At five thirty I hear Gianna’s phone ring, and ten minutes later she walks gingerly out of her office, coming to stand in front of my desk. The interns are gone. It’s just her and me in the office.
My insides are iced over. My stomach plummets.
“Guess what project we didn’t get,” she says. Her tone is soft. Gentle. To her credit, not a trace of I Told You So. “And guess what other firm they decided to go with.”
I close my eyes. I cannot believe this. I don’t want to believe this.
“The Milton people said they got another pitch today. Similar sustainability. Lower costs, though, since it’s a bigger firm. They asked me if I could match their offer, and I told them I couldn’t.”
My eyes stay closed. I don’t open them for a long, long time. Everything is spinning. I’m just trying to stay still. “I . . . I fucked up,” I say, barely a whisper. I’m crying. Of course I’m crying. I’m fucking stupid and my fucking heart is broken and of fucking course I’m fucking crying.
“You couldn’t have known, Sadie.”
The copy machine beeps again, six times in a row. I nod at Gianna, watch her walk away, and think about broken things, broken things that sometimes cannot be fixed.
Eleven
Present
I rack my brain, trying to remember whether during our dinner Erik ever mentioned taking acting classes. I want to say no, and let’s be honest, it would seem a tiny bit out of character. And yet, if I didn’t know what he did, I could almost buy it. I could almost believe, from the way he’s blinking confusedly at me, that he has no idea what I’m talking about.
Nice try.
“Come on, Erik.”
His brow furrows. He’s still crouching in front of me. “What clients?”
“You can drop it.”
“What clients?”
“We both know that—”
“What. Clients.”
I press my lips together. “Milton.”
He shakes his head, like the name tells him nothing. If I had a knife handy I’d probably stab him. Through the muscles, right into his heart. “The rec center in New Jersey.”
It takes a second, but I can see a glimmer of recognition. “The pitch? The one you were at Faye’s for?”
“Yup.”
“You signed that client, didn’t you?”
I clench my jaw. Hard. “Fuck you, Erik.”
He huffs impatiently. “Sadie, I’m really lost here, so if you don’t give me a little context—”
“I almost signed that client. However, when they got a pitch that was almost identical to mine, they decided to go with ProBld. Ring a bell?”
It doesn’t. Well, I am positive it must. But the acting talent is making a sudden comeback, and Erik really does look like he’s completely, utterly confused. His eyes narrow, and I can almost see him try to sift through his memories.
I sigh. “This is . . . just really exhausting, Erik. Gianna told me everything. I know that ProBld tried to buy GreenFrame. I don’t know if you went out with me planning to hurt the company, or you took the opportunity once you were presented with it, but I do know that you used what I told you at dinner to give a pitch very similar to mine, because the client—your client—admitted it to us.”
“I didn’t.”
“Right. Sure.”
“I really didn’t.”
“Of course.” I roll my eyes.
“No, I’m serious. Are you telling me that the reason you stopped talking to me is that we coincidentally ended up getting one of your clients?”
“Two pitches that similar are not a coincidence—”
“They must be. I didn’t even know we had that client until right now.”
“How could you not know what projects are going in the firm you own?”
“Because I am not a junior employee.” I can tell from his tone that he’s starting to get frustrated with me. Which is fine because I’ve been frustrated with him for weeks. “I have a leadership position and manage people who manage people who manage more people. We’re not GreenFrame, Sadie. I oversee different teams and spend my days in pretty fucking boring meetings with patent attorneys and surveyors and quality assurance managers. Unless it’s a high-priority deal or an extremely lucrative project, I might not even be debriefed until it’s well on its way. My job is making big-picture decisions and giving guidelines so that—”
He stops and physically recoils. One second he’s leaning toward me, the next his back is straight and he’s pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. He stays like that for long seconds, eyes closed, and then explodes in a low, heartfelt:
“Fuck.”
It’s my turn to be confused. “What?”
“Fuck.”
“What . . . Why are you doing that?”
He looks at me, not one ounce of his previous exasperation in his expression. “You’re right.”
“About?”
“It was me. It was my fault you didn’t get the client. But not for the reason you think.”
“What?”
“The day after we . . .” He runs a tired hand down his face. “That morning I had a meeting with one of the engineering managers I supervise. He told me that he was refining a pitch for a project that had specifically asked for sustainability features. He didn’t go into detail and I didn’t ask, but since it’s not our forte he wanted to know if I had any resources. I sent him an academic article.” His throat bobs. “It was the one you wrote.”
I’m dizzy. I’m sitting down, but I think I might fall over. “My article? My peer-reviewed article on frameworks for sustainable engineering?”
He nods slowly. Helplessly. “I also sent your thesis out in a company-wide email and highly encouraged all team leaders to read it. Though that was a few days later, after I’d read it myself.”
“My thesis?” I must have misheard him. Surely I’m in the thick of a cerebrovascular event. “My doctoral dissertation?”
He nods, looking apologetic. I . . . I don’t think I’m even mad anymore. Or maybe I am, but it’s diluted in the total, utter shock of hearing that . . . “How did you get my thesis? And my article?”
“The article was on Google Scholar. For the thesis . . .” He presses his lips together. “I had a librarian from Caltech send me a download link.”
“You had a librarian send you a download link,” I repeat slowly. I’m inhabiting a parallel dimension. Where atoms are made of chaos. “When?”
“The morning after. When I got to my office.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to read it.”
“But . . . why?”
He looks at me like I’m a bit slow. “Because you wrote it.”
Maybe I am a bit slow. “So you were trying to . . . figure out GreenFrame’s pitch based on my published work?”
“No.” His tone drops some of the guilt and is back to three parts firm, one part indignant. “I wanted to read what you wrote because I’m interested in the topic, because at dinner it was very obvious that you’re a better engineer than most people at ProBld—including myself—and because about five minutes into my workday I realized that if I wasn’t going to stop thinking about you, I might as well be productive about it. And as I read, I realized that your work is above good, and sharing it with everyone else seemed like a no-brainer. I didn’t think that I was handing your pitch to my entire company, and . . . Fuck. I just didn’t think.” He rubs the back of his hand against his mouth. “It was my fault. It wasn’t on purpose, but I take full responsibility. I’m going to talk with my engineering manager and with the client and . . . I’ll figure this out. We’ll find you a way to make sure you get the credit you deserve.”