Chapter 7 #2
“Yeah,” I say and then my name is called again, this time by a parent who walks by, and when I turn back around, Dylan and Caroline are gone. I jog out to see if I see them, and I can’t spot them anywhere. I turn to walk back into the arena, and I’m almost run down by Malika, who isn’t looking up.
“I’m so sorry,” she says, and I can see that she is really upset.
“Is everything okay?” I ask, and she just looks around.
“You are doing a good thing here,” she says. “The kids who come here, this is huge for them. And the parents, I can’t even begin to tell you how blown away the parents are. They aren’t freeloaders, and they deserve to not be judged.” I almost have to take a step back.
“I would never judge anyone,” I say.
“I know you don’t,” she says and then looks down and then up again.
“But not everyone working for you does. I’ll see you tonight at seven,” she says and then walks away.
I watch her walk away with more questions that I have to do, and I make a mental note to talk to her tonight after the meeting.
I also take my phone out and call Caroline, and it goes directly to a generic message.
The customer you are trying to reach is unavailable. Please call back.
I hang up and text her right away.
Me: Where did you go?
I look down at my phone, expecting her to answer, but she doesn’t.
“Hey,” Ralph says when he sees me looking down at my phone as I wait for Caroline to answer me. “Do you have a minute?” he asks me, looking around.
“Yeah,” I say, looking at him and seeing he is unsure of whatever he has to say. “Let’s go into the office.” I lead the way into the offices and go inside one of the empty ones and close the door. “What’s up?”
“Listen, I think what you are doing here is amazing,” he says, then he runs his hands through his hair. “You are giving these kids a chance to be something.” I just look at him. “All of us are here for one reason or another, but Amy”—he shakes his head—“I just can’t.”
“What happened?” I ask him, my blood starting to boil.
“A father just went up to her to hand her his new contact information, and she refused to take the paper from him because his hands were dirty.” He shakes his head.
“She told him to put it down on her desk and she would take care of it. The way she jumped when he tried to hand it to her. Dude, it was …”
“That is unacceptable,” I tell him. “This is my name. It’s the Justin Stone Foundation. If you work for me, you represent me, and she definitely does not represent me when she acts like that. What is wrong with her?”
“That is a loaded question, and my mother told me to be kind to women,” Ralph says, laughing. “I just thought you would want to know.”
“Thank you,” I tell him, and he walks out of the room. Taking a seat, I look down at my phone, and I decide to go to her after the meeting.
I walk into the meeting already tense and on pins and needles to get this show over. I sit at the head of the table, and my team sits around the table. Ralph is also there as well as Malika, who is taking notes.
“One thing I was thinking of,” Malika starts to say, “is a weekend program.” Looking over at her, she continues, “Many of these parents work on the weekends, so we could have a free skate day on Saturday or a Sunday Family day.”
I start to say something when I hear Amy pffts out, and all eyes go to her.
“You don’t think maybe these parents are taking advantage of this program already?
I mean, seriously some of them are taking advantage of the whole system.
Get a job. That should help you get off food stamps,” she says, and I want to slam my hand down on the table.
But instead, I rein it in and push away from the table.
“Amy, I’d like to talk to you outside,” I tell her, and I’m already out in the hallway when she comes out with a huge smile on her face. I don’t think she realizes how angry I am. Is she that clueless? I don’t even beat around the bush. “Amy, we are going to have to let you go.”
Her smile fades and in its place is the leer. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means that you’re fired,” I tell her. “It means that you take your stuff and don’t come back.”
“But why?” she asks, trying to act as if she’s hurt by all this.
“Well, just off the top of my head. You are rude and condescending and aren’t a nice person.” I take a deep breath. “What I’m doing here is helping the kids, and it’s helping the community. It’s called giving them a chance and not judging them. It’s called being a decent human being.”
“This is bullshit.” She starts to throw a hissy fit, and as my sisters would say, a tantrum. “I have given this everything I have.” I swear she stomps her foot. “You can’t fire me.”
“Oh, but I can,” I inform her, “and I just did. I started this foundation when I was nineteen years old. I saw my family do things like this when I was just a kid. My brother-in-law has the biggest foundation I’ve ever had the privilege of being a part of, and I want to have one just like him.
I want people to have nothing but amazing things to say abut my foundation, and having you represent me and my foundation the way you have is not okay. ”
“This is not the end of me,” she says, pushing past me. Going into the office, she grabs her purse and then comes out. “You are firing me without cause. I’ll be contacting a lawyer.”
“You do that,” I tell her, and she storms out. Putting my head down, I look at the phone in my hand with still no word from her. I walk back into the meeting, and I don’t even know what we discussed after that because the only thing on my mind was Caroline.