Usually.
But, like … I can’t stop thinking about Alex and his dad.
I have concocted a million scenarios in my head and dissected every one of them, just like I do with numbers that don’t add up.
He’s from New York, he studied at Harvard, and then he moved to Seoul and spent three years working there.
His mother is not Robert Harrison’s wife. Robert Harrison’s wife is a white woman named Linda. Thanks to Google, I know they’ve been married for thirty years, and thanks to Instagram, I know Alex is only twenty-five.
But his father didn’t know he was home … because he wouldn’t take Alex’s calls. Wouldn’t even listen to Alex’s voicemails. Maybe that would make more sense if Alex hadn’t called him Dad. If Alex didn’t share his last name. But he did, and he does, and there’s something fishy going on here, and I simply cannot focus on month-end books right now because I’m desperate to find out what.
The ninety-eighth-floor break room is never without a baked good, and I head there now for some sugar fuel to get me through the rest of today. But when I arrive, someone has beaten me to the last slice of Benny’s no-nut chocolate chip banana bread.
Tracy Garcia: CFO.
Here’s the thing. If Tracy told me to commit a murder for her, I would ask in what manner she would prefer it to be done and also if she needs me to frame someone after.
Aggressive but true, and here’s why.
I was in a bad place when I interviewed for this job. My boyfriend didn’t understand why I was even bothering, since our plan was to move back to Nashville together. Frankly, I didn’t understand why I was bothering, when every other candidate was a dude from a northeastern Ivy. I passed the technical assessment with flying colors. But during the group interview—which was a mock roundtable discussion in front of a panel including the CFO—I choked. I spoke a grand total of six words the whole time.
Anyway. I wound up in the lady’s restroom crying, scolding myself for getting quiet, for ruining my chances, and that’s where Tracy found me. She breezed in, spotted me, and then froze, tilting her head.
“The girl who beat the test,” she said.
“Um. Sorry?” I mumbled.
“You beat our technical assessment. You know that thing is designed to be failed?”
I had not known that. “Sorry,” I said again.
Tracy laughed faintly. When she stepped forward, I straightened, clenching a mascara-stained paper towel in my fist. “Are you okay?” she asked, voice soft.
“Yeah,” I assured her, forcing a laugh. “I’m so sorry about this.”
“Stop apologizing. That’s three in a row.”
Another one was on the tip of my tongue. “Yes, ma’am,” I said instead.
We fell silent, Tracy studying me, me studying the floor.
“That was harsh. I just wanted you to know you have nothing to apologize for.”
I nodded, and Tracy sighed.
“Just because they’re saying words doesn’t mean they’re saying the right words. Okay?”
I nodded again.
“Why do you like finance, Casey?”
When I peeked up, she was leaning against the bathroom counter. Not in a hurry. I had no clue whether this was part of my interview. But I was sick of posturing, so I told her the truth.
“I think it’s because … math doesn’t lie. It always makes sense, always adds up. There’s a lot of stuff in life that makes me anxious. But this never has.”
“It makes you feel calm,” Tracy suggested, smiling softly. “Steady. I know that feeling. I know it well. You should tell what you just told me to Don during your one-on-one interview. He’s like us in that way, too.”
I have no idea if that conversation is what pushed me over the edge in getting this job or not. But the thing I’ll never forget—the thing that makes me willing to commit murder for Tracy Garcia—is because that day, for the first time in my life, I felt wholly, 100 percent known.
It’s empowering, to feel that connection to the CFO of a global mass media company. She’s stately. Otherworldly. Being near her is like bathing in feminism.
Her career history is mythic. Tracy climbed the ranks of New York City business slowly but surely, year after year, promotion after promotion, and three years ago, she was named the CFO of Little Cooper.
There are stories that float around about Tracy. Legendary stuff she’s done at all the companies she’s been with. There was the pay exposé at the investment firm she worked at in her thirties, the tech giant antitrust bill she spoke about in her forties （she’s heavily credited as the scale tipper in getting the bill passed）。 When she’s not doing her nine-to-five, she talks on panels, gives commencement addresses, and writes articles for Insider about how to be a woman of color in the workplace and not let it take a single thing from you.
Obviously, I am obsessed with her.
When she sees me enter the break room from her spot on the other side of the kitchen island, Tracy tilts her head at me. I can almost see the cogs of her mind working on a complicated problem.
“Can you do something for me, Casey?” she says at last.
Naturally, my response is a stuttered but passionate “A-anything.”
Tracy keeps watching me, as if calculating just how serious I am about anything （very）。 Her arms cross over her Eileen Fisher cardigan, and she raps dark purple fingernails against her opposite elbow. Between us, the toaster gives a soft pop as her slice of banana bread springs up from the heat.
“I’m told you’ve been working closely with Alex Harrison,” Tracy says. “Don assigned you to the Bite the Hand launch project. Correct?”
I nod but say nothing, unsure what else to add, so I just stand there quietly and let Tracy size me up. She comes closer, walking around to my side of the island. The click of her heels echoes on the marble floor.
“Something is … off,” she says at last. “Between the board of directors and the chief executives. We can’t agree on anything. I feel like I’m trying to corral unruly children.”
Instantly, what Alex told me about Dougie comes back: He’s got history with my father, if you must know.
I’m convinced Tracy can see the memory cross my mind; that’s how carefully she’s studying me.
“When Robert decided to step down as CEO,” Tracy says, “Dougie Dawson somehow got wind of it all the way from DC. He lobbied our board, proposed himself as Robert’s replacement, and got enough members to vote him in despite Robert himself claiming it was a terrible decision.”
That’s some major tea, I want to say but don’t. “Did you get to vote?” I ask.
Tracy shakes her head.
“Well, what did you think about Dougie?”
“I was indifferent at the time, but it’s been almost a year, and things haven’t smoothed over. Robert and Dougie spend so much time bickering, they’re oblivious to their own company struggling to stay afloat.”
I wince when she admits this. I’m perfectly aware of our company’s financial state, but hearing it from the CFO’s own mouth makes my stomach churn. To Tracy’s point, we haven’t hit an EBITDA target—the financial benchmark our entire bonus structure is based on—since my first quarter with LC, and that was a year and a half ago.