Chapter Twenty-Two
I skipped classes on Monday to work on the rudder. This project was more important and needed my full attention. Besides, math put me into a trance.
My phone buzzed on my bed.
Devon: You’re skipping class? Are you OK?
I smiled and sent a quick reply.
Fine, just have to work on a project.
Devon: Have fun with that. Dinner tonight?
Me: Working at Stockade as soon as I leave JenCar.
Devon: Call you later.
Lawler wasn’t in his office when I got there. Someone said he’d been pulled into a conference call with the South Carolina plant. I sat in my cubicle and continued to work on the rudder. When I left at five, I still hadn’t seen Philip.
Mondays were usually my off day at Stockade, but I promised Logan I’d work since I would be off the weekend for Bradley’s party. My shift went by fast, but I was exhausted when I got home at one in the morning. I worked on a paper for another hour before finally crashing. My alarm went off too early the next morning.
I arrived at JenCar early on Tuesday, anxious to share my findings with Philip Lawler. If he gave me the files to prove myself, I sure as hell did. Acton had a great idea, but he had no skill at executing it. He didn’t even try. The math was all over the place. If a rudder was produced using his calculations, it would look like a Picasso painting. No wonder Lawler tossed the files into a corner.
Lawler wasn’t in his office. That put a damper on my enthusiasm. Again. I sat in my cubicle and worked on organizing another file. That in itself was a time-consuming chore. Acton was also ridiculously messy. I spread out the contents and reorganized everything to make some form of sense. Then I plugged in his calculations. Nothing was even close to right and I had only entered a handful of data. Checking the time, I realized I’d been at this for over an hour and a half. Lawler should be in his office. The hall sped by in a blur as I hurried for no other reason than to prove him wrong and prove myself useful.
And ran smack into Devon.
“Whoa, slow down, Olivia. You’ll hurt yourself.” He put his hands on my upper arms to steady me, and he held on to me too long. No way I was getting another PDA lecture from Acton. I shrugged them off with a wide-eyed stare. Devon smiled and shoved his hands into his pockets, rocking back on his heels. “What’s got you in such a hurry?”
“I just need to get to Lawler’s office. I’m sorry.” I stepped around him, but his hand shot out and grabbed my arm again.
“Hold on, okay? I haven’t seen you since Sunday,” he said, letting his hand drop to his side.
I hated being such a bitch to Devon more than ever in that moment. “I know,” I said, calmer than I felt. All I really wanted to do was kiss him in the hallway. “I need to see Mr. Lawler. It’s important. I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“He gave me some files to go over. I need to show him something from one of them.” My thin veil of professionalism slipped as I let my hand caress his in the barest of touches.
Devon raised his eyebrows and stared at me with a longing that matched my own. “He’s in a meeting.”
For the second time that day, my excitement slipped away. I nodded to Devon and headed back to my cube. He strolled along right behind me.
“He put you in a cube? Huh,” he said behind me. “Acton lets me work in his office.”
“That’s nice. I kinda like the cube, though. I get peace and quiet to work. Nobody bothers me,” I muttered. My frustrations grew to Mount McKinley heights and I didn’t want to take it out on Devon.
“He’s got some amazing ideas,” Devon said.
“Yeah, I know.” I turned to face him outside the ladies’ room. “Seamus,” I whispered, “I miss you.”
He glanced down the hall each way before quickly kissing me. “I miss you, too.”
“But we can’t do this here.” My lips tingled and shivers raced up my spine.
“Yeah, I know that, too.” He smiled as he backed away from me. “This weekend?”
“I’m going home for my brother’s birthday, remember?” I leaned against the restroom door, wanting nothing more than to duck inside and calm myself down.
“Right. Why don’t you come over tomorrow? Mac moved into Betts’s room last night,” he said, quickly touching my hand. “Just because I have to be in my room by nine doesn’t mean I have to be alone.”
“Now that’s an interesting prospect. I won’t get out of work until late.”
“Call me when you’re on your way.” He bent down to whisper into my ear. “I’ll meet you at the door. Pack a bag, too. Just because we’re taking things slow doesn’t mean you can’t spend the night.”
“Or I could just sleep in your shirt,” I said, then stepped back into the ladies.
“You’re killing me, Olivia,” he said, but he didn’t follow. Thank God. I half expected him to. Hell, I really wanted him to. It took me a few seconds to calm my racing heart.
I pulled out my phone and read my texts. Jacob sent me several long messages about Dad’s latest dictatorship move. Dad wanted Jake to start working at the garage more. Jake wanted to spend every minute he could on the field for the college scouts. After I read them, I simply responded, I know, buddy.
Nothing from Paige lately. She’d been hanging out with Hailey more and more. I still didn’t trust that girl. She’d come over to talk to me several times during my lunches with Devon. Judging by Devon’s reaction, he wasn’t crazy about her either. I shot Paige a quick text, then put my cell back into the pocket of my blazer. Taking a deep breath of floral air freshener, I strode out of the restroom and straight to Lawler’s office. Just in case the meeting was over.
Lawler sat inside, buried in his mess. I knocked on the frame before I entered. He didn’t even look up.
“Mr. Lawler?” I didn’t want to come across as unprofessional or interrupt him if he was deeply involved with whatever it was on his screen. “Can I discuss this file with you?”
“You finished one? I didn’t expect that for another month at least. Especially knowing Marvin’s tidiness issues.” He leaned back in his chair and motioned me inside. “Just make it quick.”
I launched into the problems with the file and the math and let everything out in one long rambling speech. So much for professional, but he didn’t interrupt me for more in-depth details. Then again, he didn’t have to. I threw it all out there. And I threw Marvin Acton, and by default Devon, under the bus. Devin had approved the math, so part of this was his doing. I just had a hard time believing there wasn’t some other reason. Still, I couldn’t let it go and it ate at me that Devon was going to take a hit for this, too.
“How’d you get through it so fast?” He sat up in his chair and leaned on his desk with his fingers intertwined in front of his keyboard.
“I went over it this weekend and then again yesterday.” I handed the file over. At least when he opened it, he’d see everything clearly. It was meticulous in the organization. No way I was turning in sloppy work. I didn’t have to work on it outside of my internship, but this man needed to know I was capable. More than capable, that I was willing to learn. I just needed to get him to teach me. “I notated where the calculations were off and put in corrections.”
Lawler took the file and opened it. He didn’t say anything as he glanced over the copy of schematics that I’d scrawled all over. Finally, he dropped the file in the center of his desk, not in the corner. “This looks like a copy. How’d you get this?”
There was a note of disappointment in his voice. I wasn’t sure how to answer. It was like he was putting me under a microscope and dissecting my every move. Shivers went down my spine, and not the good kind this time. “I m-made it,” I stuttered. All the confidence I’d built up disappeared faster than water down a drain. “So I could get it done like Mr. Anderson wanted. I hope that’s okay. I didn’t want to take the entire file out of the building so I made a copy of the schematics and took it home with me to get it done quicker.”
“Where’d you do the work?” he asked, still calm. But eerily so.
“At school. They have the necessary programs in the engineering department.” I stopped myself from asking why. A pit of fear settled into my chest. I also stopped myself from saying, I want to prove to you that I could do this. Sure, I still have a lot to learn, but teach me. I want to be an engineer. I want to work at JenCar. I want to show you that I’m more than capable of being your peer.
He nodded and shooed me out with a wave of his hand while picking up his phone with another. I went back to my cubicle to work on the next file. It was impossible to concentrate. Every tick of Lawler’s flipped through my head. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what happened. If I went by his reactions, I’d done something wrong. But he always stared at me as if I was wrong: wrong to be at JenCar, wrong to believe I could be an engineer, wrong to even be in his presence. I worked on sorting the next, thicker file. It had far too many notes inside and none of it made any sense. It took several minutes before I realized the phone on my desk was ringing. Nobody ever called me in the short time I’d been at JenCar. This couldn’t be good.
“Olivia Dawson,” I answered, working hard to keep the fear out of my voice. I hadn’t done anything wrong. In fact, I’d done exactly as Philip Lawler asked me to. So why did I have this dread coursing through my veins like poison?
“Madeline Upton here.” Her clipped voice cut every syllable like a box cutter. “Report to my office immediately.”
She hung up before I could even breathe.
I walked as fast as I could without running to the elevators. Of course, it took its sweet time coming to my floor. Then all I could do was stare at myself in the mirrored doors. My hands shook as I tugged at my black blazer. My lips were pursed into such a thin line I couldn’t tell if they existed anymore. I wanted to run to the ladies first to straighten my makeup, brush my hair, anything to make me not appear as the nervous wreck I clearly was. If it was anyone else in HR, I wouldn’t worry so much. But Madeline Upton meant something was wrong. She rarely dealt with problems first hand. Then again, it could be a good thing. She might praise my work on the file. It was too soon for Lawler to review it in detail, though. Maybe a quick glance was all he needed? Either way, now I knew what it felt like to be called to the principal’s office.
When the doors finally opened, Devon stood in my way alongside Marvin Acton. Their faces were relaxed and almost jovial. I stepped inside, hoping for a touch or comment from Devon. Anything to calm me down. For once in his life, he didn’t say a word to me. Neither of them did, but I could feel their eyes boring holes into the back of my neck. Each hair on my arms slowly rose to attention. I rubbed my skin to keep the chill from creeping in, but it was too late. Whatever I was going into would happen whether I liked it or not.
The doors opened on the next floor. Marvin and Devon stepped out. Before they closed again, Devon glanced over his shoulder and met my gaze. His smile couldn’t stop the dread filling every single cell in my body.
When the doors opened on the fourth floor, I almost stayed in the car. My feet felt like they were encased in concrete as I made my way out of the elevator. Each one sounded like a jackhammer on the plush beige carpet. Madeline Upton’s office occupied the corner of the northeast part of the building. The closer I got to it, the heavier my entire body weighed.
It felt like six weeks, when in reality it took about six seconds to get to the secretary’s desk outside Upton’s door. I didn’t even get a chance to tell the secretary who I was.
“She’s waiting for you,” the woman said. I’d never seen her before, so she obviously had been told to watch out for the terrified girl heading that way. She smiled, but there was that hint of pity in her face. I didn’t even know this woman and I could see it. All I wanted to do was turn and run the other way, preferably out of the building. Maybe I’d make a pit stop in the ladies on the way out first. So I could hurl.
I swallowed hard. Why was I even here? I had no clue what I’d done to get such a dreadful summons. Was it the file? Lawler grilled me about it, but the work was solid. There wasn’t any reason for the head of HR to call me in over that. The silver doorknob felt like ice as I pushed it down. The cold sprinted up my arm and into my chest. By the time I’d stepped into the office, my body shook with the chill and the dread. I wanted to curl up behind her plants and hibernate through the entire meeting.
Madeline Upton looked up from her glass-top desk where she’d been writing. A closed laptop sat to her left and her phone on her right. Other than the desk blotter, the rest of her desk was bare. Her office was immaculate in whites, grays, and chrome. It felt cold, unwelcoming. Or maybe that was just me.
Sitting on the light-gray loveseat with a tablet was Rex Anderson. He didn’t spare me a glance. The telltale sign was Philip Lawler’s presence. He stood near the floor to ceiling windows, staring out onto the roof of the plant behind the offices. When the door clicked quietly closed behind me, he turned. As always, his expression was unreadable.
“Ms. Dawson,” Madeline Upton said. She motioned to a white and chrome chair in front of her desk. I sat as instructed as Lawler took the matching chair beside me. Rex hadn’t moved. I could see him out of the corner of my eye tapping away on the tablet. “It’s come to our attention that you’ve violated one of the rules of your internship.”
My mouth dropped open. I wanted to scream how or why or what or fuck. I wasn’t sure which. The last seemed the most appropriate.
She pulled out the file from under her blotter. “Actually, more than one. Not only did you copy a confidential document, but you left the building with it. And you used an unsecured network to work on the project within this folder.”
I sat up straighter. That’s what this was all about. So what? I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to do any of that. If I didn’t know, then I couldn’t be suspended, or worse, fired. “I didn’t—”
“Pay attention in orientation. Yes, that’s quite clear.” She handed the file toward Lawler, who leaned over the desk to reach for it. “Mr. Lawler will escort you to get your things. You’ll turn in your ID badge and parking key to Ally at the front desk.”
I opened my mouth to defend myself, but there wasn’t anything to say. I’d just been fired. From my dream internship, from the company I wanted to work for more than anything. It was over before it even had a chance to start.
“Ms. Dawson, I cannot stress how disappointed I am in this development.” Upton leaned on her elbows, clasping her fingers together. “I had high hopes for you. Despite Mr. Anderson’s desire not to bring you on, I offered you the internship anyway. You’re an intelligent young woman with a bright career ahead of you.” She paused and my heart sunk like a stone into the bottom of my stomach. “That future may not be with JenCar. If you choose to apply once you’ve graduated, we will, of course, take this incident into consideration. Regardless, you will not be offered another chance to intern here. The best I can do for you is this. Your internship will not be shown as a termination, but a resignation for personal reasons. In the future, please pay attention to every detail of your employment. I’d hate to see this happen to you again.” Her gaze turned to my mentor. Former mentor. “Philip, if you will.”
He stood from his chair beside me. I followed suit, trailing him like a lost puppy into the hall. My mind was blank. I tried to think, but there was nothing there. My body moved on autopilot toward the elevator. Lawler had the file clasped firmly in his hands. He wouldn’t even look at me as we descended. When the doors opened on the first floor, I wanted to race out before I started crying. Tears threatened, but I forced them back. There was no way this man was going to see me cry.
Especially after he sold me out. How else would she have known? It wasn’t like I sold secrets to the Koreans or a competitor. I did what I was asked. Lawler never even gave me any real directive when he handed over the files other than to fix them. And I fucking did that.
In my cube, I gathered my things, which wasn’t much. Just my purse, coat, and a mug I brought in to drink tea. I continued my true walk of shame toward the front of the building. For once I was glad I didn’t see Devon. I didn’t need his pity or comfort or anything. All I needed was to curl up in a ball and cry.
Lawler stopped with his hand on the door to the lobby.
“Liv, I’m sorry I had to tell Madeline.” His hand fell away and he turned to face me, leaning against the door to block my escape. “If this had been something I’d worked on, you could’ve been prosecuted for theft. Marvin Acton’s a son-in-law of Roger McPherson and a complete idiot. He has some great ideas, but he cannot execute a damn thing. That’s why those files were in the corner of my office. Anderson dumped everything in my lap. He made it part of my job to toss out the useless junk and keep the good. On top of everything else I have to do on a daily basis.”
I couldn’t talk, so I nodded. My throat had dried out in Upton’s office.
“And I shouldn’t even be telling you this except I looked at the modifications you made to the rudder design. It’s very good work. And so you know, I fought Rex and Madeline on this. You screwed up, but it would’ve been my preference to keep you on. And to have had the chance to be a better mentor. I’m sorry that I failed you there, too.” He pushed off the door and put his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t let this bring you down too far, Liv. Madeline’s right. You have a bright career ahead of you.”
I wanted to thank him, but he was part of the reason I’d just lost my job. He opened the door but didn’t step through with me. Ally’s kind demeanor was gone as I stopped at her desk and handed over everything. She took them and shredded my ID right in front of me. Might as well have been my heart. I’d never been fired before. Not even when I babysat for Mrs. Lakebrink’s baby and accidentally fed him the wrong bottle. Mrs. Lakebrink was pissed, but she called me a week later to sit again. I declined. Babies were not my thing.
Ally stood, coming around the desk, and took my arm not too gently. Her perfect manicure was sharper than it looked.
“I’m sorry for this, Ms. Dawson,” she said as she escorted me to the parking garage. “But it’s my job to make sure you leave the premises immediately. I’ll let you find your car, but if you haven’t exited the garage in three minutes, I’ll call the police and have you forcibly removed.”
“I’m on the roof,” I said.
“Three minutes.”
I ran up the stairs to my truck and started it before I even had the driver’s door closed. My seat belt banged against the plastic interior as I drove down the ramp. Three minutes wasn’t a lot of time. Ally tapped her foot, glancing at her watch. As soon as the truck cleared the gate, she turned on her heel and marched back inside the building. I waited until JenCar was no longer in sight before I pulled over.
But nothing happened. I didn’t break down like I wanted to. I didn’t cry a single tear. I just sat there staring down the street with nowhere to go and nothing to do.
I was a failure.
I was off the path I’d constructed.
And I was empty.
I slipped the truck into gear and drove to the one place I knew I belonged. Home.