“House-cleaning?” Crap, now she was doing it too. “What does that mean?”
Mindy moved in even closer and glanced around the open-office layout before looking at Rosie with a serious expression. “Every six months, he fires a few people and replaces them with new blood, usually people with no marketing experience.”
Now Mindy had her attention. Rosie had been there six months and was likely the new blood from Franklin’s last ‘house-cleaning,’ and Tica had started the same week as her. “Exactly how many people does Mr. Franklin usually replace?”
Mindy squeezed her arm then finally let go. “Oops, sorry,” she said, looking at the red fingernails marks she’d left on Rosie’s skin. Then she frowned and touched the light bruising around her wrist. “Ouch, what happened there?”
Rosie pulled her arm away and pushed the sleeve of her sweater down, masking the evidence of the fun she’d had with Shay two nights ago. “Just a bracelet I wore too tight,” she said, bending the truth only slightly. “How extensive is the clear out?”
“Always in threes,” Mindy said.
And now Rosie understood why Mindy’s initial glee had turned flat when she said she had a meeting with Franklin. It wasn’t as if she loved her job just yet, but being fired after six months wasn’t on her to-do list. That wasn’t even long enough to get a decent letter of recommendation. It hadn’t been sufficient time to prove her worth. What she lacked in marketing experience, she made up for with her understanding of the psychology of sales. That’s how she’d gotten the position in the first place. “Has anyone ever talked their way out of being fired?”
Mindy shook her head. “Once Mr. Franklin has made up his mind, he won’t be deterred. Steph Zawinski begged to keep her job—she has two kids and a husband with MS to support—but he had her escorted from the building like a criminal.”
Rosie twisted a strand of her hair and sighed. She’d heard a different version of that story, one where Steph had been involved in corporate espionage. But that was the problem with office gossip: unless you were involved in the situation, it was impossible to know the truth. “You’re telling me that my ‘super killer important’ meeting is actually me being fired?” She supposed the subject line made more sense if that turned out to be the case. He was killing her career in marketing before she’d had the chance to succeed.
Mindy shrugged and held out her hands. “I’m not telling you that, no.”
“But three people get fired every six months, two people were canned last night, and I’m the only one with a meeting with Mr. Franklin this morning.” She turned and headed toward the elevator. “In case I’m thrown straight out onto the street, it’s been a trip getting to know you, Mindy. Take care,” she said over her shoulder then ignored the multiple looks of both pity and relief from everyone else that she passed. It seemed that everyone knew her fate before she did.
In the elevator that she was thankfully the single occupant of, Rosie flicked through her messages. She sent Lori a textbemoaning her plight and asking if they could meet for drinks over the weekend, which would be completely free once she was relieved of her workload. Then she came to the stream of missives between her and Shay. Was this the kind of thing they could share? Or did it overstep the boundaries they’d been careful to implement? Rosie lowered her phone and followed the light on the wall panel as it ran inexorably upward through the floor numbers and toward her imminent termination. She shouldn’t talk to Shay about this, no. That’s what Lori was for. Shay was just for sex and fun, and there was nothing fun about being newly unemployed…except that it freed her time for more sex and fun with Shay.
The light stopped at seventy-four, and the doors opened slowly. Rosie caught herself being maudlin and took a deep breath. She exited the elevator before the doors were fully opened; if this was the end of her chapter here, there was no point delaying it. Her student loans, mortgage, and car loan wouldn’t pay themselves. She’d have to regroup. And fast. She refused to go back to the life she’d lived as a kid, the life her mom was still living…wherever the heck she was right now, which was definitely something she could do without having to worry over on top of what was about to happen.
Franklin’s executive assistant, Anna, greeted her with a genuine-looking smile. How she coped with Franklin constantly and in such close proximity, Rosie couldn’t begin to fathom, but she never appeared harassed or overwhelmed.
“Billy’s waiting for you in the purple room,” Anna said. “Would you like an herbal tea? Chamomile?”
“No, thanks.” So Mindy was right. Franklin occupied the whole top floor; half of it was allocated to his office, but the remaining space had been separated into rooms of various sizes and colors, painted to match emotions and/or the emotional state he wanted staff to be in. Purple was designed to calm and soothe—perfect for a parting of the ways that had the potential to be difficult. The offer of chamomile tea felt like too much though.
Rosie wandered along the hallway, taking the time to appreciate the wall art in a way she hadn’t done before because she was usually hurrying to another urgent meeting. Since this was the last time she’d be making this journey, she figured she should make the most of the opportunity to be among millions of dollars’ worth of the stuff.
The door to the purple room was open. Franklin was dressed in a fluorescent yellow tracksuit and neon-blue sneakers, both of which clashed terribly with the lilac wingback chair he lounged on, looking like he was chilling after an all-night party. A number of beanbags littered the floor. God, she hated those Styrofoam-filled excuses for furniture. She could never get in or out of them elegantly in a snug pencil skirt and three-inch heels, and she always had to ask someone to pull her up or end up rolling out of them in a very undignified manner. She looked around the room, praying for one sensible chair so that when she left, she could do it with panache.
Of course there was nothing. Okay, this meeting wouldn’t take long; she’d just stand.
“Good morning, Mr. Franklin,” Rosie said as politely as she could manage. If she was going to have any chance of getting a decent recommendation, she’d have to play nice.
“Roe-Roe, come in! Are you ever going to call me Billy?”
“Good morning, Billy.” She entered the room and tried for a convincing smile even though his over-familiar pet name pressed its usual button. Was plain old Rosie too pedestrian? Even her mom couldn’t manage it.
“I want you to clear your desk of every client you’ve got and hand them over to Jay-Jay.”
Wow. No preamble or thanks, just straight into it. Did she want to know why he was firing her? It probably wouldn’t be logical, and that might drive her more nuts than not knowing. Best just to accept his decision and get to moving on. If he wouldn’t change his mind for a woman with a family and an ill husband tosupport, he certainly wouldn’t care about for a single woman with no dependents, no matter how gigantic her student loans were. “Jason’s a good choice. I like his work.”
Jason was a terrible choice. How had Jason and his teenaged acne-face missed the house-cleaning to stay and take over her portfolio? She couldn’t really accuse Franklin of discriminating against her on the basis of her age. He wouldn’t have given her a job at all if that was his problem, so had one of her clients complained about the way she’d handled their account? Maybe it was about her sexuality. A couple of clients had hit on her, and she’d knocked them back. Franklin didn’t seem like he was part of the old boys’ network, but the threat of losing a multi-million-dollar account could make most people flexible with their morality.
“Exactly, right? Jay-Jay is amazing. I think he’s going to be one of the GOATs in this business.”
“Sure.” The only way Jason might be the greatest of all time would be in using the greatest number of words to say nothing at all. His pitches were baffling, which she assumed was why he had such few clients.
“But Jay-Jay wasn’t a good fit for this.” He tapped his blue-painted fingernails on the bright pink folder on the table beside him. “But you’re going to beperfect, like the missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle you find on the floor under the table. You’ll slot into this project just like that.”
She’d never been described as a dust-covered, discarded puzzle piece before, but he wasn’t firing her, and Mindy was wrong. “What’s the project?” she asked without missing a beat. No need to quiz him on the house-cleaning or make him aware of her self-doubt. It was every person for themselves in this place, and she got the feeling they’d all happily climb over each other’s incapacitated bodies to get to the top.
He pushed the folder toward her. “Take a look. I don’t have the words to do it justice. It’s going to be ground-breaking though.”
