Disclosure_ A Novel - Michael Crichton [84]
“Morning, Mary Anne.”
“What I can’t understand is how they got it,” she said.
“Got what?” Sanders said.
“You mean you haven’t seen it? Jesus. You’re in the papers, Tom.” She handed him the newspaper under her arm.
“You’re kidding.”
“No. Connie Walsh strikes again.”
Sanders looked at the front page, but saw nothing. He began flipping through quickly.
“It’s in the Metro section,” she said. “The first opinion column on the second page. Read it and weep. I’ll get more coffee.” She walked away.
Sanders opened the paper to the Metro section.
AS I SEE IT
by Constance Walsh
MR. PIGGY AT WORK
The power of the patriarchy has revealed itself again, this time in a local high-tech firm I’ll call Company X. This company has appointed a brilliant, highly competent woman to a major executive position. But many men in the company are doing their damnedest to get rid of her.
One man in particular, let’s call him Mr. Piggy, has been especially vindictive. Mr. Piggy can’t tolerate a woman supervisor, and for weeks he has been running a bitter campaign of innuendo inside the company to keep it from happening. When that failed, Mr. Piggy claimed that his new boss sexually assaulted him, and nearly raped him, in her offices. The blatant hostility of this claim is matched only by its absurdity.
Some of you may wonder how a woman could rape a man. The answer is, of course, she can’t. Rape is a crime of violence. It is exclusively a crime of males, who use rape with appalling frequency to keep women in their place. That is the deep truth of our society, and of all other societies before ours.
For their part, women simply do not oppress men. Women are powerless in the hands of men. And to claim that a woman committed rape is absurd. But that didn’t stop Mr. Piggy, who is interested only in smearing his new supervisor. He’s even bringing a formal charge of sexual harassment against her!
In short, Mr. Piggy has the nasty habits of a typical patriarch. As you might expect, they appear everywhere in his life. Although Mr. Piggy’s wife is an outstanding attorney, he pressures her to give up her job and stay home with the kids. After all, Mr. Piggy doesn’t want his wife out in the business world, where she might hear about his affairs with young women and his excessive drinking. He probably figures his new female supervisor wouldn’t approve of that, either. Maybe she won’t allow him to be late to work, as he so often is.
So Mr. Piggy has made his underhanded move, and another talented businesswoman sees her career unfairly jeopardized. Will she be able to keep the pigs in the pen at Company X? Stay tuned for updates.
“Christ,” Sanders said. He read it through again.
Hunter came back with two cappuccinos in paper cups. She pushed one toward him. “Here. Looks like you need it.”
“How did they get the story?” he said.
Hunter shook her head. “I don’t know. It looks to me like there’s a leak inside the company.”
“But who?” Sanders was thinking that if the story made the paper, it must have been leaked by three or four P.M. the day before. Who in the company even knew that he was considering a harassment charge at that time?
“I can’t imagine who it could be,” Hunter said. “I’ll ask around.”
“And who’s Constance Walsh?”
“You never read her? She’s a regular columnist at the Post-Intelligencer,” Hunter said. “Feminist perspectives, that kind of thing.” She shook her head. “How is Susan? I tried to call her this morning, and there’s no answer at your house.”
“Susan’s gone away for a few days. With the kids.”
Hunter nodded slowly. “That’s probably a good idea.”
“We thought so.”
“She knows about this?”
“Yes.”
“And is it true? Are you charging harassment?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus.”
“Yes,” he said, nodding.
She sat with him for a long time, not speaking. She just sat with him. Finally she said, “I’ve known you for a long time. I hope this turns out okay.”
“Me, too.”
There was another long silence. Finally, she pushed away from the table and got up.
“See you later, Tom.”
“See you, Mary Anne.”
He knew what she was feeling. He had felt