5. Mask Firmly In Place
MASK FIRMLY IN PLACE
“Is Paris Westerly in?”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No. Is she here?”
Paris heard the exchange from down the hall. Her office door was still open, interview notes spread across her desk. She’d just wrapped up first-round interviews for the two open positions, taking them on herself so London wouldn’t have to.
London would be back within the hour.
“Can I get your name, please?” Molly asked.
Paris wanted to hear the name before she went upfront.
She had a million and one things to do, but at three on a Friday, she wasn’t able to find the energy to start them and was working on small things to get off her list.
“Rick Majors. I’d like to speak to her if she’s here. You haven’t said.”
There was no reason to put Molly on the spot.
She didn’t know the name, but maybe it was someone looking for their services. Could be anyone in the building just coming to their office. It’d happened before.
She pushed herself out of the chair and walked down the hall. “Hi, I’m Paris Westerly. How can I help you?”
Rick’s expression hardened instantly. “You can start by explaining yourself.”
Her smile vanished. She kept her posture relaxed. Neutral. Not defensive... yet. “Excuse me?”
“I just lost my job,” Rick snarled. “An hour ago, a bunch of us were told it’s our last day. No warning. No information. Nothing other than they were restructuring based on the consultant’s recommendations.”
Her jaw tightened despite herself. She already knew which company it was. She’d only worked one restructuring since they opened, but she asked anyway. He confirmed it with a clipped nod.
“First, I’m sorry that you lost your job.
As a consultant, I’m hired to go in and give my opinion on how to improve the operations of an organization.
” She didn’t feel as if she had to justify anything, but she was trying to be sympathetic.
“I give recommendations. Several of them. It’s not my decision what they implement, if any. ”
“Yeah, well, they canned a hundred people today.”
“Again, I’m sorry.”
She didn’t add that she’d also recommended severance packages. Or gradual rollouts. Or basic human decency. Clearly, those pages had gone straight into the trash.
“No, you’re not,” Rick snapped, planting himself in front of Molly’s desk. Paris saw her assistant tense, unsure whether to move or freeze. “This is just numbers to you. Jobs on paper. You don’t give a shit that I’ve been there three years. That I just got promoted. We were blindsided.”
That wasn’t on her. She also told the five people in that room to be transparent with what was being looked at, but again, not her call.
And she wasn’t sure she believed the employees didn’t know what was going on. There were too many people involved and rumors spread.
Her guess was the employees might have just been lied to.
She’d had two calls last week with Debra and not once had she been told what was happening and when. It was more about how stressed Debra was and asking for suggestions on how to handle staff coming to her concerned.
Again, not what she was hired to do and wasn’t about to offer much.
Maybe she could try to reason with him and defuse this.
“I’m not sure there is anything I can do to help you, Rick.
And I’m sorry for that. I really am. Companies retain our services when they are already in a bad way.
I gave options to your employers. Those options included support for employees in a number of ways, but I’m not the one making those final decisions.
You coming here and telling me this is the first I’m hearing what was decided. ”
“That’s it?” he shouted. “You ruin our lives and walk away?” His voice cracked.
“I’ve got a pregnant wife at home.” He swiped his hand across Molly’s desk, sending papers and frames to the floor, and causing her assistant to jump out of her chair and stand, moving close to Paris.
“But what do you care? You got your money. That’s all that matters to you. ”
Well, she tried. And now she was more frightened than anything.
“I need to ask you to leave.”
“Because you think asking nice, everyone will just jump to your bidding? You have no idea what you did to us. That was a good job. We were paid well. There is no way I can make that anywhere else doing what I was with no education.”
Which was part of the company’s problem. They hired unqualified people and paid them more to keep them as bodies rather than efficient employees.
Did she say that in her report? Absolutely not.
Not having training and education when hired didn’t mean someone was a poor employee.
It was her walking around and seeing people not working.
Or the management she talked to complaining that no one showed up on time. And when they did, half the workday was spent doing the minimum possible.
She was hired to point out that positions should and could be consolidated and that was what she’d done based on the information given to her and comparisons to other similar companies and services.
“I’m really sorry. I need you to leave,” she said, forcing her back to stay straight. People fed off of fear, she knew that.
“That’s really all you’ve got to say?” She held his stare. “Well, fuck you! I hope you rot in hell. People like you, you’ll get what is coming to you. Your day will come.”
He turned and stormed out, her body shaking, Molly’s eyes as wide as hers.
“Well now, that was just some lovely entertainment for the end of the workweek.”
Molly blew out a breath. “How can you be so calm?”
“I’m not calm. Internally all my organs are rattling together. I might have peed a little standing there.”
“A little,” Molly said. “I need to go check my underwear now but don’t want to leave you alone.”
She got her feet to move and locked the door. “Go. Do what you need to. I need to stop shaking for a minute.”
She rested her palm against the door until the tremors in her fingers eased. She counted her breaths. In through her nose. Out through her mouth. Long. Controlled. Professional.
Gaining her composure that she rarely lost. Even when she had every right to lose it.
When she turned back around, she had the mask firmly in place.
“I’m good,” she said, giving Molly a small, reassuring smile. “I promise.”
Molly didn’t look convinced. “You say that like someone who is absolutely not good. Which is fine because I know I’m not.”
She hated that even more.
“Fake it till five o’clock,” Paris said. “Sit. I’ll be right back.”
Before Molly could argue, she headed for the kitchen. She moved with purpose, like she’d simply remembered an email she needed to send, nothing shaking, nothing off, nothing like what they’d just experienced.
She’d had angry people before but nothing like that. No one who sought her out after the fact.
Once in the kitchen, she leaned her hip against the counter and closed her eyes for a second.
Then she went straight for the cabinet.
Chocolate. Emergency chocolate. The truffles that she’d bought last week and had to hide because she didn’t want to eat the whole damn bag.
The rest were getting eaten today and nothing was stopping her.
When she came back out, Molly was crouched on the floor, gathering scattered papers with trembling hands.
“Absolutely not,” she said lightly. “You don’t get cleanup duty after that.”
Molly looked up. “I was just—”
“Nope.” She held up the chocolate like a peace offering. “Sit. Chocolate first. Trauma second.”
Molly blinked, then laughed, it sounding short and shaky, but real. “The rest of the truffles?”
“Yep,” she said. “I said I wasn’t going to finish the bag in a week. I lied.”
That earned her another laugh as Molly accepted it and sank back into her chair. Paris squatted to the floor instead, smoothing papers into neat piles, righting frames, restoring order one item at a time as if the longer it took her to do it, the better her nerves would line back up in place.
“Do you think he’ll come back?” Molly asked, opening another truffle.
Paris held her hand out for a third one from the bag.
She’d stuffed two in her mouth while cleaning up.
“I doubt it. You did good,” she said casually, like her heart hadn’t tried to beat its way out of her chest ten minutes earlier. “You reacted the exact way you should not to escalate the situation.”
“I didn’t know if I should call security or scream or pee my pants,” Molly admitted. “By the way, false alarm on the last one.”
“Thanks for sharing. And those are all valid options.”
Molly watched her for a moment. “You’re really okay? You don’t seem as shaken as me.”
She didn’t look up. “I will be okay. Let’s say I’m holding it together for you.”
“Oh, don’t put that on my shoulders,” Molly said, shaking her head. “You can scream or let a tear fall. It will make me feel less like a wuss. Crap. I think I’m shaking more now.”
She looked up and reached for Molly’s hands and held them in hers.
“Deep breath, in and out. Come on, close your eyes and do it. It was only words.”
“And papers on the floor.”
“Nothing major. Come on, I’m the boss, do what I say.”
Molly let out a shaky laugh but did it anyway. Shut her eyes and the two of them were breathing in and out.
The knocking on the glass door had her letting out a scream faster than her assistant.
She almost fell to the floor with her knees knocking together.
When she opened her eyes, London was standing there pointing to the door and saying, “I don’t have my key. Let me in.”
Paris jumped and moved toward the door and unlocked it.
“Sorry.”
“What happened here? A chocolate party without me?”
“We had an unexpected visitor.”
“That caused you to eat that much chocolate and rearrange Molly’s desk? What the hell were you two doing just now?”
“Trying to calm down. The guy was horrible.”
“What happened?” London asked suddenly, all her joking gone.
She filled her sister in. “Listen, we’ve dealt with angry people before, but this was next level. On top of it, I’m pissed off for him.”
London blew out a breath. “That’s not on you. We are hired to do a job and we did it. What our clients do with that information isn’t our problem. This guy had no right to come here and scare you. You need to let West know. Or someone. I’ll tell Spencer. He’ll know what to do.”
“It’s fine,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s over with. He was upset and I don’t blame him. I’m going to make a call to Michael right now. He needs to be aware of the result of his actions.”
“He’s not going to give a shit,” London said. “You didn’t even like him. I’m sure looking back you’re not even surprised by this.”
“I’m not. I thought maybe the rest of them would have talked him out of being that cold.”
“Not anything we can control,” London said. “I’m going with you to make the call. Put it on speaker and let me hear it. I’m going to jump in if I need to.”
She knew her sister would, which was all the more reason to keep it calm and professional.
As the older twin, London was always the shield, Paris, the voice of reason.
It was a dynamic that worked well for them.
“I’m just glad you weren’t here. Then we’d have to worry about the lawsuit after you attacked him.”
London grinned. “Damn straight. Anything that makes you break out that much chocolate means I would have been throwing punches.”
She laughed and put her head on her twin’s shoulder. “Thanks for that. I’m feeling better now. I’ll make the call, but go tell Molly she can leave for the day. I feel horrible. I have to make it up to her.”
“Don’t pick up that phone yet,” London warned, pointing her finger.
“I won’t.”
She just needed a moment to gather her thoughts, her words, and her frustration before she could line it up in the best way possible to deliver her message that they should have damn well listened to her from the beginning.
Not only that, she’d remind them she was affiliated with The Carlisle Group and it was not how they operated, nor did they want clients who did the same if it resulted in actions like this afternoon.
Throwing West’s name around would get her point across.