Unsuitable (7 page)

“And
you won’t run away to do something for one of the girls?”

He
deserved that doubt. That’s what he’d done last weekend. Answered his phone to
a tearful Flip and gone home to sort out the broken window before Charlie got
back from a shopping trip with Etta.

“Flip
can bust the front door off its hinges and Neeva can set the house on fire and
I promise I won’t dump on you.”

Sky
was adamant his family used him. The Minh family were so different. Sky’s parents
were divorced. Her mother had moved to Paris. Her father ran an import business
and spent his time travelling between Vietnam and Sydney. She was close to her
brother David, but he was older so she had no family responsibilities. She
thought the girls were noisy, selfish and demanding. They were, but he loved
them for it. Sky tolerated them well in small doses, while they idolised her,
especially Etta.

“You
better not. It will be bad enough if you get this job. She’s young and
attractive.”

He
swept his hand down Sky’s hair, loose, thick and glossy, it fell to her waist. Audrey
was attractive. Even with drool stains on her shirt and something orange and
sticky in her hair, squinting in the sunlight. Thinking about it, she was,
maybe five, ten years older than he was, but she was classically beautiful,
he’d noticed it the moment he saw her and dubbed her Ms Bates.

“Audrey
isn’t interested in me. The whole being me physically is a turn-off for her. It’s
the reason I won’t get the job.”

Sky
kissed his throat. “I’m sorry about that, baby. Doesn’t seem fair.”

“No
fair you’re so beautiful and no one else gets to have you but me.”

“Sweet
talker. There’ll be other jobs come up, but you know I think this is the
universe telling you something.”

“The
universe, that’s heavy.”

“You
should be aiming higher. You know I think that.”

“So
this is you, not so much the universe.”

She
smiled. “You’re nearly thirty. Time to stop mucking around. Time to stop
dreaming.”

He
frowned and dropped his hands. She could add to that. Time to stop your family
running you around. Time to move in with me and get serious. Time to show some
ambition. Time to grow up.

He’d
heard variations of those themes from her over the last six months in
particular. And she was probably right. In comparison, he was a loser. Sky
owned her flat, it had a hefty mortgage, but she managed it alone. She drove a
new Peugeot. She had a great job and pulled the kind of salary he could only
dream about. She was fun to be with, stop a room sexy and scary smart. Plus she
loved him.

He
was proud of her. He had long-term designs on her that involved half a wardrobe,
a cupboard in her kitchen and a fight over who got the car space.

Didn’t
stop him resenting her.

“This
is my dream, remember.”

She
sighed. “Baby, it’s not enough for you. You can do better.”

“Teaching
in a classroom. Roofing for the Pollidores. I could earn more, but it’s not
what I want.”

“It’s
not about the money. I earn enough for both of us. It’s about you building a
career you can be happy in. Are you going to want to be a nanny when you turn
thirty, when you turn forty? When you’re a dad yourself?”

He
could barely think about what he’d be doing in a month, let alone a decade. “Jesus,
Sky. Do we have to do this now?”

She
pouted and he usually liked to kiss the sulk off her plump lips. “Would you
rather we talk about how I don’t like the idea of you sleeping in that woman’s
house.”

“I’d
be sleeping there when she wasn’t.”

“I
get that. I still don’t like it.”

He
tapped her nose with the tip of his finger and she blinked. “Are you jealous of
a woman who’s ten years older than me?”

“No.
I trust you.”

“Then
why raise it?”

She
pouted. “You won’t move in.”

“You
are jealous.”

“No,
I’m lonely.” Sky twisted to get out of his arms.

He
sighed. He wasn’t going to get to have Mia and Audrey in his life. He had a
standing offer of his old room at Polly’s, but that’d put an end to Polly’s
playroom with its enormous TV and multiple games consoles, and he did love Sky,
so it wasn’t that complicated, but there was no way he was leaving his restored
Monaro on the street.

“About
your parking spot.”

She
stilled, then threw her arms around his neck and squealed in his ear. Easy as
that, he had a new bedroom and back home the territory war was about to begin.

8:       Failure
to Win

Chris
had her locked and loaded. He gave Audrey his patented what’s going on look, a
combo of lowered chin, right head tilt and raised eyebrows. There was no way
she was leaving the team meeting without an explanation, or the not so casual disinterest
of her colleagues who knew the look and were grateful not to be its recipient.

“Incoming,”
muttered Les, collecting her job folders to leave.

Audrey
turned her face towards Les and hissed, “Don’t go. I’ve no idea what he wants
and he won’t get stuck into me in front of you.”

Les
started shuffling through a folder, trying to legitimise hanging around. “The
things I do for you,” she said, two seconds before Chris aimed and fired.

“Audrey,
a word.”

She
smiled at him, then checked her watch. She had nowhere specific to be for the
next hour except making that one phone call, but he didn’t know that.

“I
won’t keep you long.” He came across the room and stood in front of her. “You
don’t look happy.”

“Oh.”
She flicked a confused glance to Les. Chris was your basic no-nonsense,
tailor-made grey suit, blue tie, chief operating officer of a construction
company. He met with the team of project directors and managers once a month to
assess the company’s position on their infrastructure development programs. He
did action plans and deliverables, profit margins and secured pipelines. He
didn’t do emotions or mental states.

Chris
was her boss when Audrey was the most senior manager in the team and the only
female. Now his desk was on the executive floor and Audrey was still the most
senior project manager. When she returned from maternity leave, Chris had
promoted two other managers to director and Audrey now reported to her
colleague, Jonathan, who’d started at the firm after she did and had less
industry experience. It’d sucked then and it hadn’t gotten any easier to live
with.

“I’m
happy.” It seemed the smartest thing to say, without knowing the agenda.

“Les,
can I have Audrey to myself for a moment?”

“Of
course. I’ll see you in your office to go over clause twenty-two,” Les said, on
her way out.

Chris
watched Les go. Audrey had spent a long time angry with him, but he was
fundamentally a good guy, talented, deserving of his success, a strong leader. He
simply believed that in the infrastructure construction business, men made
better directors.

As
soon as the door clicked closed he said, “If you’re not happy you can talk to
me.”

“I’m
happy.”

“You’re
doing that thing where you make your mouth tense.”

“I
do a thing where I make my mouth tense?” She put her index finger to her lips
and felt silly for letting him get to her.

“You
didn’t know that?”

Her
lips felt perfectly normal, if a little dry. “No, I didn’t know that.”

“It’s
your tell. Good thing you don’t play poker.”

He
could talk about tells. She dropped her hand to her side. “Am I in trouble? I
feel like I’m in trouble. Everyone is going to think I’m in trouble.” Les would
be having kittens.

Chris
buttoned his suit coat. “You’re not in trouble. Is clause twenty-two the same
as wait five and follow?”

“Kind
of. You don’t exactly fraternise with manager plebs unless they’re in trouble.”

He
wiped a hand over his face. “I know.” He unbuttoned his suit coat. He fidgeted.
It was such un-Chris-like behaviour it was unnerving. “There are a lot of
things I don’t get to do. But I want you to know if you’re unhappy you can talk
to me. I don’t want to lose you.”

Audrey
tried to stop her mouth doing anything to give her thoughts away. If he didn’t
want to lose her he could’ve promoted her three years ago. She didn’t have to
wait for a spot to open. Her portfolio of projects was weighty enough to
sustain a director position.

“I’m
fine. I promise. I still have a voodoo doll of you, which I periodically stab
more pins in. If you’ve been having random crippling knee pain, that’d be me.”

Chris’
nose wrinkled. Another of his tells. He was amused. “Some back pain. I thought
it was from too much sitting, but if that’s you too, I’d appreciate it if you
could move that pin a little to the left.”

“So
I’m not in trouble?”

“Not
from me. I don’t mean to pry, but you looked worried from the time you entered
the room, Audrey. And you’re doing that thing with your lips again.”

She
sucked her lips into her mouth so they weren’t doing anything other than
mashing her non-existent lipstick against her teeth. The problem wasn’t the lack
of a promotion in three years, it was the four hours. Four whole hours since
she’d left Mia alone with New Cameron for the very first time.

There
was the first hour when it was simply too lunatic to call and check-in and the
three hours she’d been in this room where she couldn’t make contact without
excusing herself from the meeting and making a thing of it. She could tell
Chris that, but then she was simply reinforcing his view she was a mother
before she was an employee and if there was ever a possibility of promotion it
was about as real as the voodoo doll.

She
made a show of twisting her lips this way and that until surely he’d think she
was demented. “I’m good.”

“All
right. Look, I.” He broke eye contact. “I want you to know how much I value
your work.”

He
looked so uncomfortable off spreadsheet, in the touchy feely world, she almost
laughed at him. It twitched on her lunatic lips to ask him to put a dollar value
on that value, call it a promotion and add an additional clump of money to her
salary packet. But that’s not the way it worked. You didn’t go over your own
boss’ head to ask the company COO for a promotion because he was once your
boss. Even if your boss was a moron who was on a twelve month sabbatical
mountain climbing to find himself, and you were in reporting limbo.

There
was a process. It protected both of them from claims of nepotism. And the last
thing she needed was other people thinking she’d only gotten promoted because
of her prior association with Chris. And since he was divorced, and she was a
single mother, prior association gossip could be a career limiting move for
her. He’d probably be regarded as a hero. So she thanked him, with a minimum of
annoyance in her tone, jammed her back teeth together, collected her gear and
turned to open the door for them.

“What
I want to say is I’m sorry.”

She
spun to face him. Her lips were likely wobbling all over her face, telling him
how surprising she found this.

“You
haven’t received the advances you deserved.”

That
was true, but the open acknowledgement was a shock and a problem. Her failure
to win a promotion on three separate occasions, once pre Mia and twice after, had
always been couched in language that made it plain she was lacking in the
killer instinct directors needed. This is the first official hint she’d heard
of having been robbed.

Officially,
she’d been told she was overly consultative and too easily influenced. That she
was a poor negotiator because she was too emphatic and needed to make more
commercially robust decisions. In real terms that meant she was measured where
the other directors were loud and forthright, and she favoured consensus over
beating suppliers into submission. The fact that her projects always came in on
or under budget and on time where others failed regularly on those statistics
was somehow irrelevant. What wasn’t irrelevant when it shouldn’t have been, for
a company that prided itself on equal opportunity, was sex and parenthood.

To
be truly successful in this environment she’d gotten both of them wrong by
having a uterus, a vagina and baby.

As
if those body parts, and being a mother, had anything to do with her ability to
wrangle a multi-million dollar infrastructure project into submission, and oversee
the financing and the construction of roads and schools, factories, retail
complexes, and whole new suburbs.

Except
for some reason they did. For some reason her non-uterus, non-vagina bearing
colleagues, even the divorced dads, did it better.

And
that, for some inexplicable reason was behind Chris’ un-Chris-like behaviour. He
smoothed his tie, put his hand in his pocket and took it out again, and she
made the strategic decision not to rescue him. She should’ve been sticking
rusty disease carrying pins in the voodoo doll.

“I’m
sorry you’ve not received the rewards you’ve worked for.” He waited for her to
speak and when she didn’t he coughed into his hand. She’d seen him present
faultlessly in front of shareholders and media about controversial investment
issues, but alone with her in the conference room, he was rattled. It was time
to exercise her negotiation skills.

“That
acknowledgement is less important to me than what we might do about it.” She
chose to use ‘we’ specifically to show she’d continue to play ball in this
maddening game where the rules were written in favour of people who shaved
their faces each day and peed standing up.

“We,
ah. We. I’d like to see you promoted as soon as possible.”

That
was vague and lacked specificity. It’d never make it into any contract Audrey
negotiated. “Could we put a date on that?” Without a date, it was nothing more
than steam.

“I,
er, that’s between you and Jonathan.”

Technically
Chris was right, it was between her and her direct boss, Jonathan, but Jonathan
was currently terrorising Sherpa, which might be the reason Chris had chosen to
do this now.

“So
if I was to mention to Jonathan, if he ever checks in, that you and I had this
discussion and you’d like to see me promoted to director, he’d be on board with
that? Would you say he’d be willing to promote me before the end of the year?”

Chris
frowned. “I’m not second-guessing Jonathan and I’m not making any promises. I only
wanted to acknowledge your contribution.”

Distinct
back-peddling, earn a jagged pin through the eye. “Why now? I’ve been passed
over for director three times.”

“Look,
Audrey.” Chris put a hand to his hair, then pulled on his tie, fidget, fidget. “Perhaps
I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I didn’t know you were going to make an issue of
it.”

“An
issue.” A pin to the lung. Twist. How’s that for an issue.

“I
was trying to be nice.”

“Nice.”
A word that rhymed with ice that matched the way she cut the air with scorn. “Aren’t
you the one who told me there was no room for nice in business? Isn’t being too
nice the reason I haven’t been promoted?”

“Well,
if it was—”

“Don’t
joke about this. You don’t have a single female director, it took five years to
get a second female manager, and you don’t think that’s a problem?”

His
hands stilled. He lowered his chin. Another tell. If he’d been distracted
before, he was refocused now. “I think having the right people for the job is
the issue.”

“Even
if that means discrimination?”

“I
see I shouldn’t have spoken.”

Blunt
needle to the heart. “No, actually you should’ve spoken sooner, try three years
ago when I returned from maternity leave and got passed over because I was too
nice and maybe because I had a baby, and that meant I’d lost brain cells.”

“I
can see you’re angry.”

“And
I can see your dealing with difficult people skills showing.”

Chris’
chin jerked up. Oh, she’d gone too far. Pricked his conscience. Or maybe not
far enough, because his heart seemed to be doing just fine while hers was
running a marathon and treating it like a sprint.

“Did
you expect me not to be angry? I’m currently holding the fort for Jonathan as
well as doing my own job. Last week I had to brief a director on how to
approach a public private partnership. He’s paid more than me. Not just
incrementally, significantly more, and he’s eligible for a bonus and I’m not. And
you think I should take all that calmly. I had no option but to take it calmly when
I came back from leave, and then when it’s presented as a failure on my part to
have the right skills, all I can do is work harder. But you just admitted it wasn’t
about that.”

“No,
Audrey, I didn’t and getting upset isn’t going to help.”

If
voodoo dolls had toenails, under them, is where she’d stick pins. “If a woman
gets upset, she’s hysterical and irrational. If a man gets upset, he’s
justifiably angry. Why is it okay to slam doors and shout at assistants, but
not to cry? And woe betide a woman who slams doors—what a bitch. I’ve never
understood why women are supposed to be likeable, but a man can be a right
bastard.” She took a breath. Chris was stony faced. “Don’t worry, I won’t break
any furniture or burst into inconvenient tears. I won’t abuse my assistant or throw
my phone against a wall.”

Chris
moved to the door and opened it. He was over this, signalling his intention to
leave the conversation and suggesting strongly she shut up.