Forty
I ’ve got this , repeated Wes as he went through the kitchen doors. He wanted to take the call in the salon to channel the indomitable spirit of Dot. I’ve got this. I don’t need to fix this. This was not my responsibility. I didn’t do anything wrong, and I’ve got this. He was confident the truth would come out, but it was hard to fight the strain.
Jason picked up on the first ring. “You’ve got some explaining to do,” he said in greeting.
Wes tried to ignore Jason’s combative tone and kept his voice steady. “As I said in the email, I came into the office the other day to talk to you about a story I’d been working on. It wasn’t Tyler’s story, and it was in no way ready to go. I don’t know why he did that or why or how it ran.” There. His main points were out.
“The story no one had assigned you?”
Wes paused his pacing. Of all the things Jason could pick up on, say for instance Tyler’s blatant theft and unethical journalism, why was he talking about that? “It was something I was looking into during my vacation, but I don’t think that’s the primary issue.”
“I know you want back on this team, but this is not the way to do it. I’ve talked to Tyler about his lack of judgment here, but I know he’s a good guy. What you did was completely out of bounds.”
“What I did?” Was he in some alternate reality? “I did nothing except mention it to Tyler when I came in to pitch it to you.”
“That’s not what I hear from Tyler.”
Wes’s gut dropped. “No?”
“I know it’s not Tyler’s story. Tyler says you told him it was ready and thoroughly researched and begged him to read it over. He caught the lack of a comment from Wilson and said you asked him to get it because Wilson ignored you. Since Tyler had better credibility, he’d get a reply.”
“That’s a complete lie.” Wes stared at the Group of Seven wall before walking to a statue of a winged goddess holding a dagger, unable to believe Tyler’s nerve. “I mentioned it to him and accidentally left my rough draft at my desk. That’s it.” He decided not to add where Tyler stole it . That was obvious.
“Tyler said you asked him to post it through the platform as a favor while you were on vacation, knowing it would help you get some visibility and make your case to get back on the team. He accidentally published it when he meant to send it to me to confirm it was ready to go since he didn’t see my sign-off.” Jason coughed. “That mistake was on him, and I’ve talked to him about that. It’s a shame his name was attached to the story because of an error.”
“It wasn’t a mistake.” Wes heard his voice echo through the room and fought to control it. “He’s lying. None of that happened.”
“I’ve known Tyler since school,” Jason said. “I trust him.”
And not you. Wes heard the unspoken conclusion. “Jason, this is ridiculous. Do you think I’d try to get a story of that magnitude posted before it was thoroughly vetted?”
“Wes, I checked, and you had the story in the editing platform. You put that there. Not Tyler.”
“I always write my drafts there,” said Wes, moving to the conservatory door to look at the plants in a futile attempt to get some calm. “That doesn’t mean they’re ready for publication.”
“No, but it shows you were working on it. Desperation can screw with a man’s judgment, but this is the kind of underhanded behavior we can’t have. My people are fighters, but we know we’re a team.”
“You can’t seriously believe this.”
“You think I haven’t seen this kind of thing happen before?” snapped Jason. “I’m an excellent judge of people. I know you didn’t like getting sent back to Lifestyle, but you took the wrong message from that experience if you think scheming like this will help.”
“Fuck you.” The words came out before Wes could evaluate the impact, but he didn’t take them back. It didn’t make him feel better.
“This is what I mean, Wes. You’re challenging to work with when you don’t get your way.” Jason’s voice was cool now, as if Wes’s outburst had confirmed what he was thinking. “I’ve talked to management, and unfortunately Rebecca isn’t in, but I’m sure she’d agree. Your employment with the Spear is terminated as of today.”
What? “Tyler ran the story after he stole it, and he’s blaming it on me because it’s backfiring. Tyler is the one you should fire.”
“I understand you’re upset, but this is your word against his. Tyler has a lot of goodwill here and has admitted to poor judgment. We’ve had to give John Wilson an apology and post a retraction on the advice of legal.”
Why hadn’t he taped their discussion? Wes kicked himself as he put the call on speaker and fumbled for the Record button.
“HR will be in touch about the termination forms,” said Jason. “Best of luck in your future endeavors.”
Wes hit Record as Jason disconnected. Then he stopped, looking at the flashing 0:03 on the bottom. Three seconds of nothing.
Compared to the years of nothing he had to show for his work at the Spear , that was… Well. It was more of nothing.
He tossed the phone down on the settee, ignoring the beep he was sure was the HR email with his official termination. He’d have to get a lawyer, and for one ludicrous moment, he wondered if John Wilson would share his legal team.
Nadine’s head poked around the corner. Seeing him off the phone, she inched over as if to give him space to get used to her presence. Erma had no such qualms and raced in to meow at Wes’s feet for attention. He picked her up and buried his face in her warm fur, feeling her tiny heart beat against his palm. She wasn’t purring, but the weight of her was enough to soothe him.
“They fired me,” he said in response to Nadine’s questioning look.
“Oh my God.” Nadine stopped midstep. “Are you kidding?”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?” Erma rubbed her head against his chin.
“No. I’m sorry.” She crossed over to where he stood near the window. “What happened? Do you want to talk about it?”
The strange thing was normally he would say to give him some alone time, but he wanted to talk it over with Nadine. He put the cat on the ground. “Let’s go outside, and I’ll tell you.”
“Okay.” She took his hand, looking at him to check that it was all right. Wes tucked her hand under his arm to bring her closer, and they edged through the door together.
He didn’t pay much attention to where they were going as they passed the pagoda and then a stone lantern. Nadine handed him a stick. No, not a stick. A rake. “Yard work?” he asked.
“Meditation.” She pointed to a Zen garden. Or a version of it, with rocks and gravel that had been raked and trod on. He shook his head. A Japanese rock garden. Dot was something else.
“You?” He pointed at the footprints.
“You can fix them and tell me what happened.”
“I’m not a Zen guy,” he said.
“Yeah. I’m not a Zen woman, but it worked for me. If it’s too annoying, you can sit on this hard wooden bench to talk.”
“You make it sound so inviting.” This light back-and-forth with Nadine was helping him calm down.
The rake made a pleasant sound as he dragged it through the gravel. He cleared her steps with a single long pull, then traced lines between the rocks. It was a while before he spoke.
“Tyler lied and said I asked him to run the story. That I begged him so I could get another shot at the I-team.”
He looked up to check Nadine’s reaction. She looked like she was breathing fire. He’d never had someone react like that on his behalf.
He liked it.
It didn’t take long to recount the conversation, and if she was angry before he started, now she was incandescent. “I will kill him,” she said.
Wes paused midrake. “I am trying to achieve my Zen, and your threats of violence are interfering.”
“Am I wrong?”
“No.” He raked some more. Fantasizing about Tyler and Jason meeting an appropriate comeuppance might not be approved of in the tenets of Zen Buddhism—or maybe it was, he didn’t know—but it was certainly gratifying.
“This is so unfair,” she said, kicking at the pebbles. “Oh, sorry.”
He raked over them. “Again, not helping me achieve Zen, but yeah. It is.”
“What a couple of assholes. How does Tyler sleep at night?” She sounded truly flummoxed by how he could find peace. “I think he sabotaged you.”
“Me?” He stopped raking to look over at Nadine. “Why?”
“Because if you were on that team, you’d blow him out of the water. I bet that’s why he added your name as a contributor. He’d take the credit if it worked out, but you could be the scapegoat if he needed one.”
Wes’s chest filled when he saw she believed what she said. She thought he was good at his job. It gave him a boost that was instantly extinguished when he remembered the Spear didn’t agree, and the Spear had been the one signing his paychecks.
“I shouldn’t have…”
Nadine crunched over to stop him with a hard hug. “No. That won’t get us anywhere.”
“I can’t get over the what-ifs.” He buried his face in her neck, rake in hand. “What if I hadn’t left my notes there? What if I’d used Word, for God’s sake?”
“Wes.” Nadine extracted herself to look him straight in the face. “What if this, what if that. I wrecked myself with them too, but what’s the point? What if I never ran that obit? What if we never took this job from Brent? What if Tyler wasn’t a total piece of shit? Go back far enough, what if John Wilson had been decent and Dot never wrote Thirty Pieces ?”
“I guess so,” said Wes.
“Everything in life is a result of a what-if. Remember what Dot said?”
“She said a lot of things.”
“She said the bad stuff in her life eventually opened the way for good stuff.” Nadine frowned. “But more eloquently and about flags.”
“‘Golden threads of possibility knitting into that moment, readying themselves to be unfurled like flags,’” Wes recited.
“That was it.” She leaned into him. “I got the gist of it, even without a photographic memory.”
“You did.” He saw Nadine chewing her lip. “What are you thinking?”
“That we failed Dot,” she admitted. “We didn’t tell her story. We let the aggressor play the victim.”
“No way.” Wes thumped the rake on the ground. He had a flush of energy that was almost entirely composed of resentment toward the Spear . “We’re going back to that hunt right now.”
“The story is over. It’s out.”
“It’s not,” he said as they left the garden. “Not until we get the truth. We have one more day. Isn’t there a saying about never giving up?”
“Yeah, it goes something like ‘Don’t give up.’” She looked cheered. “We must have missed something.”
“I refuse to believe this is the end. I won’t let it be.”
“We’ll do it for Dot,” she said, holding her hand in a high five.
He slapped it with his own, feeling a small lift through the heaviness the conversation with Jason had left. “For Dot.”