As some of you may know, we’re forming a union at TKCORP, and we’ll need everyone’s help. We’ve submitted the paperwork to hold a union election, and we have reason to believe that today’s layoffs are illegal retaliation. We’re demanding they be halted immediately, or we will file an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB.
A lot of you have worked here for a long time and careabout this company and what happens to it—and, importantly, what happens to the people in it. If you’re concerned about the way things are going around here lately, please come talk to us. We look forward to speaking with everyone about how unionizing can protect all of us and change TKCORP for the better.
Sincerely,
Greg, Sarah, Carol, and the rest of the union organizing committee
Sarah sniffs, sitting at her cubicle. “We went back and forth over the text of that email for like five hours.”
Morgan gasps. “You guys, look!”
We get up from our desks and gather around her screen, which is opened to the front page ofThe New York Times.The top headline slot reads:
At TKCORP, a Trail of Questionable Transactions Leads Back to New CEO
Just a few years after taking the helm of the ailing megacorporation amid much fanfare, CEO Winfield Erickson and his underlings have been implicated in a brazen fraud scheme.
9 MIN READ
The lead image is of Erickson emerging from TKCORP headquarters, and Mark Winterson standing in front of him—arms spread wide as if to protect him, mouth open like he’s shouting at the person behind the camera. Eyes wild like he hasn’t slept in days.
Chapter
56
It’s lunchtime now, and I go out to get some fresh air. There are lots of people sitting on the benches and on the grass, talking about everything that’s happened.
So there’s a real audience when Mark Winterson comes out and stumbles across the street—there’s something distinctly off about him, like he’s sleepwalking. Someone gasps as a car stops short, inches from hitting him—Watch it, asshole!—and honks the horn, but he waves it off and keeps going.
“Is he drunk?” Carol says.
But my eyes are glued to Mark Winterson as he shuffles over to the pool—the one I worked at as a lifeguard—and falls in.
He’s going to surface any second, limbs thrashing, water droplets flying. I know it.
But there’s nothing. The water is still.
Before I have time to think about it, I’m running across the street. I kick off my shoes, toss the life preserver into the water, and jump in after it. Maybe if you ask me later, I won’t be able to tell you why exactly I did this. But the only thought reverberating in my mind right now is,How fucking dare you?
I swim to the bottom where Mark Winterson is resting—somehow he sank straight down. When I try to haul him up, he’s weirdly heavy.Did he put something in his jacket?
I’m struggling to get him out of it, wrenching the sleeves off his arms. I have to come up for air once, dive down again. His mouth is open, no more bubbles coming out.Fuck fuck fuck.
Finally I get the jacket off him and pull him to the surface, gasping, and get him into the life preserver, pushing him to the edge. Some people have run over to this side of the street, and a few of them help me haul him up.
I’m pumping the water out of his chest, the way I learned to. He sputters and coughs and a stream of liquid pours out of his mouth, onto the poolside tile.
“No no no leave me there I don’t want this,” he mumbles, words slurred. His head rocks side to side against the tile. “I just wanted him to be proud of me.”
Ugh, God, please tell me we’re not that similar!
“Stop it! Grow up!” I’m not sure what comes over me, but I’m shaking him, hard. “You don’t get to do that! You don’t get to! You don’t!”
My brain realizes on a delay how incoherent I sound, how beside myself. And then I notice that people around us have their phones out, filming, and for a second I get nervous about how this will look.
Mark Winterson turns over on his side and throws up on the concrete.
He rolls onto his back again and scoffs. “So you do care.”
