Disclosure_ A Novel - Michael Crichton [60]
She hurried out of the office, leaving him sitting there. After a moment the assistant came in. “Can I do anything for you?”
“No,” Sanders said, shaking his head slowly. “No, I was just leaving.”
In the car, driving to the courthouse, Louise Fernandez recounted Sanders’s story to the two junior lawyers traveling with her. One lawyer, a woman, said, “You don’t really believe him?”
“Who knows?” Fernandez said. “It was behind closed doors. There’s never a way to know.”
The young woman shook her head. “I just can’t believe a woman would act that way. So aggressively.”
“Why not?” Fernandez said. “Suppose this wasn’t a case of harassment. Suppose this was a question of implied promise between a man and a woman. The man claims that behind closed doors he was promised a big bonus, but the woman denies it. Would you assume that the man was lying because a woman wouldn’t act that way?”
“Not about that, no.”
“In that situation, you’d think that anything was possible.”
“But this isn’t a contract,” the woman said. “This is sexual behavior.”
“So you think women are unpredictable in their contractual arrangements, but stereotypical in their sexual arrangements?”
The woman said, “I don’t know if stereotypical is the word I’d use.”
“You just said that you can’t believe a woman would act aggressively in sex. Isn’t that a stereotype?”
“Well, no,” the woman said. “It’s not a stereotype, because it’s true. Women are different from men when it comes to sex.”
“And black people have rhythm,” Fernandez said. “Asians are workaholics. And Hispanics don’t confront . . .”
“But this is different. I mean, there are studies about this. Men and women don’t even talk to each other the same way.”
“Oh, you mean like the studies that show that women are less good at business and strategic thinking?”
“No. Those studies are wrong.”
“I see. Those studies are wrong. But the studies about sexual differences are right?”
“Well, sure. Because sex is fundamental. It’s a primal drive.”
“I don’t see why. It’s used for all sorts of purposes. As a way of relating, a way of placating, a way of provoking, as an offer, as a weapon, as a threat. It can be quite complicated, the ways sex is used. Haven’t you found that to be true?”
The woman crossed her arms. “I don’t think so.”
Speaking for the first time, the young man said, “So what’d you tell this guy? Not to litigate?”
“No. But I told him his problems.”
“What do you think he should do?”
“I don’t know,” Fernandez said. “But I know what he should have done.”
“What?”
“It’s terrible to say it,” she said. “But in the real world? With no witnesses? Alone in the office with his boss? He probably should have shut up and fucked her. Because right now, that poor bastard has no options at all. If he’s not careful, his life is over.”
Sanders walked slowly back down the hill toward Pioneer Square. The rain had stopped, but the afternoon was still damp and gray. The wet pavement beneath his feet sloped steeply downward. Around him the tops of the skyscrapers disappeared into the low-hanging, chilly mist.
He was not sure what he had expected to hear from Louise Fernandez, but it was certainly not a detailed account of the possibility of his being fired, mortgaging his house, and never working again.
Sanders felt overwhelmed by the sudden turn that his life had taken, and by a realization of the precariousness of his existence. Two days ago, he was an established executive with a stable position and a promising future. Now he faced disgrace, humiliation, loss of his job. All sense of security had vanished.
He thought of all the questions Fernandez had asked him—questions that had never occurred to him before. Why hadn’t he told anyone? Why hadn’t he made notes? Why hadn’t he told Meredith explicitly that her advances were unwelcome? Fernandez operated in a world of rules and distinctions that he did not understand, that had never crossed his mind. And now