It’s not like I could kiss him hello at work anyway, so I just mirrored his smile and took a seat in the club chair. I was just dying to hear his thoughts on my article from the day before—God, had it only been one day?—but I didn’t want to just dive right in. “So, how was your conference?”
I was intentionally dancing around the bigger issue of my brilliance, giving him the opportunity to bring up my article first. But he started telling stories about the many important elbows he’d been rubbing all week, while I sat in my time-out chair, trying to appear a rapt audience.
Finally, I asked, “So, you saw it, right? My article?”
“I did.”
God, it was like pulling teeth. “And?”
He finally stopped rustling through the pile of papers on his blotter long enough to walk over and perch a hip on his favorite corner of the desk, facing me. “And it was terrific. Really, Layla. It was really, really good.”
High praise indeed. “Wow! Thank you!”
“Not only that, but the guys upstairs felt it was ‘a fresh new approach to reporting’. Those were the exact words. Takes quite a bit to impress them. Looks like you succeeded.”
“Oh my gosh, Devin! That’s amazing!”
My head was spinning. I felt like Sally Field sitting there, thinking that they liked me. They really and truly liked me.
Devin broke my train of thought. “Yes, it is. Which is why it makes it that much harder to let you go.”
“Let me go where?”
I figured that I’d be relocating into the reporter’s pen, but that required nothing more than a move of about thirty feet.
But then I saw the look on Devin’s face, and his words finally clicked in my brain. “Wait a minute. Are you… Are you firing me?”
He snuck a look out to the floor before answering quietly, “I’m sorry, Layla. Part of the discussion at the conference was how we all need to start cutting back. Our copywriting department is much too large for such a minor periodical.”
“But you’re moving me out of copywriting,” I said pathetically, still in denial, still thinking that I was minutes away from the inevitable promotion, the much-anticipated boon to my career. What a na?ve little fool I could be sometimes.
“No, Layla, I’m not. I told you I was giving you one chance, remember? I meant it. I don’t know why you’d think differently.”
“I thought you meant one chance to prove myself, not one chance at a story!” My voice had begun to rise as the full realization started to sink in. Devin glanced out at the floor again to make sure I hadn’t been heard.
Oh, screw that, buddy.
“Will you stop worrying about them and concentrate on what’s happening here, please?”
Devin let out with an exasperated sigh. “Layla, what’s happening here is just business. You shouldn’t be taking this so hard. I’ve already written you a glowing letter of recommendation and put in a few calls. Don’t forget that I know a lot of people in this business.”
“Well, goody for you, Mr. Billionaire Boys Club!”
“C’mon, Layla. I was hoping that you wouldn’t take this so personally.”
“Not take it personally?! How else am I supposed to take it?! It’s bad enough that you’re not going to promote me after three freaking years, but now you’re firing me? Me? Why not Sleestak? Or Fingernails? Or Slurpy McSandwich?”
“Who?”
“Paul! Janice! Bobby! I work harder than any of them! Why me? Why am I getting the boot?”
“Layla, calm down,” he returned, almost smiling. I could have wrung his neck for that, for thinking my tantrum was cute.
I’ll show him cute.
“It’s because I’m screwing you, isn’t it,” I said loudly, more as a statement than a question.
His eyes practically shot out of his head as he scanned the showroom floor, clearly afraid I was going to cause a scene. “Don’t be so crass. But yes, that’s part of it. But not in the way you think.”
“So, if I wasn’t fucking you, I’d still have a job right now?”
“Layla. I asked you not to be so crass.”
Crass? He was worried about my flipping manners at a time like this? I was seeing red. Like literally, actually seeing the color red.
“You know what, Fields?” I said as scathingly as possible, “You can’t fire me. Because I QUIT!” I stood up and slammed my hand down on his stupid, fucking, twelve-thousand-dollar desk.
Devin was trying to remain composed, keeping his voice down, trying to project his calmness onto me. Thus far, it wasn’t working. “Layla, think. If you quit, I can’t get you your severance. Let’s not do anything rash.”
Oh, that was just the perfect freaking thing he could have said to me at that exact moment. Just absolutely, positively, The Most Perfect Thing he could have said.
Don’t be rash, Layla. Don’t be crass, Layla. Don’t order the fucking sea bass, Layla.
I’d had it. In that one moment, everything suddenly became crystal clear.
This man did not love me. This man did not believe in me. This man didn’t even know me.