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“Landon, you know Tildy’s rules about cleaning up messes, don’t you?” Tanya asked as sheapproached.
Landon looked over his shoulder to a spot at a nearby crafting table full of construction paper scraps. “Ohhhhh-kay,” he said, stomping his feet over toward thetable.
Tanya watched him and then her eyes flickered toward the box. “Did you needme?”
“Ah, yes,” said Lilac, standing up and snapping into action. She opened up the top flaps on the box, pulling out one of the pamphlets they’d just had delivered. “Gyu-ri and I are starting to spread the word about the big crossover event. She said you should have some at Tildy’s Tots check-in for interested parents to grab. Maybe hand them out withreceipts.”
Tanya took the pamphlet, nodding as she looked it over. “Let’s head back to my office,” she said,turning.
Picking up the box, Lilac trailed after her. They went through another non-descript door hidden by a night sky painting and came out in a hallway that seemed familiar to Lilac, though she wasn’t sure she’d spent much time there. They passed an open door to a large break room, a dozen fans spread out throughout the room to cool down the half a dozen people—some in costume, some half in costume, and some in Tildy Scout outfits—standing or sitting, eating or talking. She stared just long enough to see a woman with short hair smack a guy’s shoulder over and over and point herway.
The guy in the sweat-covered undershirt, whose back was to her, turned, his phone in hishand.
Nolan.
Almost as if on cue, the phone Lilac had tucked into her pants pocket buzzed just then, but Tanya had slipped into a cramped office and looked back at herexpectantly.
Lilac just nodded at Nolan and then made her way into theroom.
“Just put that on the desk,” said Tanya, shutting the door behindthem.
Her palms shaking—her heart had started beating wildly when her eyes had locked with Nolan’s—Lilac slid her hand into her pocket and grasped her phone as she sat opposite Tanya’s desk. Surely he couldn’t have been messaging her at that very moment. That would have been too much of acoincidence.
“Can I ask you something?” said Tanya, bringing Lilac back to thepresent.
“Yes?” saidLilac.
“It’s about… You and Earl andHR.”
Of course.Lilac didn’t know when, if ever, she’d be able to escape that shadow over everything she did here, but she supposed it was too early to hope forotherwise.
“I… I can’t say much while it’s still under investigation,” she said. Her lawyer had even had her file a police report, but that hadn’t gone far—they’d interviewed Earl and he’d protested his innocence, of course—so it was up to HR now. But the lawyer had insisted it would still help having it onrecord.
“I figured,” said Tanya, her lips in a thin line. “I just wondered if… Well, would it help if I went to HR,too?”
Lilac straightened in her chair. “Sorry?” She wasn’t sure if she’d heard herright.
Leaning back in her own chair, Tanya sighed. “Earl hasn’t touched me—he probably knows what I’d do to him if he did—but he’s made a few inappropriate comments. His eyes have certainly lingered here and there.” She waved her hands around the room, though Lilac knew the “here and there” were probably her legs and behind in those shorts. Even in the lamest of Tildy Scout outfits, Tanya was gorgeous. “If I got enough women who’ve experienced the same to comeforward…”
“Yes!” said Lilac excitedly. “It certainly couldn’t hurt. But my lawyer said few people would probably want to risk theirjobs.”
Tanya snorted, threading her fingers together. “I don’t know if Tildy Corporation wants the kind of lawsuit a dismissal of multiple women could cause,” she said. She frowned. “I’m just sorry I didn’t say anything earlier. I… You’re not the first girl who’s worked with Earl. Three in the past few years alone. And they always get quiet—isolated—and then just up and vanish without so much as agoodbye.”
There must have been something on Lilac’s face at that—something disturbed—because Tanya chuckled. “They do go on to other work, I mean. I’m friends with two of them on Facebook, though we haven’t really talked much since they left.” She opened a drawer to pull out a phone and started scrolling through it. “I’ll… I’ll reach out to them. Tell them what I do know about what’s going on, ask them if they mighthelp.”
“That would be amazing,” said Lilac, tears forming in her eyes. She laughed then even as she cried and Tanya jumped up from her chair, swapping her phone for a tissue from a box on her desk and coming around the side to hand it toLilac.
“Thank you,” said Lilac, taking the tissue and dotting hereyes.
“No, thankyoufor doing what one—or a dozen—of us should have done ages ago.” She sighed and sat on the edge of her desk, picking the phone up again. “I can’t make any promises on behalf of anyone else, but I promise you I’ll see HR.Today.”
“Thanks,” said Lilac. “That would be more than enough.” She reached a hand out toward Tanya and she took it, squeezingtight.
Tanya looked over her shoulder at the box of pamphlets. “You leave those here. I’ll take care of it. And then I’ll prep the troops for the big camp sleepover in theBallroom.”
Gyu-ri had told Lilac that Tildy’s Tots staff typically worked to ensure the kids’ happiness and safety during the overnight. And that they only sort of looked forward to it, overtime orno.
Lilac cringed as she stood. “Sorry,” shesaid.
