Disclosure: A Novel (19 page)

He was not sure what he had expected to hear from Louise Fernandez, but it was certainly not a detailed account of the possibility of his being fired, mortgaging his house, and never working again.

Sanders felt overwhelmed by the sudden turn that his life had taken, and by a realization of the precariousness of his existence. Two days ago, he was an established executive with a stable position and a promising future. Now he faced disgrace, humiliation, loss of his job. All sense of security had vanished.

He thought of all the questions Fernandez had asked him-questions that had never occurred to him before. Why hadn't he told anyone. Why hadn't he made notes. Why hadn't he told Meredith explicitly that her advances were unwelcome. Fernandez operated in a world of rules and distinctions that he did not understand, that had never crossed his mind. And now those distinctions turned out to be vitally important.

Your situation is not good, Mr. Sanders.

And yet . . . how could he have prevented this? What should he have done instead? He considered the possibilities.

Suppose he had called Blackburn right after the meeting with Meredith, and had told him in detail that Meredith had harassed him. He could have called from the ferry, lodged his complaint before she lodged hers. Would it have made a difference? What would Blackburn have done?

He shook his head, thinking about it. It seemed unlikely that anything would make a difference. Because in the end, Meredith was tied in to the power structure of the company in a way that Sanders was not. Meredith was a corporate player; she had power, allies. That was the message the final message-of this situation. Sanders didn't count. He was just a technical guy, a cog in the corporate wheels. His job was to get along with his new boss, and he had failed to do that. Whatever he did now was just whining. Or worse: ratting on the boss. Whistleblowing. And nobody liked a whistle-blower.

So what could he have done?

As he thought about it, he realized that he couldn't have called Blackburn right after the meeting because his cellular phone had gone dead, its power drained.

He had a sudden image of a car-a man and a woman in a car, driving to a party.

Somebody had told him something once . . . a story about some people in a car.

It teased him. He couldn't quite get it.

There were plenty of reasons why the phone might be dead. The most likely explanation was nicad memory. The new phones used rechargeable nickel-cadmium batteries, and if they didn't completely discharge between uses, the batteries could reset themselves at a shorter duration. You never knew when it was going to show up. Sanders had had to throw out batteries before because they developed a short memory.

He took out his phone, turned it on. It glowed brightly. The battery was holding up fine today.

But there was something . . .

Driving in a car.

Something he wasn't thinking about.

Going to a party.

He frowned. He couldn't get it. It hung at the back of his memory, too dim to recover.

But it started him thinking: what else wasn't he getting? Because as he considered the whole situation, he began to have the nagging sense that there was something else that he was overlooking. And he had the feeling that Fernandez had overlooked it, too.

Something hadn't come up in her questions to him. Something that everybody was taking for granted, even though-Meredith.

Something about Meredith.

She had accused him of harassment. She had gone to Blackburn and accused him the next morning. Why would she do that? No doubt she felt guilty about what had happened at the meeting. And perhaps she was afraid Sanders would accuse her, so she decided to accuse him first. Her accusation was understandable in that light.

But if Meredith really had power, it didn't make sense to raise the sexual issue at all. She could just as easily have gone to Blackburn and said, Listen, it isn't working out with Tom. I can't deal with him. We have to make a change. And Blackburn would have done it.

Instead, she had accused him of harassment. And that must have been embarrassing to her. Because harassment implied a loss of control. It meant that she had not been able to control her subordinate in a meeting. Even if something unpleasant did happen, a boss would never mention it.

Harassment is about power.

It was one thing if you were a lowly female assistant fondled by a stronger, powerful man.

But in this case Meredith was the boss. She had all the power. Why would she claim harassment by Sanders? Because the fact was, subordinates didn't harass their bosses. It just didn't happen. You'd have to be crazy to harass your boss.

Harassment is about power-the undue exercise of power by a superior over a subordinate.

For her to claim sexual harassment was, in an odd way, to admit that she was subordinate to Sanders. And she would never do that. Quite the contrary: Meredith was new to her job, eager to prove that she was in control of the situation. So her accusation made no sense-unless she was using it as a convenient way to destroy him. Sexual harassment had the advantage of being a charge that was difficult to recover from. You were presumed guilty until proven innocent-and it was hard to prove innocence. It tarnished any man, no matter how frivolous the accusation. In that sense, harassment was a very powerful accusation.

The most powerful accusation she could make.

But then, she said that she wasn't going to press charges. And the question was Why not?

Sanders stopped on the street.

That was it.

She assured me, she's not going to press charges.

Why wasn't Meredith going to press charges?

At the time that Blackburn said that, Sanders had never questioned it. Louise Fernandez had never questioned it. But the fact was, Meredith's refusal to press charges made no sense at all. She had already accused him. Why not press it? Why not carry it to its conclusion?

Maybe Blackburn had talked her out of it. Blackburn was always so concerned about appearances.

But Sanders didn't think that was what had happened. Because a formal accusation could still be handled quietly. It could be processed inside the company.

And from Meredith's standpoint, there were real advantages to a formal accusation.

Sanders was popular at DigiCom. He had been with the company a long time. If her goal was to get rid of him, to banish him to Texas, why not defuse the inevitable corporate grumbling by letting the accusation work its way through the company grapevine? Why not make it official?

The more Sanders thought about it, the more it seemed that there was only one explanation: Meredith wasn't going to press charges because she couldn't.

She couldn't, because she had some other problem.

Some other consideration.

Something else was going on.

We can handle it quietly.

Slowly, Sanders began to see everything differently. In the meeting earlier that day, Blackburn hadn't been ignoring him or slighting him. Not at all: Blackburn was scrambling.

Blackburn was scared.

We can handle it quietly. It's best for everyone.

What did he mean, best for everyone?

What problem did Meredith have?

What problem could she have?

The more Sanders thought about it, the more it seemed that there could be only one possible reason why she wasn't pressing charges against him.

He took out his phone, called United Airlines, and booked three round-trip tickets to Phoenix.

And then he called his wife.

Ygoddamn son of a bitch," Susan said.

They were sitting in a corner table at 11 Terrazzo. It was two o'clock; the restaurant was nearly deserted. Susan had listened to him for half an hour, without interruption or comment. He told her everything that had happened in his meeting with Meredith, and everything that had happened that morning. The Conley-White meeting. The conversation with Phil. The conversation with Fernandez. Now he had finished. She stared at him.

"I could really learn to despise you, you know that? You son of a bitch, why didn't you tell me she was your ex-girlfriend?"

"I don't know," he said. "I didn't want to go into it."

"You didn't want to go into it? Adele and Mary Anne are talking to me on the phone all day, and they know, but I don't? It's humiliating, Tom."

"Well," he said, "you know you've been upset a lot lately, and-"

"Cut the crap, Tom," she said. "This has nothing to do with me. You didn't tell me because you didn't want to."

"Susan, that's not-"

"Yes it is, Tom. I was asking you about her, last night. You could have told me if you wanted to. But you didn't." She shook her head. "Son of a bitch. I can't believe what an asshole you are. You've made a real mess of this. Do you realize what a mess this is?"

"Yes," he said, hanging his head.

"Don't act contrite with me, you asshole."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"You're sorry? Fuck you, you're sorry. Jesus Christ. I can't believe you. What an asshole.

You spent the night with your goddamned girlfriend."

"I didn't spend the night. And she's not my girlfriend."

"What do you mean? She was your big heartthrob."

"She wasn't my `big heartthrob.' "

"Oh yeah? Then why wouldn't you tell me?" She shook her head. `Just answer one question. Did you fuck her or not?"

"No. I didn't."

She stared at him intently, stirring her coffee. "You're telling me the truth?"

"Yes."

"Nothing left out? No inconvenient parts skipped?"

"No. Nothing."

"Then why would she accuse you?"

"What do you mean?" he said.

"I mean, there must be a reason she accused you. You must have done something."

"Well, I didn't. I turned her down."

"Uh-huh. Sure." She frowned at him. "You know, this is not just about you, Tom. This involves your whole family: me and the kids."

"I understand that."

"Why didn't you tell me? If you told me last night, I could have helped you."

"Then help me now."

"Well, there isn't much we can do now," Susan said, with heavy sarcasm. "Not after she's gone to Blackburn and made an accusation first. Now you're finished."

"I'm not so sure."

"Trust me, you haven't got a move," she said. "If you go to trial, it'll be living hell for at least three years, and I personally don't think you can win. You're a man bringing a charge of harassment against a woman. They'll laugh you out of court."

"Maybe."

"Trust me, they will. So you can't go to trial. What can you do? Move to Austin. Jesus."

"I keep thinking," Sanders said. "She accused me of harassment, but now she isn't pressing charges. And I keep thinking, Why isn't she pressing charges?"

"Who cares?" Susan said, with an irritable wave of the hand. "It could be any of a million reasons. Corporate politics. Or Phil talked her out of it. Or Garvin. It doesn't matter why.

Tom, face the facts: you have no move. Not now, you stupid son of a bitch."

"Susan, will you settle down?"

"Fuck you, Tom. You're dishonest and irresponsible."

"Susan-"

"We've been married five years. I deserve better than this."

"Will you take it easy? I'm trying to tell you: I think I do have a move."

"Tom. You don't."

"I think I do. Because this is a very dangerous situation," Sanders said. "It's dangerous for everybody."

"What does that mean?"

"Let's assume that Louise Fernandez told me the truth about my lawsuit."

"She did. She's a good lawyer."

"But she wasn't looking at it from the company's standpoint. She was looking at it from the plaintiffs standpoint."

"Yeah, well, you're a plaintiff."

"No, I'm not," he said. "I'm a potential plaintiff."

There was a moment of silence.

Susan stared at him. Her eyes scanned his face. She frowned. He watched her put it together. "You're kidding."

“No.”

"You must be out of your mind."

"No. Look at the situation. DigiCom's in the middle of a merger with a very conservative East Coast company. A company that's already pulled out of one merger because an employee had a little bad publicity. Supposedly this employee used some rough language while firing a temp secretary, and then Conley-White pulled out. They're very skittish about publicity. Which means the last thing anybody at DigiCom wants is a sexual harassment suit against the new female vice president."

"Tom. Do you realize what you're saying?"

"Yes," he said.

"If you do this, they're going to go crazy. They're going to try to destroy you."

"I know."

"Have you talked to Max about this? Maybe you should."

"The hell with Max. He's a crazy old man."

"I'd ask him. Because this isn't really your thing, Tom. You were never a corporate infighter. I don't know if you can pull this off."

"I think I can."

"It'll be nasty. In a day or so, you're going to wish you had taken the Austin job."

"Fuck it."

"It'll get really mean, Tom. You'll lose your friends."

"Fuck it."

`Just so you're ready."

"I am." Sanders looked at his watch. "Susan, I want you to take the kids and visit your mother for a few days." Her mother lived in Phoenix. "If you go home now and pack, you can make the eight o'clock flight at Sea-Tac. I've booked three seats for you."

She stared at him, as if she were seeing a stranger. "You're really going to do this . . . ,"

she said slowly.

"Yes. I am."

"Oh boy." She bent over, picked up her purse from the floor, and pulled out her day organizer.

He said, "I don't want you or the kids to be involved. I don't want anybody pushing a news camera in their faces, Susan."

"Well, just a minute . . ." She ran her finger down her appointments. "I can move that . . .

And . . . conference call . . . Yes." She looked up. "Yes. I can leave for a few days." She glanced at her watch. "I guess I better hurry and pack."

He stood up and walked outside the restaurant with her. It was raining; the light on the street was gray and bleak. She looked up at him and kissed him on the cheek. "Good luck, Tom. Be careful."