Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
ABBEY
The email from Pharaoh arrives the day after my interview: Dear Abbey, I want to thank you… blah blah blah… quite impressed… It’s with a fair amount of distress, then, that I must share with you that we have offered the position to another candidate.
Well. That’s that.
Not two hours later, my application for merch manager at Rochester disappears. As in, when I checked the status earlier this afternoon, it was there, marked In Progress, and now it’s missing. When I click on the job to apply again, an error message says I’ve already applied.
I’m all turned around. I can’t understand why none of my applications have gotten any further than a phone interview. As I often do when the daily Hometown grind gets me down, I find Sam in the warehouse for one of our chats.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“Am I that transparent?”
He smiles. “Abbey, you couldn’t hide your emotions if someone gave you a sheet to cover them.”
“Or a shovel to bury them in the backyard!” Eric calls from somewhere.
I sit down at Eric’s desk and tell Sam about the missing application. “It’s like I’m living in a Twilight Zone episode.”
“Abs,” he says, “I can’t explain the missing application or why all those managers have passed on you, except that they’re idiots.
This is a blip. A small stumble. Five years from now, when you look in that rearview mirror, this isn’t going to matter.
Hell, you’ll probably leave us all in the dust before you know it.
You’re meant for someplace better, bigger.
Those other stores are too small for you, even Boston. ”
“We need you here,” Eric says from behind me, and I startle. “You are not allowed to leave. I have spoken.” He salutes, grabs a tape gun from his desk, and disappears back into the warehouse bowels.
“Sam,” I say, “does this happen a lot? Rejection after rejection? I mean, I’d understand if I sucked, but I’m good at my job, and everyone seems to think so.”
He shakes his head. “It’s pretty unusual. Hometown is big on promoting from within. I do remember a few years back, this whiz kid from Mankato was trying to move up to the Cities, and his GM blocked every transfer because he didn’t want to lose him.”
“Sounds shady.”
“Yeah, that GM got demoted for it, actually.”
I chew on my bottom lip. “So, what, you think someone’s blocking me?”
He shrugs. “Anything’s possible.”
I frown and mentally compile my list of suspects: Jeremy (no, too transparent and not great in HEAS), Crystal (because she’s inherently evil), Mr. Wilshire (no, he can’t even remember my name).
Wil. The thought sends a shiver through me.
I can’t imagine why he would do it, especially now that he’s moved out of the store.
Unless, of course, he knows that he’ll be back at Woodlake as GM soon.
Even that makes no sense. He told me that he wanted us to be together, and it would be easier if we were at different stores.
But then, of course, that all changed, and I still don’t have a clear understanding of why.
“Listen,” Sam says. “Try not to worry, okay? It’s all going to work out.”
“Sure,” I say unconvincingly. “Everything’s always working out for me.”
When I walk back to the media desk, Felix is on the computer, a large bag from Einstein Bros. Bagels next to him.
“There you are!” he says. “I brought bagels for the team, to say thanks for a job well done this holiday!”
The holiday that was more than two months ago. I guess Kevin and Lavender and I won’t be getting our promised dinner out. And it’s late afternoon. By morning, when most of the team is here, the bagels will be stale.
“Wow, thanks. I’ll let them know.”
“How are things going?” he asks.
Oh, fucking great, obviously. I ignore the question, but since I have him here, ask, “Can you look into something for me? I emailed Zak a couple of days ago about a damaged listening station, and—”
“Oh, didn’t you hear? Zak’s gone.”
“Gone? On vacation?”
“No, gone-gone. Kramer, too, plus a few from Kelsey’s team. The pink slips are falling from the sky like snowflakes over at corporate.” He gives me a rundown of names on the chopping block.
“What about the stores?” I ask.
He tilts his head and peers at me, eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Are the stores next? With layoffs?”
“Where did you hear that?”
“I didn’t hear anything. But I’ve been there—losing a job, I mean. I don’t want that for myself or my team.”
“It’s always a possibility,” Felix says slowly. “Between you and me, Wilshire’s hired an independent consulting firm to take a look at store-level labor models and related inefficiencies.”
“So layoffs will happen at the stores?”
“Most likely. But you don’t need to worry, Abbey.” He pats me on the head like I’m a child. “I’ve got to get to Riverview. Enjoy the bagels.”
Not long after Felix leaves, Collin, the other closer, pukes in the media warehouse and goes home, so I have to beg Crystal to find someone to cover my lunch break.
Finally, she sends back Bianca, her TC, even though we close soon.
I eat an already stale bagel with honey walnut cream cheese, put the rest in the fridge, and slam a Diet Coke from the vending machine.
Bianca’s at the media desk talking with a fan.
“Thanks for covering for me,” I say. The fan turns toward me and I gasp. Tamsa! “Tam!” I cry and open my arms for a hug, but she’s rooted to the spot, frowning. “What’s wrong?”
“Nice to meet you,” Bianca says. Then she’s halfway to the front end before I even process that she’s leaving.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
Tamsa takes a newspaper out of her giant handbag and slaps it down on the media desk. It’s a recent issue of Squall, with a headline that screams at me.
Sexual Harassment Scandal Rocks TC Weekly
I look from the newspaper to Tamsa’s face. Her glittery gold eyeshadow has dulled and there’s mascara smudged under one eye. Her black hair’s twisted up in a claw clip, but a few strands have fallen out, and her blouse is wrinkled. Her features are hardened, her mouth in a thin line.
“Tam, I—”
She cuts me off and jabs at the headline. “You knew, didn’t you? You knew, and you didn’t say anything, not even after I straight up asked you. Is that why you left?”
“No, I—” I clamp my mouth shut as hot, overpowering shame rushes through me.
She shakes her head. “Just tell me the truth. Did you know about this? Is this why you didn’t take the music and entertainment job? You found out what Ryan was doing and you—you just walked away?”
Oh. She doesn’t think—
I shake my head, too. “No, that’s not—Tam, are you okay? Did Ryan do something?”
She releases a high-pitched laugh. “Did he do something? Yeah, he did something. He called me into his office for a ‘review session’ and he—he put his hands where they don’t belong, in a manner of speaking.”
The monster in my gut claws its way all the way up to my throat. I gulp down my nausea. “Tamsa, oh, god, I’m so sorry!”
“So? What? Did they pay you off, too, to keep quiet?”
My eyes widen. Maybe she does know. Maybe she found out somehow what happened in Ryan’s office that day. Maybe she even knows about the check, still in the ashtray after all these months. “What do you mean?”
“My attorney and I have filed a complaint against TC Weekly, and I need to know what you know. It’s not a hard question.”
Oh, but it is. Still. Even though I know it’s happened to Tamsa and so many others, it’s the hardest question I’ve ever had to answer, because admitting it makes it real all over again.
But it’s not something I can talk about here in the middle of the media department at Hometown Electronics. I glance at my watch. We close in ten minutes. “Come with me. I’m going to clock out, and then we’re going across the street for a margarita.”
“No,” Crystal says, “I will not override you at the time clock. You’re the only person in your department. You need to stay.”
Of course Crystal’s going to give me grief, tonight of all nights. “Crystal, this is an emergency. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t.”
She smirks. “Oh, really? Like the time you told Bergren you had a family ‘thing,’ and you left for an interview?”
My cheeks heat. She would throw that in my face. “I’m serious, Crystal.”
“Tell me what this is really about, and I’ll consider it.”
I stare at her, my eyes narrowed. She lifts her eyebrows at me in a challenge. Bianca and the two customer service reps and a couple of fans watch with rapt attention. Eric and Donnie at the front door, too. And Tamsa’s here. I’ve got to do this without mentioning Tamsa.
“Fine.” I take a deep breath. “I left my last job because I was threatened and sexually harassed, told that I wouldn’t get a promotion if I didn’t show the male editor what I could ‘do with that smart mouth,’ if you get my drift.
” Crystal’s jaw drops and I continue, even though my heart’s pounding out of my chest and my mouth is so dry, the words stick together.
“I walked out of his office and was let go. I’ve got a check for twelve thousand dollars in my car’s ashtray right now because I can’t bring myself to cash it. Hush money.”
I turn toward Tamsa. Her cheeks have pinked up and there are tears in the corners of her eyes. I’m filled with another rush of feeling, but this time, it’s not shame. It’s my love for Tam and pride in myself for telling the truth.
“This is my friend and former coworker, Tamsa. She stopped by tonight to let me know that a formal complaint has been filed against him by another employee. Before this, I haven’t told a single person what happened that day, but I understand now that I need to share my story in support of…
of every other woman who’s dealing with this.
So, forgive me if I feel that this is more important than staying a few more minutes to vacuum the media department. ”
Crystal stares at me for another moment, then blinks and says, “I’ll clock you out.”