“I didn’t think I needed to tell you. I thought he already ran it by you. I thought you knew.”
Bobby stared at the white woman in front of him. That used to be the line they all loved to use:I thought you knew. It took the blame off of them and put it squarely on him.
He remembered when he first got hired as chief of staff five years ago. Back then he was the only African-American and, at thirty, the youngest chief of staff in Skeffington history. Back then he had to battle his own subordinates who felt entitled to disrespect him. He warned them that he would take the matter straight to Mr. Skeffington himself, but they felt the boss would view him as some kid who wasover his headanyway and dismiss him rather than them. But when Skeffington fired every single one of those staffers he named, the rest of them got the memo. And it had been smooth sailing ever since.
Until now.
Until Sloane Drummond became the newly hired private secretary to the founder and Chairman of Skeffington PR. She believed, like those fired staffers believed, that no black man could ever be her superior. She was wrong.
And he had no problem reminding her, as she stood in front of his desk, of just how wrong she was. “I told you from dayone that if anything occurs out of the normal course of business, and I saidanything, you were to report it to me no matter what youthinkI know or don’t know. It’s not your job to make assumptions about my knowledge. It’s your job to do what I tell you to do. Do you understand me, Sloane?”
Sloane knew Bobby was her boss and that he was a Princeton man who graduated at the top of his class and all the rest of it, but she just couldn’t see someunculturedperson like him telling her what to do. They both were in their mid-thirties. They both were smart and talented. But she hailed from one of the best families in Westchester County. Her parents used to go to garden parties at the Skeffington family estate. Buthewas her boss? It just seemed inexplicable to her.
“Do you understand me, Sloane?” Bobby repeated himself.
Sloane smiled that fake smile she always tried to lay on him, although she wasn’t fooling him in the least, and then she nodded her head. “Yes, Bobby. I understand.”
“What about Ed?” Bobby asked her. “Please tell me Ed at least is with him.”
“I haven’t spoken to Ed,” Sloane said.
“Geez Sloane! What about security? He has security with him surely?”
When Sloane looked constipated rather than admit what a fuck-up they had on their hands, Bobby’s heart dropped. And he plopped down in his chair. “Terrific,” he said as he shook his head. “Just terrific!” Then his phone’s intercom buzzed.
He quickly pressed the button. “Yes?”
It was Meeka, his secretary. “His phone goes straight to Voice Mail, sir. I tried it three times.”
Bobby exhaled. “Thank you,” he said and ended the call. Then he pulled out his cell phone and called the boss himself. It still went to Voice Mail. “He’s got it turned off,” hefinally admitted to himself. Then he quickly phoned Ed Rivers, William’s driver.
“Hiya Bobby.”
“You’re with him, right?”
“The boss? No sir, I’m not.”
Damn! Bobby mouthed the word but didn’t say it out loud. Sloane was getting even more concerned too and unsteady on her feet. She sat in the chair in front of Bobby’s desk.
“He told me to take a couple days off,” Ed added.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” a now-frustrated Bobby asked. “You and Sloane answer to me, but neither one of you thought to let me know that our billionaire boss is making a twelve-hour drive alone after what happened to him last year? You geniuses didn’t think I needed to know that?!”
“I thought you knew,” Ed said.
Bobby almost threw his phone across the room. “That’s what you get for fucking thinking!” he yelled into his phone and ended the call.
“What can we do now?” Sloane asked. Her voice was near-panic too. She didn’t work at Skeffington back then, but she heard what happened last year. And the horrors of it.
Bobby leaned back in his chair again and covered his face. He didn’t have to hear about it, he lived through it. “What time did he leave New York?” he asked her.
She didn’t know that either. “I don’t know,” she said. “I was at his house Sunday morning for a confab with his New York staff before we met with Exxon. He told me to take his plane back and he’ll see me tomorrow morning. I asked how he was going to get back, and he said he felt like driving. I assumed---”
“I don’t want to hear what you assumed.”
“I flew back last night,” she said. “He told me he’d see me this morning. I thought he was back in town too. I thought you was handling his security and all of that.”
“How could I handle any of that when nobody, not you, not Ed, not his pilot, not his flight crew, nor anyone else bothered to phone me and alert me of a change in plan? All of your asses answer to me, but not one of you thought to give me a call!”
