“Yeah,” I tell him. “Apparently, it’s a pretty standard document. I talked to one of the lawyers here, just to make sure—”
“Wait,” he says, “how did you get access to that?”
“I’m an intern,” I tell him. “I work with important papers all the time. Anyway,” I continue, “it turns out that you only get severance if you’re not fired for cause. While it is true that whoever drew this up gave you a lot of latitude regarding what constitutes cause, in section 18c of the agreement, it clearly states that sexual harassment, as it is against both state and federal civil law, is cause for immediate termination, forfeiture on your part of severance rights, profit-sharing, and about 10 other things I didn’t really take the time to look over.”
“That’s not right,” he says. “I don’t remember anything about any section 18c.”
“Oh, Miss Lozano!” I call out.
A moment later, my gorgeous friend comes into the room, carrying a folder. “Why, yes, Miss Tyler?”
“Did you happen to grab Mr. Kidman’s employment contract with this company?”
“Why, yes I did, Miss Tyler,” she says.
She hands me the folder.
“Thank you, Miss Lozano,” I tell her, and she leaves the room.
I open the file and toss it onto the letch’s desk.
“Don’t worry, we’ve taken the liberty of highlighting the appropriate paragraphs,” I tell him.
“Wha—Why would you do this?”
“I think a better question is why would you do this to us?” I ask.
“This is all he said, she said,” he scoffs. “Nobody’s going to believe you or your friend. I’ve been with this company for—Mrs. Beck,” he says, interrupting himself.
I turn to follow Kidman’s gaze.
There, standing in the doorway, is a tall brunette, dressed in a black pantsuit.
This is my going away present from Annabeth. And to think, I didn’t get her anything.
“I understand that’s no longer a problem?” Mrs. Beck asks, looking at me.
I take the pen out of my pocket and hand it to her. She presses the little button, and the recording isn’t playing for 10 seconds before his career is over.
“It seems you’ve been caught on tape,” Mrs. Beck says. “How you’ve gotten away with this shameful behavior for so long is nothing short of astounding.”
“I have a contract!” he shouts, rising from his desk. “You can fire me, but I get—”
“You do have a contract,” she interrupts. “It is a contract which you have violated in such an egregious way to do substantial harm to this company and its employees. As soon as these women are done with you, rest assured we’ll be coming for whatever’s left. That is, if they haven’t taken everything.”
“What women?” he asks.
Right on cue, Annabeth calls, “Ladies!” from the other side of the doorway and over the next couple of minutes, every woman, assistant level or lower, every woman on this floor comes in, hands a pen to Mrs. Beck, and walks back out again.
I’ve never enjoyed watching a grown man cry so thoroughly.
I’m about to head out the door, but realize that I’ve forgotten something.
“Sorry,” I say to Mrs. Beck as I make my way back into the room.
I walk to Kidman’s desk and remove page three from Atkinson’s memo. While it’s clear enough that Kidman’s not going to need any part of it, Atkinson was adamant that I retrieve every copy with the extraneous hyphen.
The things we choose to care about.