Company (22 page)

Elizabeth says nothing. But in her stomach, something flips.

“You are aware that Human Resources complies with state and federal law requirements for maternity leave. You know that Zephyr Holdings is an equal opportunity employer.”

“What has this got to do with me?”

“Are you pregnant, Elizabeth?” the voice lilts. “It's all right. You can tell me. You've got a friend in Human Resources.”

“I'm not pregnant,” Elizabeth lies. She does it with her chin up and her back straight. Watching herself in the mirror, she is convincing. The only giveaway is the color in her cheeks—but surely they won't notice that. Unless they have monitors. Could they have monitors?

“You know Human Resources has never discriminated against a pregnant employee.”

“I don't see them getting promoted.”

“We discriminate against employees who are late for work. We discriminate against employees who take excessive breaks. We discriminate against employees who are unable to give a long-term commitment to their jobs. But we do not discriminate against pregnancy.”

“I ate a bad hot dog, all right? There. So now you
know.”

“Human Resources is only concerned for your job performance. That you may have chosen to place personal concerns ahead of your job, after everything we have done for you, is not relevant. Do you anticipate a falling off in your productivity, Elizabeth?”

“No.”

“You are aware that if you do anticipate a falling off and conceal it, this is breach of contract.”

“Breach of contract? How is it a breach?”

“You have made an agreement with Human Resources for salary in exchange for work. To knowingly reduce your ability to perform that work is bad faith.”

“Look, if I
did
get pregnant, which I am not, it would
not
be a breach of contract.”

No response.

“I mean, it couldn't be,” she says.

“You are aware that breach of contract results in immediate termination.”

She swallows, then says, very carefully, “I am not pregnant, to the best of my knowledge.”

There is a long pause. It feels smug and self-satisfied to Elizabeth. But perhaps she is imagining that. She is hot and sweaty and needs to go to the bathroom.

“Human Resources has no interest in whether you are pregnant.”

She starts. “What?”

“Human Resources would rather not know one way or the other.”

“But you just—”

“Human Resources does not interfere in the personal lives of employees.”

Elizabeth waits.

“Our only interest is ensuring your job performance does not decline from agreed-upon levels.”

She sits rigid for a long time. Finally, her jaw clenched, she says, “You had better not be implying what I think you're implying.”

There is a click, and the door swings open.

“Thanks for coming in,” the voice says.

“Jones,” Freddy says. “Jones.
Jones.
”

“What?”

Freddy studies him from the cubicle entrance. “What's the matter with you?”

With some effort, Jones sits up straighter. “I didn't get much sleep, that's all.”

“Well, it's time for lunch.” He looks at his watch. “Where's Holly?”

“I have no idea.”

“Meeting room in the lobby,” Roger says, walking past. “At least, she was ten minutes ago.”

“A meeting room? Who's she meeting?”

Roger shrugs and walks out of sight.

“Hmm,” Freddy says.

Holly turns up ten minutes later, carrying her bag. “Sorry, sorry. I got held up.”

“By who?”

“Just customers. You know how Elizabeth's a sales rep, and I'm her assistant? Well, she has customers.”

“Which ones?”

“Which ones was I meeting?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you care?”

“I don't,” Freddy says. “I just think it's incredibly devoted of you to hold meetings with Elizabeth's customers when everyone else is running around trying to save their job from the consolidation.”

“Geez, you sound like Roger.” She lowers her voice for the last word, since Roger is only a partition or two away. “Don't you think, Jones? Jones?”

“What?”

“Boy,” Holly says, “what's the matter with you?”

“Well, so far I've found out squat,” Freddy says in the elevator. “Nobody knows when the consolidation is happening, or who's getting consolidated, or why it's happening in the first place.”

Holly sighs. “Same.”

“But I did hear that Simon from Training Delivery clocked Blake Seddon. Right in the face.”

“You're kidding! Blake Seddon from Senior Management?”

“And—get this—now he's wearing an eye patch. Like a pirate.” He looks from Holly to Jones. But Jones doesn't smile. Jones has already seen Blake's eye patch: he was introduced to it on Monday at 7:30
A.M.,
during Project Alpha's morning meeting. Jones wasn't especially unhappy to discover that someone had assaulted Blake, but this was tempered by the fact that Blake now looked even more like he just stepped from a daytime TV soap. “Needless to say,” Freddy continues, “Simon is now an ex-employee. And, of course, Assiduous snapped him up. I bet they loved the idea of getting their hands on someone who punched a Zephyr executive. They're probably getting him to run training drills.”

“Hey, that reminds me,” Holly says. “I called Human Resources to find out Megan's contact details, so we could send her a card—”

“That's a good idea,” Jones says.

“—and they wouldn't tell me. They said she'd been hired by Assiduous.” She throws a fearful look at Jones. “It's like you said.” Jones doesn't react, so she adds, “Isn't that creepy?”

“I don't know. Not really.”

“Not really? Before you were saying there was a conspiracy.”

“Well, I thought about it some more.” The elevator arrives at the lobby and Jones squints against the bright light. “I realized that in a market with only two major players, it's perfectly natural for there to be cross-pollination of employees.” This is, word for word, a line from an Alpha training manual Klausman gave him last week.

Holly says, “But—” Then she stops, because waiting to step into the elevator is Eve Jantiss.

“Oh. Hello.” Eve smiles. “Hello, Jones.”

“Hi.” And then he has to do it. “Do you know Freddy and Holly?”

“We've probably spoken on the phone. But I can never put faces to names.” She laughs. She looks fresh and alert, and why shouldn't she? Eve had six hours of unbroken sleep last night. Jones, who was awake for every minute of it, knows this for a fact.

“It's nice to meet you,” Holly says.

“Ymmrr,” says Freddy.

“It's funny, isn't it?” Eve says. “We spend so much time here, but we don't even know what one another are really like.” She puts a slight emphasis on
really.

Nobody responds to this. To avoid any further mind games, which Jones is not in good shape to handle, he says, “Well, nice to see you,” and begins to cross the lobby.

Freddy and Holly catch up halfway across. Freddy says, “Did you see me back there? She'll think I'm
retarded.
”

They exit into sunshine and head up the sidewalk. “It's like you're two people,” Holly says suddenly.

“What?” Jones says, startled.

“What Eve said. It's true. You come to work every day but you hardly get to know anyone. I don't even know the names of half the people I see in the elevators. They say the company is a big family, but I don't
know
them. And even the people I do, like you two, and Elizabeth, and Roger—do I really? I mean, I like you guys, but we only ever talk about work. When I'm out with friends, or at home, I never talk about work. The other day I tried to explain to my sister why it's such a huge deal that Elizabeth ate Roger's donut, and she thought I was insane. And you know what, I agreed with her. At home I couldn't even think why it mattered. Because I'm a different person at home. When I leave this place at night, I can feel myself changing. Like shifting gears in my head. And you guys don't know that; you just know what I'm like here, which is terrible, because I think I'm
better
away from work. I don't even
like
who I am here. Is that just me? Or is everyone different when they come to work? If they are, then what are they really like? How can we ever know? All we know are the
Work People.
”

“Oh my God,” Freddy says. “
Elizabeth
ate Roger's donut?”

Holly freezes. “No, I meant, Roger
thought
Elizabeth ate his donut.”

“That's not what you said.”

“It came out wrong.” A strained edge enters Holly's voice. “You're jumping to conclusions, that's not what I was talking about!”

Jones says, “Why did she take his donut?”

“Look, please, if you tell, Elizabeth will know it came from me.”

“Okay, okay,” Freddy says. “It's just between us.”

“It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. She was hungry, that's all. It wasn't anything personal.
Please,
promise me you'll keep this secret.” Her voice wavers. Her face is pinched and anxious, her frown line a sharp tilde. “This is exactly what I was talking about!”

“Of course we won't tell,” Jones says. “Right?”

“Right, right.” Freddy licks his lips. Knowledge is power, and Freddy has a big, doughy chunk.

Holly still looks nervous. Jones says, “About that being two people thing. I know what you mean.”

“You do?” She looks at him hopefully. “Do you think everyone does?”

They look at Freddy, who is lost in thought. “What?” he says. “I'm not going to tell Roger about the donut.”

Rumor production slackens toward the end of October. Without any new information on the consolidations, the rumors turn in on themselves, becoming ever more fanciful. When someone claims that Senior Management is cutting Human Resources, that's the end; nobody can believe that. The atmosphere of desperate, ignorant terror essential to healthy rumors seeps away, replaced by a silent, wary paranoia. People bunker down, jealously keeping what they know, which is nothing, to themselves. As hands reach for jackets each night and briefcases are snapped closed, employees exchange suspicious farewells, each wondering if the other is concealing something. They conjecture what might await them the next day, and who might not. As they ride the elevator down, they eye the button panel and wonder how many holes it will soon have.