“No ma’am,” I said. “Cross my heart and hope to die. I read my porn, like a classy person.”
“Well, I’m afraid the evidence says otherwise,” Sarah said. She slapped several pieces of paper down in front of me. “What do you call this?”
“Uh, I call this ‘research,’” I said. “For my lingerie company? That I run on the side?”
Because that’s what it was. Sarah must have done her internet monitoring when I was working on my plus size line designs, because the pictures in front of me showed larger women of all races and a variety of weight distributions, each modeling sporty, frilly, or sexy underwear. Man, looking at all these brought it back. I could see now where I’d been making my mistake—I’d been trying to use the underwear to convey a look of slimness, when for this range I should have instead been emphasizing the curves. Oh, man, as soon as I got out of this meeting I was going to grab my design notebook and—
Oh right, this meeting. Where I still had to convince my superiors that even if I was wasting company time, I wasn’t doing it to look at porn. And that I definitely wouldn’t ever do it again, at least not in a way where they could catch me.
“I’m sorry, am I supposed to be getting off on this?” I said, trying to laugh it off. “Because there’s nothing sexy about an inaccurately sized shoulder strap.”
“They are scantily clad,” Sarah hissed in the shocked tone of voice most people would reserve for they are having a blood orgy and worshipping the devil while listening to Nickelback CDs.
“Yeah, scantily clad ladies,” I said. “Like, what, am I supposed to be imagining the dudes in these pictures?”
Sarah opened her mouth to say something, checked herself, glanced backwards at the silent HR golems for support, and then tried again. “Devlin Media Corp prides itself on being an open, supportive, and tolerant workplace. We do not discriminate based on race, class, gender, or…other things. Nonetheless, we cannot tolerate use of company time and resources for your own titillation. This has nothing to do with your…proclivities, or preferences, but—”
And then the penny dropped.
And I started to get mad.
“Are you allergic to the word lesbian?” I asked.
Sarah sputtered like a malfunctioning water fountain. “What—I didn’t say—I assure you—don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“Lesbian,” I said, slowly, just in case she hadn’t understood me the first time. “You have heard of those, right?”
Sarah’s face was turning red, and even the HR goons were looking everywhere in the room but at me. “I really must protest the implication that I insinuated—”
“This isn’t about insinuation. This is about harassment.” An idea occurred to me, one that wasn’t exactly playing fair but which could save my ass. “You know, it is illegal to discriminate against an employee for—”
“This is not discrimination!” Sarah looked like her body couldn’t decide between a heart attack and apoplexy. “This is strictly about company policy, which you have violated repeatedly. We’re not interested in your—”
That little ray of hope died, and I could hear the funeral march starting up. I may have gotten defensive. “You’re not interested in anything I have to say, are you? You do seem super invested in this being porn, though. Which it is not. Do you get a pay raise every time you catch someone?”
Sarah was propping herself upright with one hand now while she fanned herself with the other. “That’s not what’s happening!” She took a deep breath. “Kate, you’re deliberately getting this conversation off course. Regardless of whatever we’ve discussed—which has been closely monitored by my colleagues here, and will not be ammunition for you in any sort of civil suit—this is inappropriate material for you to be looking at on your workplace computer.”
And she had me there. I mean, I thought the really inappropriate part was the third picture from the left, because whoever had the idea of making a bra out of polyester should have been burned at the stake. Preferably while wearing polyester themselves.
“You’re right,” I said. “I didn’t think, and I misused company resources, and I’m very sorry. I’ll sign whatever stuff I need to and take the appropriate punishment—”
“That won’t be necessary,” Sarah interrupted. There was a hard hateful gleam in her eyes. I began to regret some of my less professional word choices during this conversation. Whatever this punishment was, it was going to be a doozy, probably a pay dock or maybe even a suspension—
“You’re fired.”
“But—” and then the argument withered on my tongue. But what? But my best friend is running this company, and how dare you deign to fire me? But I will get Grant Devlin on your ass if you think you can treat me this way? I’d be just as much of an entitled asshole as any other entitled asshole if I thought I had a right to pull anything like that.
FOUR
Dumped and fired, all within the same week. So basically I was batting one hundred, right?
Don’t tell anyone, but I don’t actually understand baseball.
(And who needs to, am I right? The way those socks grip those calves, I understand all the things I need to. Dear Santa: please send me Derek Jeter, and a spoon to eat him all up with.)
Some girls wallow with chocolate ice cream. Some girls wallow with soppy romantic movies. Normally, I like to wallow with a sexy ex-boyfriend of mine named Jorge, but unfortunately he got an investment banking job back home in Brazil, so booty calls were not an option.