Company (32 page)

“I'm pretty sure it's the other way around.”

She frowns. “But then to get promoted, one of you has to climb over the other. No, no, it's much neater if you understand who's boss from the beginning.”

This makes a kind of sense. Jones wonders if he is losing his grip on reality. Then he realizes he is being seduced by a woman with a throat infection on a bed dotted with used tissues, so the answer is probably yes.

“A while ago, Zephyr made everyone sign this thing called a Love Contract. It indemnified the company against issues arising out of people screwing their boss, or their secretary. I should say, issues that arose when they stopped screwing their secretary. But it wasn't enough. We had a sexual harassment complaint from an employee who wasn't harassed. She said she was discriminated against because her co-workers, who were dating, gave each other preferential treatment.” Eve rolls her eyes. “I mean, that was probably true, but it's not like the company banned
her
from dating co-workers. If you ask me, the real culprit was her skin condition. But anyway, now nobody in Zephyr is allowed to date anybody else.” She bites her lip. “Alpha, of course, is outside those rules.”

“I'm pretty sure it's illegal for a company to say who its staff can and can't form relationships with.”

“That's true. But Zephyr's policy doesn't ban relationships, it bans sexual harassment. And harassment is defined as making an unsolicited approach. You see, you can't ask anyone out unless they ask you to. Which they can't, because that would be sexual harassment.” She smiles. “Alpha didn't invent this. Zephyr came up with it all by itself. That's the magic of Alpha, right there.”

Jones doesn't say anything. This helps; it reminds him why he needs to sabotage Alpha. It also explains why so many Zephyr employees have chewed fingernails.

“Anyway,” Eve says, “what else did Blake say?”

“He wasn't very complimentary about you.”

“Yeah, that's a given. Ah, forget it. I don't care about Blake. I don't want to talk about him. I want to talk about you.”

“It's okay, you don't—”

Eve leans forward and takes his hands. Jones's sentence terminates with a sound like
uck.
“Jones,” she says. In the lamplight her eyes look enormous: huge and dark and unreadable. “I knew you were smart right from the beginning. The way you found out about Alpha so fast . . . that impressed me. Then we went for a ride in my car and I thought you were an idiot. You had to be, because whenever people raise ethics, it's a cover. They're worried what other people will think, or whether it's legal, or else they're just too scared to make a decision. But you're something else. And I finally worked out what. You're a good man.” Jones feels his eyebrows bounce up. “You probably don't even know that that's rare. But it is. It is to me. Every man I know is either smart and selfish, or generous and stupid. And I don't like those people, Jones. Guys like Blake and Klausman, I respect them, but I don't like them. You . . . you're different. This is going to sound stupid, but I swear to God, I didn't even know there could be someone like you. I didn't think it was possible.” To Jones's alarm, her eyes begin to glisten. “You make me feel like a piece of me is missing.” She pulls a tissue from a box and wipes her nose. “I'm not saying I want to be exactly like you. That's probably impossible. But I don't want you to become like them, either. You are admirable, Jones. I feel it in my heart. You're good. I think . . . we could learn from each other. I think we need each other. I think . . .” She stops. “I
know.
I know I need you. I really need you.”

“Oh. Boy,” Jones says. In his mind, there are alarms going off everywhere. His hands are sweating. His chest is constricting. Violently different ideas about what to do next crash against each other in his head.

“If you laugh,” she says, “I'm going to kill you.”

“I'm not going to laugh.”

“I haven't done this before.”

“What?”

“I mean, said things like this.”

“Oh,” Jones says, with relief.

“I'm not saying I'm a virgin.”

“Right. Sorry.”

“Not since I was thirteen. But that wasn't exactly voluntary, and there was no one else until I was twenty. So you could say I'm a late bloomer.” She smiles at his expression. “Ah, Jones, you are so cute when you're appalled.”

All he can say is, “Oh, God.”

“Kiss me. Please?”

He kisses her.

Her lips are dry and cracked; still, when they touch his, something hot and brilliant sparks behind his eyeballs. Maybe it's his ground rules. Jones has imagined this moment many times, sometimes idly, sometimes not so idly, and in none of those scenarios was Eve sick. This should, therefore, be one of those times when fantasy is deflated by the mundane prick of reality. Only it's not. Kissing her feels like the best thing he has ever done.

She gets her hands inside his shirt and tries to pull it open from the inside, but it's new and the buttons don't budge. Her lips curve beneath his; they both laugh. Eve doesn't remove her gown but eventually Jones works out that he should do it, which initially seems like a challenge but turns out to be an amazing voyage of discovery. He kisses her from navel to shoulder, and when he arrives, she grabs his face and gasps, “I love you!”

“I love you, too,” Jones says, and the terrible thing about this is that it is true.

He almost makes it back to bed, but knocks the freestanding mirror with his hip in the darkness. The rotating section flips back and one end bangs against the wall while the other clocks him in the shin.
“Owwrg.”

“Jo-o-o-ones?”

“Sorry.”

“What are you doing?”

“Bathroom.” He climbs under the sheets.

“Oh. Mmm.” Her arm snakes over his chest. Her head nestles into his shoulder. “I thought . . . you were trying to sneak off.”

“No.”

“Mmm.” A happy sound. Her fingers tighten on his bicep, then relax. To Jones, who has been single for a year, it is beautiful. In this moment, there is no Zephyr. No Project Alpha. No corporate heartlessness or productivity maximization. There is just him and Eve. There's not a trace of cruelty in the dim lines of her face. No hint of selfishness in the sweep of her hair. The world is perfect.

Chapter 12 of
The Omega Management System
(“Meetings: The Good, the Bad, and the Unnecessary”) devotes several pages to the advantages of breakfast meetings.
The earlier the better!
is the executive summary, because people are at their most mentally alert first thing in the morning. It is a particularly good time to tackle seemingly insurmountable problems: you will be amazed, the book says, at how frequently a morning meeting will deliver breakthrough solutions. Jones was skeptical on first reading, but now he realizes Omega is right. Because it's 5:30
A.M.
and it has just occurred to him how to beat Alpha.

Q4/3:
DECEMBER

PENNY COLLAPSES
into the café chair and peers at him. “What are you doing?”

“What?” Jones says. “Nothing.”

“You're smiling.”

“Am I?”

“Did you bring down Alpha?”

“No. Well, I had an idea. But I haven't done anything yet.”

“Oh. So you went the
other
way.”

“What other way?” he says, but now even he can feel the smile.

“Pathetic,” Penny says. “I'm disappointed in you, Stephen.”

“And yet,” Jones says, “I don't care.” He laughs.

At ten o'clock on Tuesday an odd smell wafts through Staff Services. A warm, doughy scent, laced with sugar. People stand up in their cubicles and peer around. There, coming through the door—a trolley! And—they rub their eyes—it is piled high with steaming donuts.

Workers break from their cubicles. For a moment it looks like there might be carnage: torn pastry and cubicle dividers spattered with hot jam. But Roger is there with his PA plus two Staff Services employees—tender winners—and they stand firm. “Wait in your cubicles!” the PA orders. “Do not approach the donuts. The donuts will come to you.”

The employees hurry back to their desks. They sit with growling stomachs and ears pricked for the trolley's squeaky-wheeled approach.

Freddy, Jones, Holly, and Elizabeth sit in their cubicle without speaking. They know what's coming. They listen to the growing sounds of chewing and sucking, until the trolley squeaks up to their cubicle entrance and nudges inside. Roger has a donut in his hand. His lips are speckled with sugar. The PA and the two employees are each finishing one off. On the trolley are three donuts.

“Last cubicle!” Roger says. “Go on, tuck in. Freddy, Jones.”

They reach out and cautiously take a donut. Neither is brave enough to bite into it.

“Holly.”

“That's okay. I don't want one.”

“Of course you do. Go on.”

“Really, I'm not hungry. And if there aren't enough to go around—”

“Take the donut.”

Holly reluctantly reaches for it. She holds it in her lap and ducks her head so that her hair hangs over her face in a blond sheet.

“Hmm,” Roger says. “You know what, Holly, you're right. We're one short.”

Elizabeth shrugs. “Fine. I don't mind.”

“I could have sworn we had the right number.” Roger puts his hands on his hips. “I'm sure we had exactly one for each employee.”

Elizabeth abruptly stands up. Her thin gray coat, which these days she never takes off, billows down to the floor. She stares at the ceiling and begins breathing fast.

“I can only suppose,” Roger says, “that someone must have taken two.” He shakes his head, bewildered. “But who would do that? What sort of person would take an extra donut, knowing they'd be stealing from a co-worker?” He looks at his PA.

“I don't know, Roger.”

“Jones? Freddy? Holly? Any ideas? No? No thoughts? What about you, Elizabeth?”

Her head snaps down. Her face is flushed a deep, angry red.
“I took your donut.
Is that what you want to hear? There.
I took your donut.
I was hungry, I ate it. My God! You are so petty! So
petty
!”

Roger folds his arms. “So you took my donut.”

“Yes!”

“Wendell,”
he says, “was
fired
for that donut. Do you realize that?”

Elizabeth puts her hands to her face. “Oh my God.”

“On the one hand, Elizabeth, I appreciate that you've finally confessed. But you need to understand the gravity of the situation. This isn't just about a donut. This is about teamwork. It's about respecting your co-workers. What is a person meant to think when you steal their donut? What does it say about your respect for them?”

“I can't resist you,” Elizabeth says.

“It's a sad state of—” Roger stops. “What?”

“I think about you all the time. I don't mean to. I can't help it. It's making me crazy. I . . . I . . .” Her voice tightens, then she spits it out.
“I want you.”

Holly claps a hand over her mouth. Freddy's mouth sags open. Jones's eyes expand until they take up his entire face.

“I see.” Roger's voice is a growl. “You're being funny.”

“I'm desperate,” Elizabeth whispers, “for
. . . you.
”

Roger's lips tighten until they are almost invisible. His jaw muscles work. Jones, Freddy, and Holly simultaneously push back in their office chairs, moving themselves out of the firing line. Then Roger turns on his heel and strides out. His three surprised lackeys are left to maneuver the trolley around and wheel it after him. The Training Sales team listen to its slow, squeaky progress.

Freddy says, “Oh. My. God.”

Holly says, “Elizabeth, you kick
so much ass.
”

Elizabeth's face is drained of color. “I need to sit down.” Holly leaps up. Elizabeth takes her hand until she can grip the chair's plastic armrests. She looks from one awestruck sales assistant face to another. “That . . . I was just joking, you know.”

“Oh God, of
course,
” Holly says. “That's why it was so
funny.”

“Right.” She is starting to shake. “Exactly.”

Roger slams his office door hard enough to make the glass wall shudder and the vertical blinds bang. He stalks to his desk and snatches up the phone. He gets as far as dialing the first three digits of Human Resources . . . then hesitates. If he completes this call, Elizabeth will be off the premises within ten minutes. But that will be the end of it: she will then be beyond his power. The story of this humiliation, however, will live on in corporate memory. It will be the punch line to Roger's entire career.

With a strangled growl, he slams the handset back down. He throws himself into his leather chair and puts his head in his hands.

A large yellow envelope of the sort used for internal mail sits on his desk in front of him; it must have been delivered while he was out. One end bulges oddly. Roger sits up, unseals the envelope, and tips its contents onto his desk. A plastic cup sealed with a yellow lid tries to roll away; he grabs it. It is empty. A sticker on the front says
NAME
and
EMPLOYEE ID #,
and has spaces for writing in both.

He checks the envelope and finds a memo stuck to the inside. It's from Human Resources and Asset Protection, to all department heads. In the interests of company productivity, it says, Zephyr Holdings has introduced a drug-testing policy. Every week, one employee will be randomly selected from each department to provide a urine sample. Employees who fail the test, or refuse to comply with it, will be terminated. This is covered by Section 38.2 of the standard employee work contract, a clause Roger recalls having queried when he first joined Zephyr. If he remembers right, Human Resources told him not to worry about it because the clause was just a standard industry thing and Zephyr didn't actually do drug tests.

The memo contains a list of all the employees randomly selected for the first round of testing, and advises departmental managers to keep this relatively quiet. There is no need to make this into a big deal, the memo says. Employees should not be made to feel they are being singled out.

Roger has an encyclopedic knowledge of Zephyr employees. So he notices that every one of the randomly selected employees is female and in her twenties or thirties. He notices that the employee selected from Staff Services is Elizabeth.

The other day Eve and Jones were in the underground parking lot and she was fiddling with his tie and giggling while he made jokes about Tom Mandrake's taste in shirts when Blake's Porsche cruised by. The windows were tinted too darkly for Jones to tell whether he and Eve had been spotted, but ever since Blake has seemed even more disgusted with him than he was previously. He has tried to be more discreet, but now it is eleven o'clock, Holly and Freddy are out of the department, and Jones is having trouble thinking about anything but Eve.
Screw it,
he thinks. He is going to visit her.

He bounces out of his chair and walks to the elevators. He knows where she'll be, because yesterday afternoon Human Resources announced that reception could be adequately staffed by a single person, and thus there was no need to supply Eve with help while Gretel Monadnock is on stress leave. This caused much amusement when relayed in this morning's Alpha meeting, to everyone except Eve (and, for diplomatic reasons, Jones), and culminated in a bet from Blake that she wouldn't last the week. “Are you saying I don't usually work the phones?” Eve challenged, and Blake said, “That's exactly what I'm saying.” Eve shook her head and said, “You have no idea,” even though it seemed to Jones that Blake had a very good idea indeed. Eve will require some moral support in the days ahead, he suspects.

The elevator opens onto the lobby and Jones crosses to the reception desk with a brisk stride. Eve is hunched over, lines of strain on her face. She doesn't look at him. “Holy
God,
” she says to her handset. “How hard is it for you to understand?
I need to know your name before I can connect you.”
Then she sees Jones and tears off her headset. “This is insane. They just keep calling.”

“Aw,” Jones says.

“If Gretel isn't back tomorrow, I'm going to make sure she doesn't come back at all, I swear to God. How long has she been off, two weeks? It's pathetic.” She shakes her head. “Want to go to lunch?”

He blinks. “Don't you have to stay here?”

“I'm done. I am done.” She stands. “The company won't collapse if nobody answers their damn calls for an hour or two.”

“You expect every other employee to do their job,” Jones points out. He notices Freddy standing outside the tinted lobby glass. Freddy is staring in at Jones, a cigarette in one hand, and there is something wrong with his expression.

“Yes, well.” She gathers her handbag. “You and I aren't like every other employee, are we?”

“Eve, is something wrong with Freddy?” She doesn't say anything. Jones turns back to her. “Eve?”

She puts her hands on her hips. “Oh. I told him.”

For a second he is too flabbergasted to speak. He simply cannot conceive that she could have done this. “About
us
?”