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When her laughs and giggles finally quit, I watch her silently. I want to hear her say it. Again. “You, me. This is more than just screwing around, Mal. At least, it is for me.”
“It is for me, too,” she breathes.
“You know I won’t hurt you? You trust me?” I ask her again, looking into her eyes searching for the honesty, the raw feelings deep inside her.
“Yes,” she takes my hand and pulls it into hers.
“Good. I need you to do something for me.” Her eyes crinkle at the corners, searching mine. “Maxwell Cooper is expecting your call.”
Nineteen
“Baby, I’ll take you to an honest place. Darling, I just can’t find my honest face.” - Inhaler - My Honest Face
Mallory
I haven’t been called into the principal’s office in well over a decade and that was for putting gum in Rebecca Johnson’s ponytail. She was a spoiled mean girl brat and had it coming. I got detention and grounded for a month for shaming my family.
Now I might get fired.
In the two months since I first sat in this office, everything has changed but the room, and Sandra Alix, remain just as cold. The last time I sat in this chair, I was filled with promise. Now I’m filled with suspicion. I don’t trust anything they say.
No big surprise, Ding-a-ling DuPont ran right to mommy and daddy and Celeritas to tattle. Lennox and I spent yesterday in meetings with HR and the Celeritas attorneys. They separated us, of course. I felt like a criminal being questioned in a seedy police station, attorneys playing good-cop-bad-cop games like I’m an idiot.
Thank god Lydia and Robert cannot see me now, proving them right about what a failure I am.
“Let’s review,” Sandra huffs, shuffling mounds of manilla folders and paperwork over her glass desk. Her glasses sit low on her pointy nose and she has more grey roots poking out of her scalp today or I didn’t even notice them the last time. “You say Mr. DuPont came, unsolicited, to your flat and propositioned you.”
“Yes. He’s… propositioned me on other occasions as well, asking me on his yacht,” and a few other times I didn’t even tell Lennox about knowing he acts like a caveman.
“And he made unwanted physical contact?” Sandra is flipping through pages of typed text but I can’t read it upside down.
“Several times, yes. Touching my face, tucking hair behind my ear, yesterday he was running his hand up and down my arms.” It’s harder than I think it will be to put into proper words what creepy feels like. I’m not going to lie, but I have to do better than ‘Digby is handsy and gives me the creeps’ if there’s any hope for me to stay gainfully employed and for Lennox to keep his contract.
He’s not even remotely worried about his contract and it’s making me crazy. I know he has enough money for several lifetimes, but F1 is his dream.
“And you asked him to stop?”
“Yes. I asked him to leave and he refused and continued touching my arm.” And then Lennox lost his ever-loving mind and slammed his head into the wall.
“You felt uncomfortable during this time?”
I’ve covered these questions a hundred times already by this point and it’s getting difficult to keep my patience. I think I understand how Lennox feels now answering stupid questions from the media. Obviously, I felt uncomfortable, Sandra. I’ve said so a dozen times. “I did,” I say one more time.
“And you are willing to sign an affidavit to these statements?” Sandra peers at me over the top of her glasses.
“Yes, everything I have said is true,” I nod.
“Very well,” Sandra removes her eyeglasses, sits back in her chair and rubs her eyes. I think the moment of truth is upon me. I’m either about to be fired or, or I don’t know what, actually. I don’t know how much power the DuPont’s have over Celeritas. A hundred million dollars a year probably buys a lot of unethical behavior.
“Given these statements, the DuPont’s have elected not to pursue any charges against Mr. Gibbes.”
I nod. Lennox told me they wouldn’t, said the prestigious DuPont family would never have their name risked in the news, it would be too unseemly. I wonder if my father has thoughts about how he’s going to look in the news if he sues his own daughter. Or maybe the Mitchells are just more trashy or more desperate than the DuPont’s.
“As for you, Mallory, the UK has very strong employee protection laws and all parties involved wish to avoid such murky waters,” Sandra’s eyebrows are cocked at me.
“Ooookay,” I say slowly, not quite understanding, but I think I am still employed. For the moment.
“As they would say on track, Ms. Mitchell, we will consider this a racing incident.”
