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Eventually, she gave in.
“It’s just you spend a lot of time in the office and if you insist on being so serious all the time… I just feel bad for you. You deserve to be happy all the time. We all do.”
Unlike the rest of the meeting, at this point, she had adopted a serious tone as if my happiness was something she actually cared about, as opposed to more important things like her job or the well-being of the company.
“Like I said, Ms. Saunders, I am a very happy man.” I was sure I wasn’t convincing, but my happiness or lack thereof was none of her business.
“I bet I could make you happy,” she said and then immediately blushed before letting out a few hiccups and covering her mouth. “I didn’t mean that to sound as dirty as it did. Honestly, I didn’t.”
I hadn’t the heart to tell her that the only thing that made what she said sound crude was her commenting on it.
“I just have that effect on people,” she said. “Ever since first grade, everyone always told me I was like a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day. My teacher even wrote it on my report card: it’s impossible for anyone not to smile when Sloane is around.”
I wasn’t smiling.
“Anyone except for you, you grumpy Gus,” she said.
I could have humored her with a tiny smirk, but I didn’t see the point. In this office, I was the boss. The only way for her to make me happy was by selling houses. And not putting me at risk for a disciplinary hearing from the office climate auditors.
“Regardless,” I said, ignoring her, which was best for both of us, “I didn’t call you in here to discuss your sophomoric story.”
“You didn’t?” she asked, then hiccupped again, even more intensely, and took in a deep breath. She let it out. “Sorry, I’m listening. This is how I stop the hiccups.” She inhaled again, deeply, puffing up her cheeks and pursing her lips in the process. I didn’t laugh at her story, but her adorable chipmunk face very nearly got a smile out of me, distracting as it was.
“No, this is not about your story,” I told her. “The rest of the board was going through our files and you’re not meeting expectations in terms of sales. In fact, in the time you’ve been here, you haven’t closed a single offer.”
She was nearly as red as a tomato by this point and let the air out of her mouth. After a few cautious pauses, she responded.
“Okay, but listen,” she said, “there were extenuating circumstances. With the Wendell house, the sellers backed out at the last minute. It was completely unexpected.”
“It happens,” I said. “We need to be prepared for such events.”
“Sure, but the Robinson estate? Where the inspection found asbestos?”
I shrugged. “Bad luck averages out,” I said. “The board doesn’t care about the reason why a house didn’t sell; they care that it didn’t sell. A house that sells brings in money. One that doesn’t won’t. Here at Dynasty, we deal in real estate, not excuses.”
“That’s very clever,” she said. “Did you come up with that on your own?”
She was still smiling. Even with her career on the line, she was in good spirits. It was quite obnoxious.
“Sloane,” I said, using her first name deliberately. “This isn’t a game. They’ll fire you and think nothing of it. In fact, they’re looking for excuses to fire you.”
“Why’s that?” she asked.
“People talk,” I said, “and your reputation… people are saying you’re not much of a saleswoman.”
That got her attention. “People?” she asked. “You wouldn’t happen to mean Bradley Burke, would you?”
“I don’t mean anybody,” I said. “I’m telling you what the board is telling me.”
“Because I don’t know how much of the story you heard, but Bradley Burke was fu--… Excuse me. He was having an inappropriate relationship with his secretary, which I discovered. And he’s the kind of guy who always has to have the last word. I wouldn’t put it past him to drag my name through the mud.”
It, of course, was Bradley who reported her poor sales record from his office. We all knew about Bradley and his improprieties, but he was a hell of a salesperson as his record stated.
“It’s a well-documented fact,” I told her, “that you didn’t make a single sale at your prior company, either.”
“Well, that’s bologna,” she said. “I sold more than two dozen—That asshole—!” She stopped herself.
I was about to scold her for her language, but honestly, who gives a shit? It was even a bit charming, if I was being honest with myself. Sloane was, like she said, sunshine on a cloudy day. A perpetually smiling rainbow. She mentioned the high marks from her first-grade teacher, but she herself came off something like a first-grade teacher in her demeanor, but yet she swore like a trucker. If she didn’t throw in a few four-letter words every once in a while, she ran the risk of becoming too saccharine. The combination of her personality was intoxicating, but I’d never let her know that.
