Scissor Link by Georgette Kaplan (good books to read for adults .TXT) 📕

Watch its throat get slit anyway.” Mary rose from her seat. “Tests that you obtained, how? And that you checked, where? I have my sources, I would’ve known if you’d gone through any of the right channels. All that tablet has on it is supposition from God knows where based on God knows what, fucking up a sale that’s already being made, and no one’s going to hit the brakes on a billion-dollar contract just on your say-so. Especially once they find out you’ve been fucking the intern here.”

“Hey! I’m a structural dynamics engineer, bitch.”

Janet silenced her with a gesture. “People will listen. We’ll take this all the way to the CEO if we have to.”

“‘We’”? Mary mimicked. “I’m sure your intern is good for a lot of things, but getting a come-to-Jesus with the Old Man isn’t one of them.”

Wendy walked up to her.

“What?” Mary asked. “Are you going to hit me now? Go ahead, completely destroy your own credibility. I’ll sue you for every cent you’ve got. I can always use change for the laundromat.”

“Excuse me,” Wendy said, and stepped past her. To Janet’s desk. She picked up the phone. “Need to borrow this. Local call.” She punched in a number, fast with memorization, then waited while it rung.

Mary watched: amused at first, then impatient to see what her play was.

“It’s ringing,” Wendy said, then straightened as the other end picked up. “Hi, Grandpa? You told me to call you if I had any trouble? Well, I’m pretty sure this qualifies…”

She took two minutes to lay it out. She was pretty succinct. Mary only had time to look at Janet and ask “What the fuck is she doing?” once.

Then Wendy put her hand over the receiver and spoke to Mary. “He wants to talk to you.”

Mary reacted to the phone being held out to her as if it were a loaded gun. Then she shook her head dubiously and took it, sneering at Wendy as she lifted it to her ear. “Yes?”

The Old Man was even more succinct. A moment later, Mary lowered the phone, a dial tone issuing from it.

“I’m fired.”

Wendy took the phone from her and dropped it back in its cradle.

Mary shook her head. “That’s it? You just—you make a phone call and I’m…no, you can’t just…I have connections, I, I’m…”

“You might want to call security,” Wendy told Janet. “I hear they’re very good at removing undesirables.”

Mary darkened, the blow finally cutting through layers of denial and moving into rage. “You know this is bullshit. If I were a man, I’d be CEO by now.”

“No,” Wendy said, sitting down on Janet’s desk. “If you were a man, you’d be an asshole. You’re still an asshole. You treat your employees like shit. You only care about yourself. You nearly bankrupted my family’s company and sent thousands of people into unemployment just for your own ambitions. Don’t flatter yourself by thinking any of this is because you’re a woman. It’s because you’re a piece of shit. Now here. Your severance package.”

She reached into her pocket and flipped something small and shiny Mary’s way.

Mary caught it.

A quarter.

“For the laundromat,” Wendy said.

Mary left between two security guards, about as defeated as she would ever be. That wouldn’t be the end of it. She’d sue for wrongful termination and anything else she could think of, try whatever dirty tricks were left in the book, but she’d lost. Everything else was just how bad her losses would be.

Wendy wasn’t thinking of any of that just then.

Janet had still not said a word.

“I’m sorry about the pictures on my phone—” Wendy started.

“No, no, that’s Mary’s fault. She hacked your phone, that’s not your fault. Wallace Savin is your grandfather.”

“Maternal,” Wendy said. “His daughter married my dad, hence Wendy Cedar…and umm…so I’m in high school and I am the smallest avionics nerd you ever did see. Model airplane club, remote control helicopters, everything, everything. I’m already applying to all these engineering schools and I’m getting acceptance letter after acceptance letter and I realize, why bother? It’s the family business. All I have to do is turn in a job application with one of my parents for a reference and I’m on the top floor. So I have this idea—more of an experiment. I go to college across the country, I don’t tell anyone who my dad is or my mom or my grandfather. And I’m actually really good at this engineering stuff. I mean, I let my parents go half and half on tuition, I’m not crazy, but I get a part-time job to pay for my books, I meet some really cool people who don’t have summer homes, and when I graduate, I put in an application for Savin Aerospace’s intern program. And they choose me. Not because of my mom or my dad, but because of my work. It’s my job, it’s mine. And the shitty apartment I live in is mine. And this really amazing woman that I fell in love with along the way… I really hope she’s mine.”

“Your father’s Jacob Cedar,” Janet said.

“Yeah.”

“He’s on the board of directors.”

“I know.”

“I’m fucking the boss’s daughter.”

“Do you one better, I fucked the boss, okay, so inappropriate, forget I said that, couldn’t resist.”

“For me?” Janet asked. She was crying. Not sobbing, just with a kind of leak below her eyes. “All this…”

Wendy took a deep breath. “I would never ask you to choose between me and your career. But you don’t have to choose.”

“Yes I do. I can’t have this. Me, you—God.” Her elbow planted itself on the desk, her head falling into her outstretched hand.

Wendy took a half-step forward, going to comfort her, but also kept at bay by the sheer despondency of Janet’s grief.

“Trying to seduce a woman half my age, what right do I have…”

“How old are you?” Wendy asked.

“Forty-four.”

“I’m twenty-six, you’re not twice my age or old enough to be my mother unless you were a Teen Mom and you’re the least Teen Mom person