“Funny, Boss,” he says, chuckling as the waitress brings glasses of ice water and then leaves. We’ve known each other for years, and that’s the kind of thing we used to do. Pull pranks on one another. But this time it isn’t a prank. The look on my face is serious, and I tell him no, it’s not a joke.
“I’m sorry, Connor. I have to let you go,” I say again, telling him how it will be easier for him if I lay him off rather than having him resign, as if I’m doing him some sort of favor, which in all actuality, I am. He just doesn’t realize it yet. I tell him this is for the best. Being laid off is indicative of the shortcomings of our practice, not him; resigning is a reflection of his work ethic and stamina, his staying power. But already I see his hands clench up into fists on the table slab, his face become red. He flexes and then clenches the hands, again and again, gearing up for a fight. He reaches for a napkin and wads it into a ball, tossing it back and forth between his hands.
“You can’t be serious, Nick,” he says to me, eyes steely but also stung. “After everything I’ve done for you,” he bleats, and it’s conjecture only when my mind goes immediately to Clara, to my life with Clara. That if it weren’t for Connor, Clara and I would never be.
Though he doesn’t say it, that’s exactly what he means.
Clara was working at a kiosk in the mall when I met her, trying hard to sell some sort of high-end perfume to passersby. It helped put her through college, the commission she made off of sales, which wasn’t a lot, but as she told me later that day in the food court over limp slices of pizza, It was better than nothing. Connor claims he saw her first, but if so, it was seconds before I spied her long, lean legs that stretched out from beneath a miniskirt whose hemline landed high above her knees. You can have her, is what Connor said before we’d even exchanged a word with Clara, as we stood, backs pressed to a railing that overlooked an open space and four floors of stores. He saw exactly what I was looking at, and though his comment didn’t bother me at the time, in the coming years it did, this constant reprise that Clara was mine because Connor had let me have her, as if she was his to give. As if, if he hadn’t been so charitable that day at the mall, she might otherwise be his. He always said it with a smile, too, so that the line between sarcasm and truth blurred. Did he mean it, or was he only joking? I could never tell.
I look him in the eye now and say, “Don’t make this harder than it has to be, Connor. The business is a mare’s nest right now. You know that. We’re losing patients left and right. It isn’t personal. I can’t afford to keep you on board.” And then I make all sorts of promises I’d make if I had to let anybody go, how I’d write a letter of recommendation, I’d put in calls to a few colleagues around town.
Connor’s eyes avert from mine, and he raises a hand to get the waitress’s attention, ordering a Dos Equis when she stops by. A Dos Equis. It’s only noon, and Connor has patients to see later today. He’s trying to provoke me, to get me to tell him what he can and can’t do. “Connor,” I say to him. “I don’t mean today. I’m not laying you off right now. There’s time to find a new job. I didn’t mean so soon.”
He shrugs. “Who said I had any plans of leaving today?”
The problem with Connor has to do with a problem with authority. A disregard for it. Connor doesn’t work well when he’s under someone else’s leadership. He wants to be the guy in charge. His last position he was fired from—or rather, asked to resign—because he went head-to-head with the boss too many times. Connor works well with me because I never treat him like an employee; we’re far more of a partnership.
Connor hasn’t held the same position for any two years in a row now, and this laundry list of jobs on his résumé will soon raise red flags.
“You have patients to see this afternoon, Connor,” I remind him. “You know I can’t let you see patients if you’ve been drinking,” I say as the waitress delivers the green bottle to his hand, and he raises it to his lips, taking a long, slow swig. He maintains eye contact all the time, staring at me, a challenge.
“Then fire me,” he says, with a look in his eye I really don’t like. One that’s charged and combatant, looking for a fight, and I know what that guy in the bar must have felt like months ago as Connor sidled up behind him and jabbed him in the nose.
“Oh, wait,” Connor says now, laughing, “you already have.”
But the laughter dies quickly, and he stares at me in a way that doesn’t back down.
“I didn’t fire you,” I say. “This is different. You know that, Connor. You know I wouldn’t do this if I had some other choice. This isn’t personal,” I tell him, pushing the plate of nachos supreme away. I’m no longer hungry.
“After everything I put into the practice,” he says, and without meaning to, I ask, “What? What did you put into the practice?” which makes him more mad.
“The patients I brought on board,” he spits, though the number of patients Connor brought into the practice was negligible. Most of the patients we have are mine, who I gladly share with him. Except that now I need them back.
“You wouldn’t have Clara if it wasn’t for me,” he reprises, Connor’s favorite refrain. “You wouldn’t have Maisie or that baby.”
“Leave my family out of this,” I say, voice composed.
“Your family is already part of this,” he says. “Your family, my family. We’re all family,” he tacks on, and then he laughs in that arrogant way that he does sometimes, asking, “Do you ever wonder how Clara’s life would have been different if she picked me instead of you? I bet she does. I bet she asks herself that all the time,” and it takes every ounce of self-control I have not to hit him.
He’s hurting, I tell myself. It’s an act of self-preservation, that’s all. I’ve fired him. I’m the asshole here, not Connor.
“My back is to a wall,” I say. “I don’t have any other options,” which I don’t. The way things are going, there’s a chance I’m going to be taking money out of Maisie’s piggy bank to cover Connor’s salary this year. I try to explain this to him, to remind him of my family, my mortgage, how I have a baby on the way, but it’s something he doesn’t want to hear.
“I have obligations, too,” he says, and that’s when things get even more personal, my unintentional implication that since Connor isn’t married and doesn’t have kids, he is of less value than me.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” I say, but no matter what I say, he’s going to assume I did. The space between us drifts to silence as he pounds back the rest of his beer and asks for another.
“I’m sorry, Connor,” I say. “I really can’t tell you how sorry I am that it’s come to this.”
At that he leans across the table, so close that I can smell the jalape?os on his breath, and says, “You know what, Boss? It’s fine. It’s not a big deal at all. You know why?” and I ask, drawing away from his advance, “Why?”
“Because sooner or later, you’ll regret this. You’ll see,” and he rises from the table to leave, shoving the wooden booth into my gut as he goes.