Chapter 28
James
My hands are still clenched into fists when I get to the subway station.
What Jane said about Sadie and college keeps running through my head, and I’m so fucking annoyed that she decided to take a potshot at Sadie of all people.
And because it’s a potential legal issue, and I’m a director of the company, I can’t ignore something like this, much as I might want to.
When I get back to the apartment, I log in to Williams Security’s system to check Sadie’s resume, and, sure enough, she’s got a degree in Computing Science from CUNY.
Though there’s nothing about any other qualifications.
I wonder when her difficulties at school started?
We verify resumes through an online service, and Cath usually emails me the staff checks and flags any issues, so I do a quick search of my inbox.
But when I sift through her messages, nothing comes up about the cohort Sadie came in with. I pick up my phone and call Cath.
“James! How are things with Jane?”
“She’s broken her arm and her collarbone, and they’ve put her in a cast. So, it’s all a bit difficult, but she’s okay. I’m back at home and just catching up from here. How did the team meeting go?”
“Fine. I’ll send you a written update. One or two people need some help with some tech issues, but I’ll flag that up when I do the notes.”
“Great. I really appreciate you stepping in like that.”
“That’s why I’m your number two, James. I enjoyed it.”
“Glad to hear it. I’m planning to work here for the rest of the day. I called about something else, actually.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“When we took on the developers just after Des came back from Korea last time, did we verify their resumes?”
“Yes, why?”
“I couldn’t find your email about it, so could you just forward it on to me again?”
She goes quiet for a bit, tapping away on her keyboard. I head into the kitchen and put a pod in Des’s coffee machine. More silence and clicking. “You know, James …”
“What?”
“I can’t find any record of it. I can’t see my email to you. Normally, all the checks and references are in the staff database, but there’s nothing there. I’ve just gone into DegreeVerify because that’s the easiest thing to look at online, and there’s nothing there either.”
“Who would have been responsible for it?”
She goes quiet. “Well ... me. God, I’m so sorry, James. I can’t believe …”
“Cath. Don’t sweat it. Just check our filing, yeah?
It was a crazy time. We were right at the start of having any formal systems. You were working full tilt setting up the software to manage our delivery, if I remember.
Sometimes I think we forget how far we’ve come in such a short time.
If you haven’t done it or can’t find the records, can you run the checks now and let me know?
” But God, I don’t want to sit on this for days, do I? “How long will it take?”
“Well, the degrees will take five minutes; there’s an online database we use, though overseas qualifications are more difficult. Other things might take longer. Was there something you wanted me to look for?”
What do I tell Cath here? I don’t want anyone to know that this is about Sadie.
“Not particularly. Give me a shout when you’ve done the degrees, and then you can fill in the other stuff later.”
“Okay, James. I’m really sorry.”
“Don’t be, Cath. We all make mistakes all the time. Find them, fix them. That’s my motto.” God, I sound like some cheesy management guru.
“Thanks for being so understanding,” she says and hangs up.
I sit back down at the table, pull up my emails, and finally start catching up on the day. After about ten minutes, my phone rings.
“Hi,” Cath says. “I’ve run the degree checks and they’re all fine except Sadie Turner. She didn’t come up on the CUNY database. There can be reasons why people don’t appear, so I’m sure it’s just a logistical problem. I’ll talk to their admissions tomorrow and clear it up.”
My stomach turns over. I’m getting a terrible feeling about this. “What kind of reasons?”
“We could have some of her information wrong, or it could be incorrectly input. Databases aren’t infallible.”
Sadie’s mom’s words ricochet around in my head. There are very few businesses that are prepared to take on people who struggle at school these days, and Sadie and I are very grateful for it.
Shit.
“Thanks, Cath.”
“I’ll let you know about the other checks.”
“See you tomorrow.” And I hang up.
There are some odd things about Sadie, some gaps in her knowledge that occasionally seem strange, but then her programming skills are excellent.
Something soft worms through me. Sadie’s had such a rough time of it.
I should be mad, but all I feel is deep sympathy.
Do we have to fire her? A sharp stab runs through my chest. I couldn’t do that to her.
And the last thing I want is for her to leave the company or the apartment.
The idea of not living with Sadie … A jagged breath sucks into my lungs.
For perhaps the first time in my life, I’m having fun.
If you said to anyone that Sadie was fun, they’d probably laugh at you, but with her dry sense of humor and her quiet acceptance, she feels like the best kind of fun to me.
I turn my phone over in my hand and pull up my contacts.
Des is third on the list after Sadie and Cath.
I stand up and walk through to the living room, grabbing my keys from the table.
I want to get out and move for this conversation.
It’s still early in Korea, but knowing him, he’ll be up, so as I’m heading out of the building, I press his number.
“James! To what do I owe the honor of a crazy-o’clock call?”
“I’m calling about Sadie.”
He chuckles. “Straight to the point as always. Is something up?”
Where do I start?
“I went back home with Sadie to her mom’s place to pick up the rest of her stuff.
As we were leaving, her mom took me to one side and thanked me for taking on somebody who had struggled so much at school, and said it meant everything to her.
I didn’t think anything of it at the time.
Sadie has a degree in Computing Science: Why wouldn’t someone take her on? ”
Des hums in my ear.
“Then tonight, Jane said to me that she’d had a conversation with Sadie about CUNY, which is the college on her resume, and she said Sadie knew almost nothing about it, that she was vague about where her classes were, and Jane was suspicious about whether she’d ever been there.”
A long silence ensues on the other end of the line. “Sadie met Jane?”
“Jane dropped by the apartment to go cycling.”
“Have you been seeing much of Jane?” His voice rises.
“Hardly at all. Calm down. Jane’s a maniac. I’ll fill you in on all that later. I was semi-avoiding her, but she decided to drop by.”
“Okkaaay ... That’s good.”
“It’s good that she’s a maniac?”
“It’s good you’re not back together.”
I roll my eyes to the ceiling. “You don’t need to worry about that. That is not happening.”
“Glad to hear it,” he growls. “She’s manipulative as hell, James. I wouldn’t believe a fucking word she told you.”
“Just listen. I asked Cath to look into it, and Sadie’s not on the CUNY database. Cath is still digging into it, but I’ve got a bad feeling about it. I called you because I have no idea how to handle it.”
He tuts in my ear. “I don’t believe it. Sadie’s straight as an arrow. Didn’t we check her resume before we offered her the job?”
“Cath thought she’d done it, but she hadn’t. She’s mortified, but the business was chaos at that time, so I don’t really blame her.”
“Tell me about it.”
“According to Cath, there can be legitimate reasons why people aren’t on the database at their school, but …” I hesitate. I want to do what’s best for Sadie so badly. If this is true, I need to clear the air for her. “I don’t like what my gut’s telling me, Des.”
“I know what you mean.”
I blink at the wall in shock. He does? “She has gaps in her knowledge; things that I would have expected her to know,” Des says.
It would also explain Sadie’s sensitivities about her software abilities, too. “Yeah. I thought maybe she’d just struggled with some of that stuff at school,” I say.
“Yes, me too.” He hums on the other end of the phone, and a cupboard door opens and closes.
“What are you doing?”
The noise of a grinder cuts off his response. When it ends, he says, “Just making a coffee, it’s 5:30 a.m. here, and I think I need one for this conversation.”
I lift my head, and I’m right by Coffee Project on the corner of Water and John. Perfect. I head through their glass doors into the cool interior.
“Perhaps she never thought she’d be offered the job,” Des adds in my ear as I order a macchiato.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, her programming skills are excellent. It’s her first software role, right?
Maybe she was struggling to find anyone to take her seriously, and she thought she’d add a degree and see if it got her anywhere?
You know what this industry is like. How did she get to be such a great programmer, anyway? ”
“She’s mentioned learning stuff online. I thought that was in addition to college, but perhaps it wasn’t. There are endless free courses and tutorials if you’re dedicated.”
“That’s pretty impressive.”
I laugh. “If she taught herself, then I’m even more impressed if I’m being honest.”
“Yeah, me, too. The math alone, James …”
I groan. “Tell me about it.”
He hums again. “Perhaps she thought that it was such a long shot that it wouldn’t matter if she lied because no one would offer her a fancy job in a tech company in the Financial District.”
I understand her well enough now to know that’s probably exactly how Sadie thought about it.
“Well, I don’t care if she’s self-taught,” he adds. “Maybe she’s good because she did it all herself. Can’t we amend her resume and pretend we employed her on that basis?”
I chuckle. I’ve always liked the way Des thinks. A sort of Fuck the rules, let’s just do it. Relief that he’s thinking like me about this streams through me.
“You have to talk to Jo,” he says, “but, for God’s sake, don’t fire her. And I want to be in on it. Patch me into the call.”
“I’ve got no intention of firing her. But I think I might need you to handle this.”
“What? Why?”
I clear my throat. “Sadie and I have kind of got involved.”
There’s a long silence.
“Are you kidding me?” he whispers. The phone goes muffled for a second or two, and I hear a conversation in the background. Then his voice comes back. “I’m doing a little jig over here in Korea.”
“Get out of here.”
“Congratulations. Sadie’s one of the loveliest people I know, even if Alex does think she’s too quiet. But then he likes lively people, like me.”
“People misjudge her all the time. She’s a quiet hero.”
He laughs. “Not something I’ll ever understand.”
“There’s a high likelihood she won’t even speak to me after all this. That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about. Couldn’t I just talk to her?”
He makes a noise like he’s sucking on his teeth. “I’m happy for you to do that, but I don’t think you can say anything until we’ve agreed how we’re going to handle it with Jo. We have to have a process. It’s vital with staffing issues that you cover the legal side with Priya in HR.”
I groan to myself. “If she advises firing Sadie, then I’m leaving, too.”
Sadie might have lied, but we need programmers like her; they’re not exactly thick on the ground. She never knew her dad; she’s got a violent and abusive stepfather, and the only thing she cares about, her books, have been junked. I want to save her from all of it.
“Calm down, buddy. I’m sure it won’t come to that,” Des says.
“Well, you have to talk to Jo and Priya first thing in the morning, your evening, and then I’ll take it from there. I want this all wrapped up by tomorrow lunchtime.”
He chuckles on the other end of the line. “When did you become so dictatorial about things? Can I change my mind about you running this business?”
My lips curl up. “Definitely not.”