Chapter 1
ONE
CRANBERRY
NOELLE
A YEAR LATER
Ican’t taste anything that has cranberry in it without wanting to throw my guts up on the floor.
Makes sense. It was the holidays, after all. Our annual Christmas party. Of all the drinks they served, Dean kept shoving little shots of straight cranberry Schnapps into my hand.
“Just one more,” he’d said, smiling like it was a joke we were in on together. Like it meant something that he remembered what I’d already had. Like I owed him something for his attention.
I remember thinking I didn’t even like cranberry. Not really.
I remember thinking I should stop.
I remember thinking I didn’t want to be the girl who made a scene, especially since I was the only woman on the team with three other guys.
We were all brand strategy coordinators, a mid-level, non-executive position at Evergreen it was the liquor that caused it, he said, the benevolent VP who was willing to let me keep my job.
My colleague never went into that bedroom, and neither did the managers.
Dutton left me there to sleep off his rejection, and if I made a pass at Marcus because I couldn’t, I should be lucky that he didn’t make me pay to clean his shoes after he was so kind as to bring me to the bathroom to splash some water on my face.
Sandra tried. She gave a report on the state that she found me in, but when Evergreen & Co.
has only one female employee for every five male employees, the boy’s club shut us both down.
I should’ve known better than to drink so much at a company party, and Sandra was kind to help me, but no one needed to blame any of the higher-ups for what happened.
I tried. The more memories that returned to me, the more I went to HR, hoping they could help me since I knew damn well that the police wouldn’t.
It didn’t do shit. In the end, they called me emotional. Unprofessional.
A fucking liability.
That was December, two years ago. The five men involved all kept their jobs. Me? I was relieved of my duties by the following April in a single email from HR:
Hi Noelle,
Thank you for meeting with us again to further discuss your concerns.
After a thorough review of the recent information you shared, as well as interviews with relevant parties and an assessment of available documentation, Evergreen & Co. has determined that we are unable to substantiate the claims as presented.
As you know, Evergreen is committed to fostering a professional, respectful, and collaborative workplace. However, we must also ensure that our internal standards are upheld and that all employees are able to perform their roles effectively within our culture.
At this time, we have identified several performance-related issues that have been previously documented, including concerns around team alignment, judgment in professional settings, and conduct inconsistent with Evergreen’s expectations.
As such, we have decided to move forward with a separation of employment, effective immediately.
This decision is final.
You will receive information regarding your last paycheck, any continuation of benefits, and a standard severance package under separate cover. As outlined in your employment agreement, we expect continued adherence to confidentiality and non-disparagement policies.
We recognize that this may not be the outcome you were hoping for, and we encourage you to take the time you need to focus on your next steps. We wish you the best in your future endeavors.
Sincerely,
Janice Tyler
Human Resources
Evergreen & Co.
I tried to move on. As best as you can after a violation like that, plus how cruel it was that no one paid the price for their attack on me except for the victim, I tried.
Being fired from Evergreen & Co. meant that I had a black mark on my record that kept competing firms from hiring me.
I had to take whatever temp work I could to survive living in a pricy urban city like Springfield since I refused to let my parents help me more than they already have.
I refused to let them know that their twenty-four-year-old daughter was shattered and broken by five men whose lives seem fan-fucking-tastic while mine was destroyed.
Marcus got engaged. Dean got promoted. Charles Dutton’s oldest kid got into Harvard. The company was thriving, and stubborn to a fault, I did everything I could to put it behind me.
And then, the first holiday season after the Christmas party, I realized how much that night was still affecting me when I was walking past a boulangerie in downtown Springfield, caught a whiff of some kind of cranberry baked goods on the breeze, and bolted into the first door I found.
It was the Aria Coffee Lounge, an upscale coffeehouse next door.
The bitter beans and scent of brewed coffee was enough to overpower the cranberry, and I breathed in deep before deciding that, instead of going to the library to fill out applications on the laptop I was toting around, I would use the complimentary Wi-Fi and fill them out there.
At least, that was the plan. Once I’d ordered my gingerbread latte to settle my queasy stomach, I’d sat down at a table, flipping the lid on my laptop open, before opening a blank document rather than the temp website.
The feeling of their hands on my skin, their breath on my neck, the denials that I couldn’t get out of my head a year later… the rage returned. The rage and the absolute unfairness of it all that they used me, discarded me, and went on to live happily ever after while I fucking suffered.
So I wrote a list. A wish list for that Christmas. I reminded myself that life isn’t fair with a disclaimer—If life were fair, they would get what they deserve. But since life’s never been fair, I can only wish that, this Christmas, they do—and typed up the five names of the men who ruined my life.
Charles Dutton.
Grant Ellison.
Dean Rourke.
Evan Pike.
Marcus Willis.
I wanted them to pay. I still do—and the miraculous thing is, in the year since I typed out that list in utter pain and frustration, they have.
This Christmas, all five of them are dead.