Love Interest

I have no idea if that conversation is what pushed me over the edge in getting this job or not. But the thing I’ll never forget—the thing that makes me willing to commit murder for Tracy Garcia—is because that day, for the first time in my life, I felt wholly, 100 percent known.

It’s empowering, to feel that connection to the CFO of a global mass media company. She’s stately. Otherworldly. Being near her is like bathing in feminism.

Her career history is mythic. Tracy climbed the ranks of New York City business slowly but surely, year after year, promotion after promotion, and three years ago, she was named the CFO of Little Cooper.

There are stories that float around about Tracy. Legendary stuff she’s done at all the companies she’s been with. There was the pay exposé at the investment firm she worked at in her thirties, the tech giant antitrust bill she spoke about in her forties (she’s heavily credited as the scale tipper in getting the bill passed). When she’s not doing her nine-to-five, she talks on panels, gives commencement addresses, and writes articles for Insider about how to be a woman of color in the workplace and not let it take a single thing from you.

Obviously, I am obsessed with her.

When she sees me enter the break room from her spot on the other side of the kitchen island, Tracy tilts her head at me. I can almost see the cogs of her mind working on a complicated problem.

“Can you do something for me, Casey?” she says at last.

Naturally, my response is a stuttered but passionate “A-anything.”

Tracy keeps watching me, as if calculating just how serious I am about anything (very). Her arms cross over her Eileen Fisher cardigan, and she raps dark purple fingernails against her opposite elbow. Between us, the toaster gives a soft pop as her slice of banana bread springs up from the heat.

“I’m told you’ve been working closely with Alex Harrison,” Tracy says. “Don assigned you to the Bite the Hand launch project. Correct?”

I nod but say nothing, unsure what else to add, so I just stand there quietly and let Tracy size me up. She comes closer, walking around to my side of the island. The click of her heels echoes on the marble floor.

“Something is … off,” she says at last. “Between the board of directors and the chief executives. We can’t agree on anything. I feel like I’m trying to corral unruly children.”

Instantly, what Alex told me about Dougie comes back: He’s got history with my father, if you must know.

I’m convinced Tracy can see the memory cross my mind; that’s how carefully she’s studying me.

“When Robert decided to step down as CEO,” Tracy says, “Dougie Dawson somehow got wind of it all the way from DC. He lobbied our board, proposed himself as Robert’s replacement, and got enough members to vote him in despite Robert himself claiming it was a terrible decision.”

That’s some major tea, I want to say but don’t. “Did you get to vote?” I ask.

Tracy shakes her head.

“Well, what did you think about Dougie?”

“I was indifferent at the time, but it’s been almost a year, and things haven’t smoothed over. Robert and Dougie spend so much time bickering, they’re oblivious to their own company struggling to stay afloat.”

I wince when she admits this. I’m perfectly aware of our company’s financial state, but hearing it from the CFO’s own mouth makes my stomach churn. To Tracy’s point, we haven’t hit an EBITDA target—the financial benchmark our entire bonus structure is based on—since my first quarter with LC, and that was a year and a half ago.

The fact of the matter is the print magazine industry is dying. Some of our brands have pivoted successfully into the digital space, but other editors in chief are dragging their feet.

And our CEO is letting them.

“You think Dougie Dawson is damaging LC?” I ask her.

Tracy’s mouth presses into a firm, displeased line. “Yes. We need change, and we needed it yesterday. I don’t know why our CEO isn’t fixing anything, but I seem to be the only person concerned.”

“Well, that’s…” I hesitate, biting my lip. “That’s a violation of his fiduciary duty.”

As the words leave my mouth, I brace myself to get smote for blasphemy, but Tracy doesn’t backpedal or tell me I crossed a line.

She says, “It would be helpful to me … and it would be in the best interest of the company … if I could learn the root cause of the hatred between our CEO and chairman.”

What Tracy isn’t saying comes across loud and clear.

Get Alex to tell you the truth.

I don’t fully understand why she’s divulging all this to me, why she’s asking me specifically to do this, and not for the first time, I try to get inside Tracy’s head.

I work with Alex Harrison closely.

I’m around his age.

She thinks if I really try, I can get him to spill.

Maybe. Maybe I could. But the word “yes” can’t get past my lips because the image of him, shoulders hunched while he got berated by Robert, is telling me to be careful with him. Alex is fragile right now. Maybe digging for and then relaying information about his dubious father is an even more dubious thing to do.

I’ve never liked underhandedness. It makes my skin itch, my muscles feel tight, and when it comes to Alex, that uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my gut is doubled, tripled. So badly, I wish I could say to Tracy, Why can’t you just ask him yourself?

“Please help me, Casey,” Tracy says. Heart’s on your sleeve, I warn myself. She’s reading my hesitation. “You know me, and I know you. This isn’t about petty gossip. It’s important.”

“Okay,” I breathe in the next instant. “I’ll try.”

Maybe I would have deliberated longer if I trusted Tracy less, or thought more highly of Robert and Dougie, or wasn’t dying to know the truth myself. But once, Tracy helped me, and now she’s calling it in. I owe her.

She nods, satisfied with my answer. She opens her mouth to say something else, but Benny comes into the break room right then, humming the Hamilton soundtrack under his breath. Tracy breaks eye contact with me and steps away.

“You can have the last slice of banana bread,” she tells me, and then walks out the door.

The sound of Benny opening the fridge interrupts my train of thought. “What was that about?” he asks. “She had her boss lady expression on. You in trouble, Maitland?”

“Erm.” I grasp for a fib. I’ve always been a great secret keeper, but lying is something that makes my neck clammy and my heart race. I open my mouth to make up something mind-numbingly boring, but as if Benny can sense it, he talks first.

“Actually, in the interest of my mental health, I’ve decided not to care.”

My middle finger sticks up as Benny throws me a wicked grin from behind the refrigerator door. All I can see is an annoyingly well-moisturized face and shoulders blanketed in a sky-blue pashmina.

“Your loss,” I hedge. “It was juicy.”

Benny rolls his eyes, playing into my reverse psychology like a horse led to water. “Casey.” He shakes his head as he grabs his Guava Goddess kombucha from the fridge. “If I’ve learned anything from you about finance, it’s that it’s never, ever juicy.”

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