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Vicky says, “Smuckers doesn’t like how you’re talking to me when he’s the one making the decisions. He feels alienated.”
“Does he,” I say.
“You should make your arguments directly to Smuckers,” she says. “If you want him on your side you need to work a little harder.”
“We’re not going to do that, Vicky.”
She frowns, eyes dark and dazzling. “Smuckers isn’t feeling favorable to the funding, that’s the problem here.”
“We need this funding,” Kaleb says. “We could lose millions of dollars of business here.”
She shrugs. “Then I’d suggest you tell Smuckers directly why he should cast a yes vote. Really talk to him. Make him feel included. Because, between you all and me and the Locke Worldwide flagpoles, you’re not treating him with the respect he feels is his due. You tried to defraud him in the last meeting, and now you’re ignoring him. Can you blame him for being unhappy?”
Smuckers is standing on his dog bed, wagging his tail, sensing the energy in the room.
I’ve done battle many times in the corporate world. I know the language of battle, the feel and sound of it. I know the moves, the signals, the rules.
She tried to play our game last time and nearly lost. We played dirty. She’s asserting her power now, being unreasonable. Forcing us to orbit around her. And something else.
It’s as if she’s operating out of some kind of disdain, and most of it seems pointed at me.
She disdains me. It’s…electrifying.
“Dreoger starts on the fifteenth,” Mandy says to me, jolting me out of my haze.
I nod. “Right.” We need the software. We needed it yesterday.
“That right there,” Vicky says. “When you talk like that without giving Smuckers any kind of background, he feels unhappy.”
I fix her with a hard gaze and get to my feet. I’ll take the bullet for my people any day of the week.
I go to Smuckers. Smuckers’s tongue is a little bit out of his mouth, and the hair around his face is puffier than last week. This, too, is by design—it just makes the optics all the more hosed up. The grifter. Toying with us.
“Smuckers,” I say, “if we were to convert over to this new software, it’ll result in a tighter integration of our core services. And honestly, nobody is worried about the learning curve.”
“Project teams have been researching it…Smuckers,” Kaleb adds.
“That’s not very persuasive,” she says.
“Look, Smuckers,” I say, going for it now. “We really need your vote on this. I know what you’re thinking, that a services integration will result in higher initial bid costs, so yeah, our bids might not look competitive, but this up-front integration will cut out surprises. Construction and design would work together, instead of a design being handed over to construction to interpret.”
I look over at her.
“Can you imagine how much time that wastes?” I add.
She plays with her ponytail, which is just long enough to hang over the front of her shoulder. It’s curled on the end, and I’m thinking about what her hair might look like down.
I get up and unclip Smuckers, take him out, begin to pet him vigorously, holding Vicky’s gaze all the while. I know what little dogs like this like. I grew up with dogs like this.
Dogs were the only companions my mother really ever chose for herself.
Until Vicky.
Why her? Did they take walks together? Did Vicky take Bernadette out for lunch at her precious Gramercy?
Smuckers is licking me, practically trying to burrow into me.
“When everyone collaborates at the front, Smuckers, projects run shorter, with fewer surprises. That’s more valuable than lower up-front costs, don’t you agree?” I scratch his ears.
