Page 98 of Cuts like a Knife
“Oh, hello. Looking for someone?” She didn’t seem concerned to see me.
“Um, my sister? Diana Madison?” My voice was strange. Why was I doing up-talk? I sounded like a f—ing moron.
The blonde woman was pristinely put together in black slacks and a cream silk blouse. I could see a hint of red on the soles of her shoes305. Not that I’m impressed by such thing. Conspicuous consumption is gross, but she looked good. Impressive.
“Which one are you? Claire?”
“Um, no. Lex. Alexis,” I say.
“Ah, one of the wacky twins. I’m Eve Wolf. Di’s not here. Why not text her?”
“I don’t know. I don’t have my phone. I … they took it. I got fired.”
“Did you? When? Just now?”
I nodded.
“Come into my office.”
She ushered me inside and gestured for me to sit. I did.
Eve Wolf moved to other side of her desk. I felt like I was half-asleep, moving along in a sort of dream.
“So what was your job, Lex? Where did you work?”
“Flash. Um, the magazine? Newspaper? Whatever it is.”
She nods. “I know it. And they fired you? Tonight? Why?”
“I f—ed up. I don’t know… I—” my voice caught in my throat and suddenly I was crying. Not polite, quiet, respectable tears, either — full streams. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize,” Eve Wolf said mildly. “Here.” She pushed a tissue box over to me from across the desk. “Get it out and then we’ll talk. You can tell me the whole story. From the beginning.” She pulled out a yellow legal pad and a pen and waited, as if she intended to take notes.
As my tears subsided, it all came tumbling out — the whole story, from being recruited, to being surprised to be at a commuter daily instead of a proper magazine, to being shocked at what the job entailed. I told her everything. I told her what an a—hole Rian was, how he seemed to hate me, how Adele tried to steal my ideas, but still felt like a friend, and about Kelsang, who I thought really was one. And I told her about how I accidentally plagiarized from Sentinel, and how I apologized, and how they siloed me away in the conference room all day before showing up with my termination papers and escorting me out.
“And that’s the whole story up to about an hour ago,” I ended, sniffling. “Then I came here. Now I’m here.”
“Okay.” Eve Wolf leaned back in her chair, her fingers in a steeple under her chin. “So. Can I give you some honest legal advice?”
I nodded.
“Legally speaking, you made two pretty significant mistakes.”
“Like plagiarizing. I know,” I say.
“I don’t give a shit about that, actually. If Alan Segal wants to come after you for that, he can make his claim in court, but he’ll have to prove it and he hasn’t done that, so as of right now there is no plagiarism. Not under the law, if you see what I’m saying. Besides, it sounds like a completely honest mistake. No, the first mistake you made was in apologizing by email before talking to anybody. Flash would have wanted to coordinate their response. So that was a bit of a f— up on your part.
“Don’t misunderstand me, I get why you did it and it’s laudable, but from a legal perspective, it was a mistake, unfortunately. And the second error you made was in signing your exit papers. Do you even have a copy of them?”
I shook my head.
“That’s what I thought. Again, I understand why you did it. To just sign them and get out of there with your head held high was a good move in a lot of ways, but it complicates things if you are hoping to fight them to get your job back. Is that what you want?”
“I don’t even know what I want,” I admitted. “I feel like I’m in shock.”
“That’s understandable. You have been wronged. And there is still a case to be made for wrongful dismissal. Do you think. That’s something you’d want to pursue?”
“I don’t know. I can’t … It doesn’t seem real.”
