Page 83 of Let's Call a Truce
I didn’t need to imagine it when I’d lived it. My family fought the same fight when Sophie shriveled after Jason died, but it was easier to beat when it was only grief we were battling. Paris had to mourn the loss of her mother while questioning her own self-worth.
“I’m not defending him. I don’t agree with his choice. He never should have let that woman back in their lives. But I get it. He’s terrified he’s going to lose Paris again, and she won’t trust him enough to let him put her back together this time. You deserve to know he didn’t make this decision flippantly.”
“I hear you,” I whispered, clicking my pen over and over again to give my nervous energy an outlet. When I glanced back up at her, she was looking at me with so much love and concern it made my heart tight. “Neither of us deserve you. You know that, right?”
She chuckled. “Lucky for all of us, I get to decide who deserves to be in my life, not you.”
I moved around the table, dropping into the chair next to her so we could wrap our arms around each other. She held me until I felt the tears rising up and forced myself away.
“Can we focus on work for now, please?” I asked.
She hesitated for the briefest moment, then nodded and turned the conversation back to our strategy.
Less than twenty-four hours later, we were crammed next to each other at a conference table, ready for battle.
Eduardo’s executive team filled our side of the table, and my heart tugged when I spotted Ben a few seats down. I averted my eyes, refocusing on the task at hand. I couldn’t afford to be distracted by our drama during this meeting.
Connor and his crew of minions filtered into the room, takingthe seats across the long table like we were opposing forces in a war, come to the table to discuss our demands.
“Thank you for making time for us today.” Connor began the meeting likeheowned the company rather than Eduardo. “We are here today to express our concerns over the discriminatory practices being pushed by some employees here at KMG.”
Asia and I gripped each other’s hands under the table, both fighting off our knee-jerk reactions. Any response besides complete and utter calm with this group would have me deemed “that hysterical lady” and Asia called “that angry Black woman.” We believed in this initiative. We were not going to let the discussion devolve.
Eduardo’s shoulders tensed, but he kept his cool, too. “Please, share your specific concerns so we can discuss them.”
“Our issues are threefold. First, we are concerned that pushing specific companies because of who owns them will force us to limit what we can achieve. What if the best partner for the job is owned by a white man? We won’t be successful if we aren’t using the best people. Secondly—”
Asia cut him off, her voice serene and unaffected. “Excuse me, Eduardo, if you don’t mind, I believe it will be more beneficial if we address each concern one at a time rather than listing them all at once. Otherwise, we may miss an opportunity to discuss one issue before something else overshadows it.”
Eduardo nodded, gesturing for Asia to continue. The calm she exuded fooled everyone but me. She was ready to fuck some shit up and didn’t want to wait.
She turned her attention back to Connor. “Eduardo mentioned a petition. Everyone who signed this petition is from the engineering department, correct?”
“Yes.”
His response was clipped and defensive. They had tried to pass it around to the other departments but didn’t get any traction. I wondered how many of those signatures were the result of substantial encouragement from Connor.
“Well, then, lucky for you all, the partner initiative will have zero impact on you. That portion is strictly for the interior design department, where it has been enthusiastically received. We have put no requirements on our designers to meet a quota for underrepresented designers. They are there as an option, a recognition of the phenomenal voices our system was missing before.”
Connor opened his mouth to argue, but Asia wasn’t done.
“Our customers have loved the designers of color we added.” She passed out a spreadsheet to each attendee. “As you can see, we track all the companies we discuss with customers to make sure we don’t pull something they have already rejected. In situations where they have been presented with both a designer of color and a white designer, they have chosen the former sixty-eight percent of the time. If your concern is the success of our interior design department, this initiative is helping rather than hurting, wouldn’t you say?”
Connor’s face had gone red, his mouth opening and closing like he was unsuccessful in forming counterarguments, and I squeezed my best friend’s knee under the table in congratulations.
“Should we move on to your next concern?” Eduardo asked, fighting off a smile.
“Fine. Our second concern is that the hiring practices are unnecessary and discriminatory. We believe in a meritocracy, and making us hire people based on their skin color won’t give us the best workforce.”
Now it was my turn to jump in. “Connor, have you reviewed any applicants since this initiative started?”
“No.”
“Like I mentioned when you expressed this concern back inFebruary, we are not forcing people to choose new employees based on their skin tone. We are trying to widen the pool so we see the best applicants and not just the ones referred to us or who stumble upon us online.”
“But targeting certain groups for recruitment is reverse racism.”
“How many times have you attended your alma mater’s recruitment fair?”
