“To replace Theo Jones while he’s in rehab?” Lana asks.
“Yes,” I say. “What bands do you guys like?”
They have a lot of opinions on that question, and I make sure to ask them follow-up questions, a distraction tactic that works only long enough for them to circle back with even more enthusiasm. Lana explains to me that my ex-husband is “the coolest” and asks whether I can get them backstage passes.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Ollie leans over to me a minute or two later. “I’m okay without a backstage pass.”
Brant pullsme aside as we all get off the passenger van at the hotel.
“You and Ollie seem like good friends,” he says quietly.
“Yeah. We went on a date once, but it didn’t work out,” I tell him. I figure that it’s best when lying to stick as close to the truth as possible. “We’re friends now.”
“Okay.” He raises his eyebrows and nods, slowly. “I think he might be interested in more than that.”
“It’s not that, I’m sure, Brant,” I say. I feel uncomfortable. A vague, floating thought that Brant himself might be interested—and if so, might not easily forgive me for the lie—floats through my head.
Brant’s eyes are full of wary cynicism, but then again, they always are.
The meetingat the hotel feels productive, though, and after a while I stop feeling frustrated that I can’t be alone with Ollie and start appreciating how he behaves in meetings: how he lets everyone speak, how he takes notes, how he never makes the meeting about him. He makes relevant comments and then listens. He lets Destiny do her job and lead the group. He smiles when someone makes a joke but never prolongs the joke enough to waste time. It feels ridiculous to stare at a man who is quietly typing on a laptop and think,I love the way he types, yet there I am. Being attracted to him while he was dancing was comprehensible. This feels like something else entirely.
Eventually, Lana pulls out a document summarizing how employees feel about the current policy for office relationships.
“So I got the responses to our questionnaire.”
“Global or New York office?” Brant asks.
“This was all U.S., not global,” Lana says. “And to the question of ‘Are our current policies clear?’ we got eighty percent yes.”
“So twenty percent don’t understand the policy?” Destiny asks.
“Well, when we poll folks about whether any policy is clear,” Niamh says, “twenty percent of people almost always say no, so that may just be the idiocy factor.”
“We’ll use that exact language in the report,” Destiny jokes.
“Anyway, when people ask if there should be more reporting of relationships, eighty percent said no,” Lana goes on.
Ollie and I glance at each other and then away.
“A lot of the comments talk about how it’s intrusive,” Lana adds. “I specifically got two complaints: one is that it is hard to label relationships when they are in the casual phase and announcing them to the office after a date or two feels like an intrusion. The other was that casual relationships can create blowback that people aren’t willing to deal with.”
“Did anyone give an example,” Destiny asks, “of the kind of blowback they expect?”
“One person mentioned that he suspects his manager might have a crush on him and she might get jealous if she knew he was dating someone else in the office. But since he can’t prove the crush exists, he has no clear protection against potential retaliation every time he has to mention dating another employee.”
“What did people say when asked if they wanted all employee relationships forbidden?” Brant asked.
“Ninety-four percent said no,” Lana replies.
Niamh smiles. “That six percent is probably the manager who has a crush on her employee and doesn’t want anyone else getting to him.”
I shudder. The implications of that feel a little close to home.
“My take,” Lana says, “and I’m not, like, a lawyer or whatever, but I feel like the more we demand disclosure, the more likely we could be liable for potential issues. Like if we force employees to discuss that they are dating someone else, they can argue that we forced them to experience retaliation and that the whole company is more liable.”
I am impressed with Lana. She has always seemed unserious, but I realize now that I’ve mistaken youthful exuberance for lack of intelligence.
