Mr. White hesitated, then folded his arms. “I’m performing a surprise audit tonight. I give my employees deadlines, but I like to know who is waiting until the last minute and who is staying up to speed with their work.”
“What happens to the procrastinators?”
“They get replaced.”
I nodded. “Okay. Well, I’m going to go get to know this Bible of yours. Good talk.” I got up and left his office as quickly as I could.
When I was back on the office floor, I saw the people all working quietly at their desks. The place was thick with oppression. I could tell they were all terrified of Mr. White, and I saw why. He treated them all as disposable. It was a constant test, and nobody knew the rules.
I found Martha back at the reception area. She was chewing her nails and flinched when I walked out of the double doors. “Hey,” I said. “Is there a way to email all the employees here but not Mr. White?”
Martha stared. “If there was, that would be a dangerous idea. One of the rules in his binder is that you CC him on every email.”
“Can you start an email for me to the employees but not Mr. White?”
Martha gnawed on her nail harder now. “I don’t know, Jules. If Mr. White finds out you-”
“He won’t. But if he does it’ll be all my idea. I’ll tell him I figured out how to do it on my own.”
“Do I even want to ask what you’re wanting to email them all?”
“It’ll be better if you don’t know. You know, in case he tortures you or something.” Once again, I’d meant it as a joke, but Martha just gulped and went pale. She clacked away at a few keys, then rolled her chair out of the way.
“All yours,” she whispered.
“Thanks,” I said. I hammered out a quick email letting everybody know Mr. White was going to be performing a surprise audit on them tonight and that if they were behind, they should fix that ASAP. I hit send, then dusted my hands.
5
Juliette
I had the good fortune of starting work for Coleton Publishing on a Friday. I woke up the following Saturday morning with the full intentions of recovering from the mental whiplash I’d just gone through.
When I checked my email, I had a barrage of forwarded emails from Maxi. She’d followed through and reached out to a shocking number of businesses in the city and written a scathing account of how horrible an employee I was. I blocked her email after reading a handful, then deleted all of her messages.
If I was a spiteful person, I would’ve emailed the Better Business Bureau and lodged a storm of complaints about the various things I’d seen at her company. Would it be petty? Yes. Was I still going to do it? Hell yes.
By the time I finished, it was past lunch, and I was starving. My first paycheck wasn’t due for two weeks from Coleton, but it felt different to know the money was coming. I didn’t need to wonder how I was going to stretch my meager savings for months or years. I only had to make it last two weeks.
To celebrate, I called the only real friend I’d made since running away from my family in New York. I was going to celebrate with a little lunch that didn’t come in a box, a can, or have microwave instructions.
Anastasia met me at a place near both our apartments that sold some of the most amazing soups. We took a booth in the corner and sat down with our soups. I’d gone with broccoli and cheddar, and she got the southwest. I had a terrible habit of always wishing I’d ordered what other people ordered, and I found myself watching her soup longingly as we both blew on ours and waited for them to cool off.
I’d only met Anastasia four months ago, but she already knew me well. She grinned, and reached to swap our soups, sliding her southwest in front of me. “I had a feeling you were going to want mine,” she said.
I laughed. “You’re sure?”
She took a bite of my soup and nodded. Anastasia was a former employee at Maxi Interior Designs. She kept her hair buzzed short and soft. She dyed it a new color every few weeks and she had a rotating assortment of piercings from the several she jammed into her ears to the ones on her nostrils and eyebrows. She’d been in human resources, and I’d met her during the hiring process. We both hit it off and stayed in touch, even after she quit two months ago.
Part of me wondered if I’d been drawn to her because she was the antithesis of everything Coleton. But I didn’t like thinking of it that way. She was fun to talk to, real, and she made me laugh. I didn’t want to think it had to be some sort of manipulation. I’d even gone as far as telling her the truth about who I was once she quit, which made her the only person who knew my secret.