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“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “You can go.”
“Sir?”
“I said go!” he shouts. “I’m not going to tell you again!”
So I go.
With the door closed behind me, I try not to look at all the faces looking at me. Although I’m technically off the hook, this office is great at one thing and it has nothing to do with finance.
As I make my way toward Atkinson’s office, as I have absolutely nothing else to do right now, and I’d really like to take my mind off of everything, I can hear the not-so-hushed voices.
“Yeah, he just came in screaming. I think she’s going to get fired.”
“Look at her—no, not now, she’s looking over here. She looks like she just got fired.”
Somewhere around the eighth utterance of the word “fired,” I’ve had enough.
“Oh, will you all just shut up?!” I shout. “Every time someone leaves the room, you’re all pick, pick, pick, pick, pick, pick, pick as if your lives are such a pretty picture!”
“Leila?”
“What?!” I yell, spinning on my heel.
I turn around, and standing there like a scolded child is Mrs. Weinstock, one of my five bosses.
“Mrs. Weinstock,” I say, “I am so sorry.”
“Would you come and talk to me in my office?”
“Sure,” I answer, my voice suddenly small again.
Kidman is the filthy old man. Atkinson is the drill sergeant that wants you to scrub the floors with a toothbrush—although, to be fair, he’s only had me do that once. Iverson keeps calling me Kayla and hasn’t once given me clear directions on anything, so when I invariably screw up, he’s always got something to say about it. I still haven’t met Mrs. Beck.
Mrs. Weinstock, on the other hand, she is the master of the guilt trip.
With that soft-spoken tone and those big eyes, made even bigger by the thick glasses she wears—I swear, for the sole purpose of adding to the puppy effect—she can make you feel worthless just by looking at you.
Once I’m in her office, she asks me to close the door behind me.
“Have a seat,” she says.
She’s the oldest 40-something woman I’ve ever come across in my life, and somehow, that only makes her entreaties all the more gut-wrenching.
I sit and wonder whether she’s got me in here to make me feel terrible about yelling at everyone in the office, or because Kidman told her that I put that file on her des
k or what.
“How are you doing? You seem a little stressed,” she says.
“It’s been a rough day,” I tell her. “Then last night, there was this whole thing with my roommate…”
Even though I know better, those big brown eyes just make me open up. I can’t help it.
“I’m sorry to hear that, dear,” she says. “I just got a call. Someone from Claypool and Lee—did you know they’d be calling me for a reference?”
“Yes,” I answer. “I thought we talked about that.”
“Well, we did,” she says, “but I didn’t think you’d actually go through with applying somewhere else. I thought we’d made a nice home for you here.”
