A FEW DAYS LATER
Where the fuck is Ruby? Where did she go?
I spent the whole weekend mad at myself for how I handled things with Ruby. And worried that I’ve lost her forever. I’ve been trying to call her but I only have the cell phone number she listed on her application and it goes straight to a voicemail with a generic greeting.
I know I have to find her somehow. I’m not sure what I’ll say when I do but I know that she has to forgive me. For being so stupid as to let Asher fire her without proof that she’s even done anything wrong. For not standing up for her.
For letting her leave my life when I need her in it so fucking bad.
I’m in my office doing my best to prepare arguments for my appeal of the Baez decision when I hear a feminine-sounding clearing of the throat. I look up right away, hoping that it’s Ruby. Maybe she got my messages and came back to the office to hear me out.
But no. It’s Jim’s secretary.
“Katie?” I ask, hoping that I’m remembering her name right.
I’ve never talked to her much. She seems to stick to herself and not be at her desk a lot even though Jim says she’s an efficient and fast worker.
“Yo, Mr. Sanchez,” she says, craning her neck around the opening of my doorway.
“Katie, come in,” I tell her, a little surprised by her brazenness.
In that way she reminds me of Ruby. She’s not as pretty— or at least, I obviously don’t think so— but she seems to have the same quirky, spunky personality traits.
She walks right in and flops down in the chair on the other side of my desk. I can’t help thinking of how I tied up Ruby to that very chair. I wish she was here sitting in it right now instead of Katie.
“So, where’s Ruby?” she asks me.
“I can’t discuss the status of a former employee,” I say automatically.
I’ve been trained well by HR. Some HR reps just had a little sit-down with Asher and Madilyn about accusations regarding their relationship. It turns out that everything is fine because they are both okay with the relationship.
Still, I can’t be too careful. I doubt that Ruby is okay with the state of our relationship, or lack thereof, right now. And neither, for that matter, am I.
“A former employee?” Katie asks. “Wow. She finally figured out she was too good for this place and left, huh? I wish she would have at least stopped on her way out to say goodbye to poor little old me.”
“I’m sure she would have, had she had the opportunity,” I say, too fucking quickly.
My statement is probably not HR approved. But it’s just the first thing I could think of to say, and it’s honest.
“What?” Katie demands. “Was she fired? That’s bullshit.”
“Katie.”
I would tell her to watch her language but then I’d be the biggest fucking hypocrite of all time.
“Well it is,” she says, slouching further into my chair and pouting.
“I didn’t know you and Ruby were friends,” I tell her, wondering why any of this matters so much to her.
“Yeah, well, I know a lot more about you and Ruby than you’d think I do,” she says. “And I can’t believe you had the balls to fire her. That’s just straight up asking for a sexual harassment suit.”
I stare at her, incredulous that she’d say such a thing.
And then it dawns on me.
At first I thought she was just here wanting office gossip. Now I find out how close she and Ruby apparently were. And I put two and two together. I don’t know how I didn’t figure it out earlier, with the stench wafting from Katie’s clothes as soon as she walked into my office.
Ruby can be redeemed. But I need a confession.
“You know, Katie,” I tell her, pretending to shuffle some paperwork on my desk as if I need to get back to work. “There are certain things that employees can be fired for that have absolutely nothing to do with sexual harassment.”
“Oh yeah?” she asks, shrugging. “Like what? Because I’ve done a lot of things that are supposed to be considered ‘no-no’s and I’ve never been fired. I know a lot of people here that are the same way. No one seems to notice or care. So, like, what could be a fireable offense around here? I’d love to know.”
“If an employee is doing drugs, for instance,” I tell her. “Especially on the job.”
“What the hell?”
Katie looks at me like she doesn’t even know what I’m talking about.
“Ruby doesn’t even do any drugs,” Katie says, defensively. “Or at least she doesn’t anymore. She hasn’t even heard of ‘Puncture.’”
“Of what?” I ask her, shaking my head.
“The movie. ‘Puncture.’ With the lawyers who are cokeheads?”
I just stare at her blankly, so now she’s the one to share her head. Then she continues.
“Why has no one heard of this movie around here? Anyway. Ruby doesn’t even have time to watch movies because she’s so busy coding.”
I look at her. Wow. They really were friends.
I’m glad, because that means Katie won’t let Ruby take the fall for her.
“Well, I’m just saying. An employee doing drugs, especially at work, would be a fireable offense for sure. And if they leave their drug paraphernalia lying around, at the office, that’s an especially clear cut case. There’s really no choice for us to do anything but fire them, in that instance.”
“Leave drug paraphernalia… oh.”
She looks at me, comprehending now. I expect her to act shady or perhaps break down in a tearful confession.
But instead she starts bursting out laughing.
That’s definitely not the reaction I was anticipating.
“Oh, Mr. Sanchez,” she says, laughing so much there are tears rolling down her eyes. “You’re talking about weed. The way you made it sound… so serious… I thought you were talking about, like crack or something. ‘Drug paraphernalia.’ Oh my God. So, funny.”
She’s still laughing. But I’m not. I don’t see how she thinks any of this is very funny. But more importantly, she still hasn’t confessed that the vape pen was hers.
“Well, Katie, you shouldn’t be laughing because it’s a very serious matter.”
“Oh, I know, Mr. Sanchez, I know,” she says, straightening up in her chair. “But you have to admit, you made it sound a bit more serious and scary than it really is. A vape pen is ‘drug paraphernalia?’ Really?”
Ah-fucking-ha. Got her.
Now I can save Ruby’s ass. And hopefully claim it as my own.