Page 89 of Well, Actually
I nod, remembering the jolly, kind man whom I’ve seen at the check-in desk on evenings I work late. He always dresses up as Santa at the company holiday party.
“Anyway,” Aida continues, pace picking up. “I asked him to do me a solid and check the swipe-in logs—”
“He’d do that for you?”
“Big Randy would do anything for anybody. But guess who was one of the few people who had used their badge to swipe in for work before the video was posted? William.”
“Holy shit,” Rylie whispers, voice scraping from his throat. “Do you really think…”
“I’m sorry, but time-out.” I straighten holding up my palms. “This is a big accusation first thing in the morning. When did you become some sort of super-tech spy girl, Aida?”
She gives me a dull look. “I try to give things a few hours’ worth of thought and fact-finding before sinking into the useless depths of self-pity.”
“That might be the most unrelatable thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“It makes sense, Eva,” she says, eyes wide and face animated.
“The bar’s in hell, but do you really think he’d go this low?” Aida’s look speaks for itself. “Okay, sure, maybehewould, but surely Landry wouldn’t let him?” She treated me like dog shit yesterday, but I have a hard time believing my idol, this woman who’s a living legend for breaking barriers in a male-dominated field, would do this to me.
“You need to stop believing she has any goodwill or kind intentions toward anyone but herself and her son. She had a major stake in the success of you two being public with your whole schtick. She’s fueling the nepotism pipeline with William, and his success is a reflection of her. She championed the idea, promised big numbers with engagement and dollars, actually saw those projections being met and then some. She and her son had a lot to lose when you said you weren’t going to play the game anymore, both financially and their professional credibility with other executives and board members. She probably gave him a gold star and pat on the back for releasing it.”
I chew on the inside of my cheek, shaking my head.
“Do you know who immediately reported on the video of you two?” she asks. “Soundbites. The first outlet to pick it up and start circulating. And guess what, the backlist of your other videos has seen an uptick from all this publicity too.”
The silence is a heavy weight, grinding into my shoulders as I try to connect all these pieces. I rub my fingers to my temples, the pulse of a headache starting. “She wouldn’t do that…” The woman I admired so much would have enough decency to spare me this kind of humiliation… right? “Shewouldn’t put me through this just for a corporate pat on the back and continued profits that would dry up eventually, would she?”
The resulting looks from Aida and Rylie answer that.
“I’m turning in my resignation tomorrow,” Aida says as I continue to process, my mind a scribble I can’t untangle. “I was thinking about waiting it out until she or William inevitably fires me so I could apply for unemployment, but even the fact that this is potentially true is enough. Plus, William and Landry’s fucking mind games are too much, all these cryptic and passive-aggressive emails about my performance when we all know I’m damn good at what I do. I can’t keep living like this. I’m so stressed I can barely see straight most days.”
I nod, my teeth grinding together as visceral memories ping through me. While I hadn’t worked with Landry this closely before the incident, I know that Soundbites leadership in general takes a chronic hazing approach. The late-night calls, the cutting remarks, the looks of disappointment—it’s all chipped away at me piece by piece until Landry decided to turn me to dust.
“It isn’t just us,” Aida says in a way that’s supposed to be comforting.
In some ways it is. It’s not like Landry or any of the other higher-ups handpicked us out of a lineup, deemed us the special ones to torment. But in other ways, it makes it so much worse that we’re interchangeable playthings to poke and prod and stretch until we lose our shape and they decide to discard us.
“It’s like we’re dirt. Someone in the fashion beat even started a chat where everyone shares screenshots of the bullshit sent inemails and chats. Whoever receives the meanest comment gets a free drink at the end of the week.”
I jerk back, affronted. “I feel like I missed out on a lot of free drinks by not being included in that.”
Aida gives me a warm, loving smile. “You aren’t exactly the most approachable when it comes to a camaraderie attempt, babe.”
Fair enough. “I mean, I’m glad we’re all collectively licking the same festering wound here, but what do we actuallydoabout it?”
“You could sue,” Rylie offers, as if the idea of even googling how to do that isn’t the most time-consuming and overwhelming thing I could ever think of, let alone pursue. “For wrongful termination or something like that.”
“This is America. I feel like you can pretty much be fired at any time for anything if your boss has enough power.”
“Not if you’re being bullied and harassed leading up to it,” Rylie says with a sad shrug. “Sorry, just trying to be helpful.”
“You think that’s what this was?” I ask, blinking as my brain whirrs. “Bullying?”
Rylie stares at me like I have three heads. “I witnessed William forcing you to read horrible things said about you online and record it. And we have pretty decent evidence that he leaked a private video you did not consent to having taken. What part of that doesn’t screambullyingto you?”
“While the small, awful things add up to a bigger picture of harassment, I could still see so many people calling it hearsay,” Aida says in a pragmatic but defeated tone.
Rylie turns fully toward me, his hands coming to myshoulders. “We know it’s not hearsay, Eva. So make people fucking hear it.”
