Page 8 of Selfish Suit

“I probably could…”

“Could you start now?”

“She’s saved our ass on six campaigns, one of them as recent as last month’s, so—we figure that putting up with a few bad behaviors isn’t that bad.”

“I could’ve sworn my policy was zero tolerance.”

“We would’ve lost the Ferrari deal if we’d let her go…”

I blink. This is the first I’m hearing of this. “How so?”

“Uhm—eh…”

“I don’t need to hear any more strange sounds from your mouth,” I say. “I’d prefer to hear words, or I’ll be discussing your employment status next.”

“She comes up with the best marketing ideas, and even though she messed up our presentation to Ferrari by jumping onstage and interrupting, they wanted to hear what she had to say. And then they agreed to sign only if we used her ideas.”

“Why is this the first I’m hearing about any of this?”

“We’re not allowed to talk to you directly, sir.”

“It’s not mentioned in any of the email notes,” I say. “You could’ve mentioned it there, correct?”

“Maybe, but the last time I deviated from your template, you sent me a mean email.”

“I’ve never sent a mean email.”

“It said, ‘Stop fucking with my shit or I’ll fire you.’”

“I stand corrected,” I say, making a mental note to apologize for that later. “Did Miss Locke receive the percentage bonus for making an impression on the Ferrari account?”

Her weird sounds come over the line again, and I start to hang up.

“She’s still on the unpaid level,” she says.

“How is that possible?”

“Company policy.” She pauses. “No one who is late more than three times in thirty days gets paid. No one who looks like they’ve had a good night’s sleep instead of staying up working gets paid. No one who?—”

“I’ll be in touch.” I end the call and pull up the Ferrari campaign on my big screen.

As I fast-forward through the presentation, Braxton strolls into the room with part of my first order in hand. The bread basket…

“Where did you get that?” I ask.

“A delivery girl gave it to me hours ago when I came in downstairs.” He takes a bite. “Said she was allergic to garlic, but they cost twenty bucks, and she didn’t want them to go to waste because of a jerk customer… Where are your bread rolls?”

“You’re eating them.”

He laughs and tosses me the basket.

As I’m taking one out, I spot a mass of auburn curls rushing past the screen, so I hit pause, rewind a few seconds, and hit play.

“No, no, no,” the woman—Miss Ivy Locke—says. “I can’t let my team gaslight you into thinking this is a good campaign.”

She turns around to face the camera, flipping through cards.

“You’ll have to excuse our intern,” a guy says. “She’s not used to being allowed to sit in on campaign presentations.”

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