to show that Danuwoa was typing back. Instead, I got an open eyeball icon.
He read the message. That was a start.
Minutes went by. Nothing.
Ember Cardinal: Hi, quick question.
It was wrong to bait him as if there was an IT issue, but I was desperate.
Dan Colson: If you are having computer issues, you can fill out a help desk ticket.
He followed up with the link. It couldn’t get any worse. My mind went blank, and my heart was racing. I couldn’t think of a way to fix this, and I stopped paying attention to whoever had been talking for a while.
“Ember.”
I heard a noise that sounded vaguely like my name, but my mind was going a mile a minute. There had to be something I could do. Some way to apologize. How was I supposed to know Gary was obsessed with crystals? It wasn’t like we would run into coworkers every time we went out.
“Ember!” Mr. Stevenson’s shout ripped me out of my panicking spiral.
“Yes?”
“Read back the action items for finance.”
“Uh, right.” Shit! I hadn’t been taking notes and honestly couldn’t say how much time had passed. “I’m sorry…” I discreetly pressed the power button and my laptop shut down. “I’m having technical problems. My computer crashed. I need to take it to IT. Sorry.” I grabbed my computer and booked it out of the room.
I hurried through the cubicles until I reached Danuwoa’s desk. He did not look pleased in the least to see me standing before him.
“My computer crashed.” I shoved it at him. “I can’t fill out a ticket with a dead computer. Sorry.”
He silently took my laptop and plugged it into his charger. He held the power button down and it turned on in seconds. A message window popped up on the screen that said the computer had been improperly shut down. He shot me a look. It just crashed?
Yup. Gulp.
“Well, everything seems to be working fine. I have a bunch to catch up on this morning.”
“Danuwoa, I—”
“I can’t do this with you, Ember,” he whispered. His eyes looked so hurt. I had done that. I put that look on his face.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered back, extending my hand to rub his back and quickly snatching it away. I wasn’t sure I still had the privilege to touch Danuwoa with such familiarity.
“I know you are, but I can’t do this anymore.”
I nodded, looking away so he wouldn’t see the tears burning in my eyes. Grabbing the laptop, I escaped back to floor seventeen.
Things went from bad to really fucking bad. There was an email in my inbox from Gary.
Sender: Gary Horowitz
Subject: Request for Meeting with Mr. Stevenson—Urgent
His name filled me with dread. The cc line had every C-level executive, including Kyle and Monica from HR. It couldn’t have anything to do with me, right? I hadn’t done anything wrong. I mean, I totally did but at the direction of Kyle. Surely, he wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me, as it would expose him. My stomach turned to lead as I opened the message.
Ember,
Please schedule me on Mr. Stevenson’s calendar before the end of the day. It is an urgent confidential matter.
—GH
Mr. Stevenson had a thirty-minute window after lunch. I set up the meeting invite, including all the cc’d parties, and urgently ran to the bathroom for the fifth time this morning. There was no reason I should think it was about me. I was being paranoid.
My sixth sense was telling me this was about me though, and my body could not handle the additional stress. I stayed in the bathroom stall for a few minutes to breathe. When I went back to my desk, Mr. Stevenson had accepted the calendar invite.
Did I eat lunch? I remember sitting there putting food in my mouth as I sat alone at the table I usually shared with Danuwoa and Phoebe. Both were absent from the break room. I was in a haze of pure panic, spiraling about the meeting and about my breakup with Danuwoa.
I did everything Natalie told me to do. I did all the work required of me and then some, like navigating legitimate blackmail to help Kyle get even further ahead. I protected my and Danuwoa’s jobs. Why was I always being punished for just trying to do the right thing, no matter what fucked-up way I had achieved it?
Back upstairs I went through the motions, and when it was time, the elevators opened and Gary Horowitz, Kyle Matthews, and Monica Lewis stepped out to the sound of “The Imperial March,” which played in my head. They stepped in time with the horns.
Monica gave me a warm smile, but Kyle refused to meet my eyes. Gary did not acknowledge my existence. It was like I was part of the furniture.
They entered Mr. Stevenson’s office, and I wanted to flee.
I picked at my nails, willing myself not to turn around and try to hear what I could through the glass. Then Monica popped her head out of the door.
“Ember, could you join us inside for a moment?” she asked.
“Sure.” I stood and adjusted my button-up cuffs and walked in, looking at the ground. Then, as I sat down and met the eyes of those in the room, judging me, I painted a smile on my face as if nothing was wrong, because nothing was wrong. I did everything I could as correctly as possible with the limited options I had.
“Sit,” Mr. Stevenson commanded, sounding bored. He leaned back in his chair, hands crossed over his stomach. “Care to explain why I recently approved almost ten thousand dollars of expenses?”
I looked at Kyle, who subtly shook his head.
“I submitted expense reports like I was told to do?” It sounded like a question, because I was walking on thin ice and didn’t know which words would make me fall through and drown under all my lies.
“Who told you to approve them using my signature stamp?”
“Er…Kyle?” I wasn’t going down for something I was told to do! I wished I had sounded more confident, but I had four sets of eyes on me. Gary just sat there with a smug smile on his face.
“I asked you to have Mr. Stevenson approve the expenses, Ember,” Kyle admonished me, and looked to Mr. Stevenson. “I would never assume authority over someone, especially your assistant, to abuse your signature stamp.”
Mr. Stevenson waved his hand away and asked me, “Didn’t you learn proper GAAP rules in your accounting program?”
“Of course,” I said. I mean, I learned some from Google in my brief time working under Gary. I did ask Kyle if it was okay, and now he was totally throwing me under the bus. If I could make someone explode with my eyes, it would be him.
A chuckle from Gary stole all our attention.
“What accounting program?” he asked. My stomach bottomed out.
“I told you I attended the accounting program at Oklahoma City Community College,” I said, choosing my words carefully.
“You attended some classes, but I called my buddy who works over there, and there’s no record of you completing or graduating from that program.”
Fuck . Fuckity fuck’s sake.
“I…well…er…” I had to say something. Anything. To explain I wasn’t some pathological liar. I wanted to do the right thing and not live with this anxiety.
Gary flipped through the folder in his hand. I saw my name clearly at the top of the page: EMBER CARDINAL . My doctored résumé and application.
“I also went ahead and called the phone number listed here for Joanna Gates. Your best friend, right?”
“She is, but I do her taxes for her small business too,” I squeaked out.
“What about bookkeeping for Bobby Dean’s Bowling Alley?” Gary asked, and Kyle looked surprised.
“I did work there.”
“Not as an accountant.”
“What does that have to do with anything? I balanced the registers.” The emotion in my throat was like acid, and I hated that my eyes burned with tears I refused to shed.
“Absolutely nothing, but adds to the entire story that, Ember Cardinal, you are a liar. You have no experience that would have qualified you for this job, and you exercised poor judgment with submitting and approving these expense reports.”
A single tear popped out of my eye. I slapped it away.
“What about him?” I pointed to Kyle. “He threatened me and blackmailed me to submit these things for him. I didn’t want to lie on my résumé, but I needed a good job, and I am a hard worker. Do you know how hard it is as a Native American to get the necessary job experience? Like, so what if I’m Native American? My racial background has nothing to do with my ability to work.” I pushed through, looking right at our CEO, admitting to everything. “I didn’t want to go into your email, Mr. Stevenson, but Kyle threatened to get my coworker fired, and I was just trying to protect them.”
Kyle spoke up, his voice loud. “She’s crazy. I mean, listen to her. You can’t believe this? Gary has just proved that this woman is a pathological liar.”
“All right, that’s enough.” It was Monica who cut in.
“I may have lied to get this job, but I will not lie to cover for you. What do I have to lose? There’s no way I can stay here after this.”
“Honey, don’t cry. We want to understand this. Right, Mr. Stevenson?” Monica asked.
I looked at Monica’s kind face and was hopeful, until I looked at Mr. Stevenson, who kept staring at his desk, his position unchanged.
I hunched and stripped myself bare, laying all the parts of me that I had hidden away. “I am Chickasaw and Choctaw. I grew up in Ada with my aunt. Every time I put ‘American Indian’ on an application, I got a rejection. My dad is white, so it’s not a full-out lie.”
When no one said anything, I continued, “I went to Oklahoma City Community College and am several classes away from graduating that program with my associate’s degree in accounting. My brother got into trouble, and I used my school money for his bail, which he skipped, and I lost it all. I was tired of working at a bowling alley and barely getting by. I thought if I could get my foot in the door as an accounting assistant, then I could make enough to go to night school and graduate. I never wanted to be the executive assistant to the CEO. It was Natalie who put me here. I won’t sit here like I stole it or something. Kyle asked me on the flight back here from California to submit expenses and said that Natalie approved with Mr. Stevenson’s stamp all the time and not to bother him to ask—”
“You aren’t going to entertain this, right? She’s crazy!” Kyle interrupted me again.
“Let her talk, Kyle,” Mr. Stevenson said.
“I’m really sorry. Kyle then started demanding more from me and told me to go into your email to delete your rejection of his raise and draft a new email to approve it.”
“I can’t listen to this bullshit.” Kyle stood up.
“Sit your ass down. Is this true?” Mr. Stevenson asked. As soon as Kyle went to open his mouth, Mr. Stevenson added, “Cut the shit.”
“I just asked for some help with expenses. I have no idea what she’s talking about with the emails. This is stupid. Just fire her and hire someone else. This role is easily replaceable.”
“Shut up.” Mr. Stevenson rolled his eyes and blew out a breath.
Monica solemnly spoke up. “We did receive an email from you forwarded by Kyle to payroll to initiate a newly approved raise.”
Mr. Stevenson gave Kyle a death glare, then got his cell phone out and called someone. “Come up to my office, now,” he barked his order to whoever was on the other line. Probably security to escort me out of here.
The wind in my sails left me. I sat hunched in my chair, defeated. Gary sat with his chest puffed up like he just solved some crime that had people puzzled for years. Kyle sat with his leg bouncing at supersonic speed. Monica looked like she wanted to be anywhere but here. I kept eyeing the door to see who Mr. Stevenson invited up here.
My heart sank as Danuwoa stepped through the door. “You need something?” he asked, glancing at the rest of us in the room.
“I need you to recover some emails for me. What date was this?” Mr. Stevenson asked me.
“Last Thursday,” I mumbled.
“Look up all my deleted and sent emails from last Thursday,” he directed Danuwoa.
Seconds, then minutes had ticked by when finally, Danuwoa angled Mr. Stevenson’s laptop screen back to him.
“I see. You’re clever, boy. I’ll give you that,” he said, raising an eyebrow to his nephew.
“This is all ridiculous. She’s fucking the IT guy! He is obviously trying to save her ass.”
“That is enough!” Mr. Stevenson’s voice bellowed. “That language and accusation is enough for me to dismiss you right here and now.”
“I saw them kiss in California!” Kyle’s face was flaming red as he spewed his venom.
“Kyle, you’re dismissed. I’ll deal with you later.”
Kyle rose from his seat, his nostrils flaring as he glared daggers at me, and he stomped from the office.
I watched as Mr. Stevenson rubbed his eye sockets and sighed. “This is quite a mess. I don’t care if you’re an American Indian and lied about it to get the job. I honestly don’t even care that you made up a fake résumé to get this job. You’re talented and bright and have been doing fine.”
“Hardly,” Gary muttered under his breath.
“Thank you, Gary. I think Monica and I can take it from here,” Mr. Stevenson said.
“Good luck,” Gary said with derision as he set his file full of all my lies on top of Mr. Stevenson’s desk.
I looked at Danuwoa. Now he knew everything. I was a liar. He didn’t meet my eyes.
“I think this thing with the expenses is truly my nephew’s fault, and this email…well, that is what I do care about—integrity. I can’t have someone working for me in such a trusted position, handling such sensitive material, who wouldn’t even think to ask me about Kyle’s requests.”
“I understand.” I hung my head. This was my penance. Danuwoa deserved to know everything about the woman who shared his bed. He was so open with his heart, and I returned his affection with lies and secrecy.
“This thing my nephew said about you and Dan…” Mr. Stevenson let the sentence trail off.
“We are not together,” I answered truthfully, refusing so much as a glance at Danuwoa.
Mr. Stevenson nodded his head. “Right, right. Well, it’s of no consequence now. Monica, if you can wrap this up and see Ember out.”
“Yes, sir.” She rose from her seat and motioned for me to lead the way out of the room. Her smile was strained and awkward.
As I stood to go, Mr. Stevenson held up his hand for me to pause.
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out. Take care,” he said.
“Thank you for the opportunity.”
He nodded his head to himself, then immediately got out his cell phone. That was my final dismissal. I left the office without looking at Danuwoa, but with the office wall clear as day, I could feel his eyes boring into my back.
Monica hovered next to me as I gathered my few things into my Technix-branded backpack, which made me hesitate.
“Do I have to return this?” I asked Monica and pointed to the backpack.
“Oh, no, it’s yours to keep.”
I made the situation even more uncomfortable for us both, but how was I to know? Once I got home, I’d never look at the thing again, let alone use it.
Clearing out my desk took less than a minute, since I never had the time to add any personalized touches. I left my computer on the desk along with my notebook. I hiked my backpack over my shoulder and headed to the elevator just as Danuwoa was excused from Mr. Stevenson’s office.
The shit was really piling up.
I found myself sandwiched between Monica and Danuwoa in the elevator, and the only button pushed was twelve. Monica saw me eyeing the lit-up floor number.
“I have to have you fill out standard exit paperwork, then you can be on your way.”
“Okay.” I’d never heard my voice sound so small.
I couldn’t tell if Danuwoa was trying to be polite and give me space in this humiliation, or if he was so disgusted with me that he couldn’t bear to acknowledge me in the elevator.
The ding chimed our arrival to floor twelve before I had any more time to ruminate about it. His quick exit made it clear where we stood.
We were nothing.
Phoebe was behind the reception desk, and she looked shocked to see me. Kyle probably told her what happened when he came back down here. I’m sure the whole floor knew now too. I watched my feet take one step after another in Monica’s wake, avoiding all eye contact.
I sat in her friendly and cozy little cubicle, wanting to bolt out of the building. Monica was printing forms, two copies of everything. She didn’t even try to talk to me. What would be the point?
“Okay, here we go. So, I’ve printed out the confidentiality agreement you signed when you started, for your records. Now, this separation agreement you should have a lawyer look over before you sign.”
“What is it for? Y’all fired me.”
She gave me a tight smile. “Yes, well, it’s pretty standard for those working so closely with a CEO—this has more extensive language limiting what you can say about Technix, Mr. Stevenson, and your time working here.”
“Do I have to sign this?” I was flabbergasted. I was just fired, and now they wanted me to essentially sign a gag order. I guess it wouldn’t look too good to have a former assistant telling people what assholes the executives were. Who would listen anyway?
“Well, no. That’s why you should have a lawyer look it over. If you sign it, then I am sure I can help you with a reference to assist you in finding something else.”
“So, I’ll only be able to use Technix as a reference on my résumé if I sign this?”
“We don’t really like to say that.” Monica placed the documents in a manila folder and handed them to me. “I think you have a bright future ahead of you. You’ve got a strong head on your shoulders; I’m not worried about you for a minute.”
That made one of us. I was very worried about myself and how I’d pay rent and the car loan and the insurance. Shit. I was worse off than I ever was working at Bobby Dean’s.
I took the manila folder and shoved it in my dumb backpack and got up to go.
“Wait!” Monica shot up and walked around her desk. “Sorry, it’s protocol. I have to escort you out. It’s nothing personal.”
All of this felt extremely personal. As we walked through the HR department and then through finance, I saw Kyle walk down the hallway. He approached us with an empty Technix coffee mug and winked and smiled at me, obviously very amused with himself and my demise.
Monica kept trudging on ahead to the elevator, but I stopped and planted my feet on the ground. Kyle looked taken aback. Good. It was all out in the open and over for me. I didn’t have to play nice and pacify him. I could finally stick up for myself, and I was gonna rip him a new one.
“Fuck you,” I said. I wasn’t brave enough to get in his face, but I said it all with my chin.
“Excuse me?” He looked around for witnesses.
“You heard me. You are an entitled ass with an overinflated ego. If your uncle wasn’t the CEO, there is no way in hell you would have the title you do.”
“Okay, that’s enough. I’m pretty sure you’re being escorted out for being a fraud and a whore. Did you fuck all the guys in IT?”
“I did get fired for doing what you made me do.” The hairs on my arms rose with goose bumps, and I could feel eyes all over me. I looked around, and the accounting bros and Lisa were standing and watching my confrontation with slack jaws. “Take it from me, do not do anything this man tells you to. He is a pathetic user.” I started to go catch up with Monica; I’d made enough of a scene.
“Says the girl who couldn’t even go to community college,” Kyle called after me and laughed. It stopped me in my tracks. I was so done being belittled, being mocked for not having one-tenth of the opportunities he had for being born rich, white, and with a dick.
“I feel sorry for you, Kyle. Even with your fancy education, your money, and your connections, no one genuinely likes you. Even though I haven’t graduated from community college—yet—when I finally get to where I am headed, it’s going to mean something to everyone around me. I will be something. You will just fade away, blending into the sea of mediocre men who have come before you.”
I laughed and kept going, hearing a “whoop!” from accounting. I caught up to Monica, who looked either scared of me or in awe.
“Sorry about that,” I mumbled.
Phoebe kept looking at me and then back to Kyle like her head was about to explode.
“There is an opening for executive assistant to the CEO. You should definitely apply,” I said, smiling at her.
“Thanks,” she said with a bewildered stare. I had wanted to be real friends with Phoebe, but we just didn’t click. She was nice when I started, but sometimes just because you worked in an office with someone, it didn’t mean you had to become friends if you didn’t connect. And that was okay.
“Ember, it’s time to go. Everyone has to get back to work.” Monica ushered me into the waiting elevator.
I made such a mess of everything, and even my leaving couldn’t be done on the down-low.
The ride to the lobby was the longest of my life. I had to share the elevator with Monica in shame, and to make it worse, she walked me out onto the curb to make sure I was really gone and not going to cause any more trouble.
I left Technix and the First National Center behind me forever.
What hurt the most was leaving Danuwoa in my wake of shame and embarrassment.