Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
Iam halfway through rescheduling a budget review Andrew does not want to attend and Finance absolutely does want him to attend when an email appears at the top of my screen.
Communications Coordinator Interview
For one second, I just stare at it.
Then I click.
Dear Carly,
Thank you for submitting your application for the Communications Coordinator position. We’d like to invite you to interview with me and HR tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. Please let me know if that works for your schedule.
Best,
Marissa Kane
For two whole seconds, I am happy.
I got an interview!
Then my stomach flips so violently that I have to press a hand against it.
Oh god. I got an interview.
With Marissa and HR, which means people who will ask questions and expect answers, probably in full sentences.
But this is what I want, I remind myself.
Thank you for the invitation. Tomorrow at 10:30 works for me.
For approximately half a second, I feel like a competent adult woman with goals and a future. A woman who didn’t cry in her best friend’s arms last night because of a stupid comment from a stupid man in a stupid cafeteria.
Then another email appears at the top of my inbox. It’s from Martha. HR Martha.
I’d like to speak with you regarding an incident that was reported earlier today. Please come by my office when you have a moment.
And just like that, my tiny moment of joy is over.
Martha’s office is very beige.
Beige walls. Beige carpet. Beige chair that somehow manages to be both too soft and deeply uncomfortable. Even the framed print above her filing cabinet looks beige, though I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be a landscape. Maybe a desert?
She asks me to walk her through what happened, so I do. She takes notes while I talk, nodding now and then, her expression calm and steady. When I’m done, she clicks her pen closed.
“Thank you, Carly. I know this isn’t comfortable.”
“No,” I say, then force a tiny smile. “Not really my dream lunch break.”
Her face softens. “If Josh approaches you or says anything else, you come directly to me.” She closes her notebook. “And because this involves your role and Mr. Bennett’s name, I do need to inform him that a complaint has been made.”
Please don’t.
When I get back upstairs, Andrew’s office door is open. He’s standing behind his desk with his phone pressed to his ear, looking down at a contract with the kind of expression that has probably made grown lawyers rethink their entire careers.
It’s incredibly attractive.
His eyes lift when I pass.
I quickly look away.
I sit down at my desk and start working through my list of tasks. After a few minutes, the elevator doors open and Martha steps out.
Andrew sees her before I do. His posture changes, almost imperceptibly.
“Mrs. Hill,” he says.
“Do you have a moment?”
“Of course.”
They go into his office and close the door.
I stare at my screen.
Do not think about it.
I think about literally nothing else.
Through the door, I can’t hear words. Only the low shape of voices. Martha’s steady, measured tone. Andrew’s quieter one. Then a silence that stretches long enough to make the back of my neck prickle.
When the door opens again, Martha steps out first. She gives me a small nod before heading back toward the elevators. Andrew remains in the doorway.
“Miss Michaels.”
“Yes?”
“Step inside my office, please.”
I follow him inside, and Andrew closes the door behind me.
For a moment, neither of us says anything.
Then he speaks. “Mrs. Hill informed me that a complaint has been made regarding comments Mr. Stanton made about you.”
I can feel my cheeks redden. I don’t want to talk about this. Not now, not ever.
“What he said was unacceptable,” he says. “And I’m sorry.”
I blink. “Why are you apologizing?”
“My name was used to humiliate you.” His voice is strained, filled with barely contained anger. I can see his hands flex at his sides. Once, then again. He looks away, toward the window, trying and failing to hide the fury written plainly across his face.
I want to kiss him.
What is wrong with me?
I look down at my hands instead. “It’s okay, it’s not that big of a deal.”
“It is.” His tone is ice. “And it’s being handled accordingly.”
He looks at me then. He has collected himself a little, or at least tried to. The anger is still there, held tight in his shoulders and the flat line of his mouth, but it’s more subdued.
“I also want to be very clear,” he says. “I had nothing to do with Marissa reaching out to you.”
“I know that.”
“So does HR.” His eyes stay on mine. “You earned that interview.”
“Thank you,” I say as my heart pitter-patters in my chest.
It’s embarrassing, really, the way I act around him sometimes. I’m like a teenage girl with a crush, getting a compliment from the boy she likes.
Age them up, and it’s quite literally what’s happening.
“I have some work I need to finish,” I say, because I’m scared that if I stay in here any longer, I’m going to do something idiotic. “I should probably get back to that.”
Andrew nods, and I turn to leave, but his voice stops me at the door.
“Carly.”
I look back.
“If anyone says anything like that to you again, tell me.” There is something almost frighteningly calm in his voice. “I’ll make them regret it.”
“That’s intense.”
A smile cracks his hard features, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’m an intense man.”
“I know,” I say.
His gaze drops to my mouth for half a second, and when he looks back at my eyes, there it is again.
This thing between us.
“Get that job, Carly,” he says, his voice low. “And fuck everyone else.”
By the time I get home, my brain feels like an early-2000s website with scrolling banners, a jumping 3D animation in the corner, and Comic Sans in every color. On a neon green background. With the same thirty seconds of a song playing on a loop.
Oh, and the cursor is blinking.
I drop my bag by the door and stand there for a second, still in my coat, still holding my keys, just breathing.
Annie looks up from the couch and gives me a once-over. “That bad?”
“I got an interview.”
Her face lights up. “Carly!”
“And then HR talked to me about Josh.”
Her face immediately un-lights.
I kick off my shoes and collapse beside her. For a moment, I just sit there and stare at the coffee table. There is an old receipt, two mugs, a hair tie, and the printed job description I left there this morning, back when I was a woman with hope.
“Now they’re definitely not going to want me,” I say.
“Why?”
“Because it’s too messy. I’m literally the central figure in a sexual harassment complaint.”
“That’s not on you, though. That’s all Josh,” Annie says, making a face. “That nasty little rodent.”
“But it still follows me.” I lean my head back against the couch and stare at the ceiling. “Tomorrow I’m supposed to sit there and explain why I’m professional and qualified, and all I’ll be thinking about is whether they’ve heard the rumors or not.”
The apartment is quiet for a moment. Outside, a car drives past with music thumping faintly through the windows. Annie studies me in that highly annoying nurse way she sometimes does, like she’s checking for bleeding. Then she reaches for the job description. “Okay. We’re practicing.”
I close my eyes. “Absolutely not.”
“Absolutely yes.”
“Annie.”
She ignores me and smooths the paper over her knee. “Miss Michaels, why are you interested in the Communications Coordinator position?”
“We’re not doing this.”
“Answer the damn question before I hit you.”
“You’re so violent.”
“Yes,” she says, and glares at me, “so answer the fucking question.”
I sigh and look down at my hands.
Fine.
I start answering the question. I tell her I like the work and give examples of similar things I’ve done in the past, but it ends up too long. My mouth keeps moving, adding details nobody asked for, while my brain stands in the background, waving both arms and screaming, Stop talking.
When I finally do stop, I look at Annie.
“I’m rambling, aren’t I?” I groan, pressing my hands over my face. “I’m never getting another job ever.”
“You think you’re rambling because you’re inside your own head,” Annie says. “From the outside, you sound competent.” She taps the job description with one finger. “Also, you have actual examples. Laker, Green House, Westbrook. I’d hire you.”
I lower my hands and give her a weak smile. “You couldn’t afford me.”
She laughs, but I can’t quite hold on to the joke. I still feel that sickly dread sludge around in my belly.
I’m not enough. I’ll never be more than this.
Annie nudges my knee with her foot. “You know they called you in because they want to hear from you, right?”
I nod. I know. I know it in the same way I know airplanes usually stay in the sky and that ghosts aren’t real. Technically true, but it does nothing to reduce my anxiety levels.
“What if I say something stupid?” I ask.
“Then you say something less stupid after.”
I lean back against the couch and close my eyes.
Please don’t fuck this up.
I know I didn’t get the job before I even made it back to my desk.
Not officially, obviously. But I know. I can feel it.
The interview is already replaying in my head, every answer worse than the last. I talked too much.
Then I realized I was talking too much, which made me nervous, which made me talk even more.
At one point, I’m pretty sure I corrected myself three times in the same sentence.
I also tried to be funny, but I don’t think it landed at all. I just looked unprofessional.
Ugh.
By the time the elevator reaches the executive floor, I have accepted it.
I am not getting the job.
The thought settles over me, heavy and dull. Of course I’m not getting it. Did I honestly think I would? I don’t even have a college degree. Why on earth would they pick me? They probably just felt sorry for me and invited me to an interview out of pity. That’s all.
I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.
The elevator doors open. I step out, smooth my skirt, and walk back to my desk with my notebook pressed against my chest.
Andrew’s office door is closed.
Good.
I don’t want him to ask how it went. I don’t want to talk about it. I want to mope at my desk and feel sorry for myself in peace.
I sit down, open my email, and stare at nothing. For a few minutes, I don’t move.
Then I pull up his calendar and start working, because that’s what I know how to do.
That’s what I’m good at.