Human Resource

***

Thirty minutes later, Robin was reclining in the passenger seat of Luis' car as he drove. The streetlights passed rhythmically, pulsing in her peripheral vision.

"Did that bartender ever call you?" she asked.

Luis turned and gave her a flat look, for longer than seemed sensible given that he was driving. Then he laughed and shook his head. "I can't believe you remember any of that."

"I wasn't that drunk."

"He did," Luis said, sitting up a little straighter. "Thank you for asking."

Robin closed her eyes, laid back, and smiled.

"Welcome back."

***

Friday

"I quit."

Dave looked up from his desk and stared at her. "Robin, I... wait, you what?"

"I'm not fighting this dumpster fire anymore, Dave. I'm done. Effective immediately."

"Robin. Robin!"

She just smiled, and held her chin high as she turned. She could hear him getting up out of his chair, and following her out of his office, but she paid him no mind. The weight was gone, and it felt amazing. When she turned, two doors down, to poke her head into a different office, she saw Dave turn and head in a different direction.

Nadia was on a call, and her eyes went wide when she saw Robin.

"I quit," Robin mouthed silently.

Nadia pressed her hand tightly over the receiver, and hissed, "What?! When?!"

"Just now."

Nadia just stared at her, lips quivering.

"They wouldn't listen to me, so..." She shrugged and nodded. "Good luck. Call me if you need anything."

She made ten more stops around the building. Alex harassed her for walking across his shop floor in inappropriate footwear, but her yellow flip flops had felt right when she'd readied herself that morning. The reactions from the other women ranged from supportive to empowered to fearful. The fear hurt to see, but she had exhausted her options and herself. She'd known it would be hard, and it was, but it was also what she needed. She wasn't ashamed of her needs.

As she headed for the vestibule on her way out, she passed Heather and two of the women from the Purchasing department waiting in a cluster outside the executive suite of offices. She couldn't hear what was going on behind those doors, but it was a strange enough occurence that they were closed at all that she felt comfortable making a reasonable intuitive leap that it was about her.

Heather gave her an emphatic nod, and Robin felt as light as a feather as she stepped out into the sun.

***

Robin skipped up the last few stairs, and tilted her head as she approached her apartment. She could hear male voices, plural, coming from inside.

"No, the one at the end of the hall," Luis was saying. When he saw Robin coming, he smiled extremely wide, like a giggly child, and pushed her right back into the hall. "Ohmygodohmygod. He's here."

"He who?"

"Evan! Keep up, woman."

Robin just shook her head and laughed. "I have, literally, no idea who that is."

"The bartender!"

"Ohhhh!" Robin laughed even harder. "Is he helping you move?"

"Oh he's doing, like, all of the work. He's glorious, and he thinks he might have a friend who could sublet my place until my lease runs out."

Just then, Luis' ears perked up, and he stood just a little straighter as Evan the bartender hustled past them, pausing only briefly to give Luis a shy smile. He was taller than she remembered.

"You are going to ruin him," Robin said, as soon as he was out of earshot.

Luis just rolled his eyes, and turned into the apartment. He had already started redecorating her kitchen, which she loved, and her living room, which she was less in love with, and there was a pile of boxes in the hallway between the two bedrooms.

"Oh," he said, "I need you to point out our garage space."

Robin took a long breath, and furrowed her brow. "Oh. Right, yeah! It's two-oh-one. The... number-thingy is over the door. How are you getting your Mustang over here anyway?"

"It's a second gen Camaro, you rube," he snarked, "and I'm having it brought over on a flatbed on Monday. Soonest I could get one."

"Okay." She nodded vigorously. "I've only got a couple boxes in there, so it's all yours. I'll find someplace else for them, or... maybe they won't be in the way. How much longer until you get it all fixed up again?"

"I mean, I'll have it running in a few months," he said, "but getting it all cleaned up and perfect? Two years, maybe. So, what are you going to do now?"

"I don't know," she replied. "I was thinking about that on the drive home. Might see about taking some classes. Do the community college thing for a while and work a job that isn't actively trying to drive me crazy."

Luis laid a hand on her shoulder and looked her square in the eye. "That's nice, and I love your whole growth vibe, but I literally meant right now because I am going to get that man to ride me like a roller coaster when he gets back."

Robin laughed and threw her arms around her friend.

"I'm glad you're feeling better but I wasn't kidding."

"I'll go," she said, with exaggerated frustration.

"Don't hurry back either, and maybe while you're gone start thinking about a system because these socks are cashmere and I'm not putting them on a dirty door knob."

She half-turned, and then turned back and gave him a longer, stronger hug. "Thank you for this."

"Anything for my best friend," he said softly, hugging her back. "Now take your gross lady parts and go."

***

Tuesday

Robin sat down at the table by the window of the Starbucks and looked at the cup in front of her. "What is this?"

"It's a peace offering," Turner said. The woman's suit was immaculate. Sharp, clean lines from the shoulder down. "Also, it's a cappuccino. I had Dave pull a receipt and tell me what he ordered for you at a meeting in January."

Robin merely looked at it before sitting back in her chair, with her hands folded politely in her lap.

"I see." She cleared her throat softly, and re-settled herself in her chair. "I'll cut straight to the point. I want you to come back."

"No."

Turner nodded, undaunted, and said, "After you walked out, I had a line of women outside my door either in tears or trying to walk out themselves."

"Good."

The older woman made a noise in her throat. "I understand you worked closely with my father for some time."

"I was his office assistant, yes." Then Robin pursed her lips and added, "I wouldn't say we were close."

"I'm a lawyer, Robin. Estates. That's what I know. I don't know anything about... magnets. My mother and Bill have been divorced since I was in my mid-twenties, and separated for much longer than that, but they still have some joint holdings. My taking over Koenig was part of a deal to resolve another one of their petty squabbles. Somehow my doing this is a 'win' for Mother. It's all very trite and unseemly, the games they play, and for a long time I successfully managed to keep myself out of it. I agreed to this one because Bill kept insisting that the ship steers itself."

Robin's eyebrows rose slowly, and Turner nodded.

"Yes. I shouldn't be surprised, but my orientation was decidedly... one-sided. We call that due diligence, and I did not do mine. His schedule to retire didn't leave me a lot of time to step away from my other duties, and he took advantage of that. Turns out, even after all this time, I still have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to my sperm donor."

Robin laughed, and then covered her mouth politely when Turner's rather severe expression didn't soften. "Sorry."

"It's all right." She took a sip of her coffee, set the cup down, and composed herself again. "The point I was making was that when I responded to your lengthy, detailed dossier, I was not giving it the attention it deserved, and I'm not too proud to admit that it took a line of women using up every tissue I had in my office to look more closely. Bill kept insisting this thing with Carl was being blown out of proportion. In news that I'm sure will shock you to your core, they're old friends. I think that you, more than anyone, will understand that I am only now coming to grips with the fact that I have been handed a steaming plate of dog shit."

Robin laughed louder. Turner's expression still didn't soften, but this time she didn't apologize for it.

"Regardless of whether what Carl did was wrong, when a quarter of your workforce is threatening to leave, you take notice." She picked up her cup and rolled it around, swirling the contents without drinking. "The truth is that I'd be embarrassed to bring in someone else to fill your position. I had a lengthy meeting Friday afternoon with the Leadership team, and then another one after that with just Dave where he filled me in on some of the other recent... events."

"Did he tell you about the camera?"

If Turner's expression had been cool before, it turned wintery cold in that moment. "Mike was fired on the spot. I contacted an IT firm my practice has used in the past, and had three people on the premises within the hour. They swept the building, found four more cameras, and put in an obscene amount of time over the weekend to get some things sorted out. Our general counsel is following up with the police to determine our next step. I was there when they found his store of video files, and saw to it personally that they were all deleted without being viewed or copied. They did not believe any of them had been backed up to a cloud account either. I didn't quite follow what they were saying about saved accounts, but I took the gist of it.

"Furthermore," she continued, "as of this morning, Alex Treboyan has opted to take an early retirement. I listened to him try to explain why a simple hand truck to help lift heavy objects was a bad idea, and that was more or less the end of that. I doubt I'll be able to hire a replacement from outside the company with his experience, so I'll be stuck with someone trained by him, who thinks like him, and who will only yield to new suggestions begrudgingly."

"That sounds like quite a mess," Robin said, feeling quite haughty. Then Turner narrowed her eyes, and she felt less sure about being smug about it.

"I want to hire you back as a contractor. Twenty percent raise. On a temporary basis, say, six months, unless you decide to return. You'll be reporting to me, not Dave. I like Dave, but I don't think he gets what you do. And, to be clear, I'm not even sure I get what you do, but it doesn't take an Ivy League MBA to look at the last few days and draw some ugly conclusions about the culture and morale levels." After a pause, she added, "I'd be counting on you to help me catch up, because it's obvious I have some catching up to do."

Robin said, "What about Mr. Davis?"

At this, there was finally a very slight softening of her expression. "By some coincidence, Carl Davis is no longer employed by The Zambrano Group, who you know represent us within the aerospace industry. It seems Mrs. Davis was provided with the evidence you compiled, and her tune changed significantly. Mrs. Davis, née Zambrano, went to her father, and... well..." She trailed off as she stared at her coffee, and there was just the tiniest hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her lip.

Robin reached down, picked up the cappuccino, and thought. Turner had said they'd found four cameras and had been clear to point out that any video evidence was gone, but hadn't told her whether or not one had been found under Robin's own desk. The woman was a shark. She couldn't trust a shark, but she could trust a shark to be a shark.

"I want an office," Robin said, "not just a cubicle."

Turner nodded slowly, eyes unfocused. "That can be arranged.".