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“Let me explain then.” Daniel is still on the offensive, but so are we. “You’ve used company money to add in a daycare for the children of…twenty female employees. Not to mention, you hired dozens of women who could potentially need maternity leave.”
At this, the entire board, including the four women, stare right at my baby bump, incredibly visible in my high-collared black dress.
My due date is next month.
“If they were men, they’d need paternity leave,” I rebut.
Daniel shakes his head. “Not as long.”
It can’t be about money. Why do I know this? Before Loren Hale became CEO, women were being paid significantly less than men who were in the same positions. Theoretically, they would’ve hired more women in the past to keep costs down.
But they didn’t.
Loren says out of the megaphone, “Everyone we hired is driven and motivated to do a damn good job, regardless of gender or race—”
“This isn’t the time for change—”
“Cut me off again, Millard, and we’re going to have a bigger problem than this goddamn meeting,” Loren says with the utmost confidence. He can hold his own in front of these men.
I talked with Connor about this meeting on the phone, about an hour before it started. I was in the bathroom, and he told me, “I believe Lo can do even more than we all think.”
The Loren Hale today is a stark difference than the one years ago. It’s his self-confidence that will annihilate their contempt. I can’t restrain my smile.
I whisper to Loren, “Slay them.”
Loren speaks into his megaphone. “Anyone else?” Everyone is quiet for a second, and then he spins to me. “Rose?”
My turn.
I take one step forward and brush my hair off my shoulder. “The company’s job is to reach out to the market. Our market is mostly female. More women buy Hale Co.’s baby products than men. I was tired of seeing men being hired as interns, and I brought this fact up to the CEO three years ago. He made sure that in ten years’ time, this company will look less like a WASP all-boys boarding school and more like the world it serves. If you’re upset with this, then…” I think about what Connor would say. “…then maybe you should reflect on your own choices and try to understand this one.”
That was fairly calm for me.
I let out a breath, knowing it’s not over here.
I have enough privilege to reach executive levels in companies, regardless of my knowledge and aptitude. I can use my power at Hale Co. to change the demographic of their employees, but I can’t use it to close the gap of inequality in other jobs around the world. Not in this way.
It’s a start somewhere.
Every day, I know how fortunate I am. To be able to work at home and split time with a husband who can do the same. I wanted to hire women who didn’t have the same luxuries I do. Who needed the benefits of daycare in order to work in a billion-dollar company. They shouldn’t miss out on these opportunities for that reason.
Daniel sits in his leather chair and cups his hands together. He’s in his early forties, an aquiline nose and no-nonsense eyes like most of the board. I’ve heard Lily call his brown hair “fluffy” which to me just means that he combed out his natural curls.
“I’ve always been blunt with you,” Daniel tells Loren. “We didn’t call this meeting for shits and giggles.”
“And you think I did?” Loren says so spitefully. A chill snakes down my neck. “You want to cut out all the bullshit, Daniel, here’s the goddamn truth. You think I didn’t hire the best for the job, but I did. Yes, you have a right to question management. But you don’t have a right to tell me who to hire. So really, me even letting you have this meeting was kind on my part.”
Slay them.
Lo sets his megaphone on the table. “I’m the CEO of Hale Co. and I’m not asking you to start treating me like it. I’m telling you to. There’s been miscommunication between the board and management since I’ve been here. It’d serve the company’s best interest for every director to instate me as chairman of the board.”
My jaw nearly unhinges.
Loren Hale just went rogue.
The fourteen shareholders look caught off guard as they mutter between one another. So Lo takes a moment to whisper to me, “What, Queen Rose? You didn’t think I had it in me?”
I narrow my eyes at him. Why didn’t you tell me? I don’t have time to ask though because the shareholders quiet down.
To any of the doubters, Lo adds, “The president of the board is supposed to be the face of the company. I’m already the face of Hale Co., so whatever differences we’ve had, you know this makes the most sense. I’ll have an easier time working with you. You’ll have an easier time working with me.”
“Let’s take a vote,” Daniel says, here and now.
It all happens so fast that my neck stiffens and eyes continue to grow. I’m scared that they’ll reject Loren. If he’s afraid too, I can’t tell.
“All in favor of instating Loren Hale as the chairman of the board instead of Earl Pennington, raise your hand.” Earl is an older gentleman who’s apparently been there since Jonathan started the company. He pushes up his spectacles, and he’s the first to raise his hand.
All thirteen follow suit.
Most everything is a fog until Loren and I exit the boardroom together. Before I congratulate him, I say with frost, “Why didn’t you tell me?” We stop by his office door. I’m about to add we’re a team, Loren, but the sentiment lingers beneath the way he stares at me and the way I stare back at him.
“Because Rose,” he says, “I wanted to see the look on your face when they all raised their hands.” He wasn’t scared then. He believed in himself the whole time.
“And how did I look?” I bristle as I try to recall my features.
“Weepy.” He feigns confusion. “I didn’t know dragons could cry.”
I scoff. “I did not cry.” I pat my eye, just to see if there are leftover tears…my eyelashes are wet.
Loren touches his chest. “I would cry over me too.” He flashes a dry half-smile. “It’s something you have in common with your sister.”
“I revoke your congratulations.”
“What congratulations?” He lets out a short laugh, and I realize I never congratulated him aloud. “Christ, Rose, you have to lay off the demon blood. Drinking that shit makes you weird.”
It’s so easy to hate Loren Hale.
And it can be just as easy to love him.
He smiles an actual smile this time, nothing half-a
ssed or full of scorn.
Loren might not have been a Calloway sister, but he’s been more of a brother to me than any other man in my life.
[ 19 ]
April 2020
The Cobalt Estate
Philadelphia
CONNOR COBALT
“You really want to play with fate like this, Rose?”
My wife is seated at the other end of our long mahogany dining table, a spiral-bound notebook in her clutch. On a rare Tuesday, we’re both home together by noon. Rose didn’t want her water to break in the Hale Co. building where people might tip the media, and she’s too close to her due date to take the risk.
“We already play with fate every day. What’s once more?”
“I believe that fate likes Mommy best of all.”
That’s clearly not me.
The dreamy and assured voice comes from our four-year-old daughter, hoisted on a booster seat near the middle of the table. Rose helped Jane dress this morning into a pastel green tutu and a zebra-print shirt. Our daughter even picked out her favorite cat-ear headband, one coated with gold glitter.
I remember when she couldn’t even speak, and now here we are.
“Fate has good taste then,” I tell Jane, “but fate would have better taste if it liked you most of all.”
Jane smiles big and looks across the table. “I want fate to love Charlie and Beckett too.” Her two-year-old brothers are in their own booster seats, eating mac-and-cheese with their spoons. Beckett picks out the peas. “And Eliot,” Jane notes like she would never forget her other brother.
I hold the eleven-month baby in my arms. Eliot naps against my shoulder, wearing a blue onesie with a tiny crown stitched on front. Gifted by Daisy.
“It’s decided,” Rose decrees, “fate loves us all. With this, we should begin the ceremony.”
I adore her formality. My lips rise as Rose stands from her chair.
“Jane, when you’re ready, just set down your spoon, and we’ll begin.”
Jane scoops up a noodle. “Before we start, I…I think we should tell Charlie and Beckett…” Her noodle drops on her lap. “Oopsie noody come here.” She retrieves the noodle from her tutu, and Rose has trouble not smiling.
