Company - Max Barry [60]
“Pardon?”
Eve holds up her cocktail, flips her sunglasses over her eyes, and grins at him.
“Oh.” Jones smiles. He has a Scotch and the quiet hope that Eve will continue to drink Sex on the Beach, or any kind of alcoholic beverage, really, until he has acquired enough courage to confront her about what she said to him that night in bed.
“Klausman loves what you're doing on the smokers,” Eve says. “We were talking about it just today. You've impressed him. And impressed me, which is more important in the long run. What do you think: Will I make a good CEO one day?” She smiles.
“It might be difficult to explain to six hundred employees how you made the jump from receptionist.”
“Well,” she says, “there won't be six hundred employees for much longer.”
“Right. So, look, I still don't get this. Why is Zephyr consolidating?”
She shrugs. “Companies reorganize. It's part of the business cycle: growth then contraction. We're interested in finding better ways to do it. We make sure Zephyr consolidates at least once a year.”
“And then it grows?”
“Mmm. Not so much. Zephyr's been shrinking for as long as I've worked here. The trend toward more with less. You know.”
“How many people are going to lose their job?”
“Depends on Senior Management. Alpha doesn't micromanage—we just tug a string here and there and see what happens. Klausman sent out an all-staff voice mail saying we had to consolidate. Now we watch how the company reacts.”
He looks out over the water. “So an unknown quantity of people are about to become unemployed for no reason other than we want to see what happens.”
She cocks her head. “Is that a tone?”
“It's a question.”
“Aw, Jones, every time I start to think you might actually make it in this place, you go weak at the knees over how terrible it is to sack someone!” A few heads turn in their direction, which Eve ignores. “I thought you were past this.”
“Are you?”
“What? Of course I am. What are you talking about?”
“How much of the other night do you remember?”
She freezes. “What did I do?”
“You . . . didn't seem happy with who you were.” At the last moment, he shies away from: You said you loved me.
She laughs. “Well, clearly, I was drunk.”
“And honest.”
“Ah, crap, Jones. Crap. I was probably just trying to sleep with you.”
“Why can't you admit you're lonely?”
There's a half second, then Eve laughs disbelievingly. “Oh, shit, you're serious.”
“You have a lot of nice stuff. I get that. What else do you have?”
This comes out more critical than he intends, and Eve's dark eyes widen. “I get drunk and say a few stupid things and suddenly you have a window into my soul? No, Jones. I have a great life and a great job and if it means firing a hundred people on Monday, I'll do it without blinking. I have everything I want. Not happy with who I am? God, I'm not just happy, I'm proud.”
“You—”
“And there's nothing wrong with my stuff!”
“There's more to you than that. Eve, you feel bad about what Alpha does, I know you do. At least sometimes.” She doesn't react to this the way Jones is hoping—doesn't react at all, in fact—so he presses ahead. “Freddy. You met him in the elevator today. He's the one who's been sending you flowers every week. Did you know that?”
Eve stares at him. “You moron, of course I know that. We monitor the whole company!”
Jones feels himself reddening. “Well, he's—”
“You know what it says in Freddy's file? ‘Do not promote no matter what.' That's why he's been a sales assistant for five years; he's a project. They're all projects. Want to know something else? Holly, that girl you work with, she books meeting rooms for no meetings. She just goes and sits in them. Sometimes she takes a magazine, but mostly not. She's the loneliest person I've ever seen. That PA your department had, the fat one—she kept a record of your movements. She was so infatuated with you she couldn't breathe, and you didn't notice. Do I try to fix these people's lives? No. I don't worry about them, I don't care about them. They're mice in a maze to me.”
Jones walks away. This is not