“Godspeed,”McKenna whispered to me as I slowly stood up and pulled at my skirt.
Anthym, my manager, was sitting in one of the white chairs in Brittany Dawn’s office. The HR director had a glass-enclosed view over the mezzanine to the floor below, all the better to look out over Grayson Richmond’s subordinates and remind them that HR was always watching.
“Lexi, let’s chat,” she said, with all the false perkiness of a middle-school mean girl.
The HR director patted the desk in front of the empty chair. There was a copy of the employee handbook on her desk, mocking me.
I sat.
“I cannot believe you would embarrass me like this,” Anthym snapped before Brittany Dawn could get a word in. “How dare you! Mr. Richmond is god here. Your actions make us all look bad.”
Do not squeak, I warned my voice.If you do, I’m going to be fired, and then I’ll never be able to afford that fancy tea you like.
“I didn’t catcall Mr. Richmond,” I explained, trying to sound calm and in control. “I was paying him a compliment. There was a misunderstanding, but we’ve worked it out. Believe me, I am very anti-catcalling. In fact, whenever I’m out and I hear a man actually catcall a woman, I always yell at him and tell him I’m going to tell his mom.”
Brittany Dawn clasped her hands in front of her on the desk.
“Now Lexi, I understand that you’re just out of college—”
“A master’s degree,” I interjected. “I’m twenty-three and have a master’s in communication.”
Her mouth curled up into an impression of a smile.
“Just out of a master’s degree program,” Brittany Dawn corrected, voice syrupy sweet. “But that doesn’t mean you have real-world experience. You’re basically a child. And as such I know that you don’t understand how adults in a corporate environment behave. You can’t sexually harass your boss.”
“Theboss,” Anthym railed, unable to fake Brittany Dawn’s calmly patronizing tone.
“I didn’t know it was him,” I insisted. “He wasn’t in his suit, and I know Mr. Richmond’s suits. I pick up his dry cleaning, after all. He was in workout clothes. Also, why does no one in this city appreciate the power of uplifting declarations?”
“You said he was hot,” Brittany Dawn reminded me, drawing her finger down the text written on an incident report.
Minnie’s tits. I’m getting fired, aren’t I?
“I said he was looking good, but I didn’t mean it likethat. And I wouldn’t have said anything if I’d known who he was. This morning was the first time I’d ever met the man.”
“Lexi’s lying; she called him hot stuff,” Anthym snapped. “She did it because she’s trying to become the next Mrs. Richmond. But guess what? It backfired. You made him very uncomfortable. He felt threatened. You should have seen how upset he was when I talked to him.”
“Are you kidding me?”
Stop squeaking.
I cleared my throat.
“Are you kidding me? Grayson—”
“Mr. Richmond,” Anthym interjected.
“Mr. Richmond,” I seethed, “felt threatened? How dare he? I’m five feet tall when I stand up straight. I look like I’m twelve, and people constantly stop me and ask me if I lost my mommy. He’s the richest man in Manhattan and literally owns multiple city blocksandone of the tallest skyscrapers in the city, which is totally a phallic calling card, by the way, if we’re really going to get out the magnifying glass and suss out who’s being sexually aggressive to whom.”
“Mr. Richmond takes these matters very seriously,” Brittany Dawn warned.
“Believe me, I am not making a mockery of this company or of him.” I saluted the HR director. “Me and my credit cards are very happy to have this job. In the future, I will never talk to Mr. Richmond in a sexually aggressive or any other capacity ever again. If you can just let me off with a write-up, I will return to my duties as Mr. Richmond’s lowly assistant of the assistant to the secretary forthwith.”
Brittany Dawn’s nose scrunched up like I’d dumped a wedge of that very pungent cheese from last night on her desk.
“You can’t just write her up,” Anthym insisted. “She needs to be fired.”
Crap.
