Chương 7
Clara felt the words land.
Not because she believed them.
Because part of her had worried about the same thing.
Victoria saw it.
“There,” she said softly. “That part of you is still working.”
Clara folded her arms.
“Say what you came to say.”
Victoria opened her purse and removed an envelope.
She placed it on the table.
Clara did not touch it.
“What is that?”
“A settlement proposal.”
“For what?”
“You resign. You make a statement saying the contact between us was misinterpreted and that you were never afraid for Mrs. Moretti’s safety.”
Clara laughed.
Victoria’s face hardened.
“Read the number.”
“No.”
“It’s more than you make in six years.”
“No.”
“You haven’t looked.”
“I don’t need to.”
“Everyone needs to.”
Clara thought about her car.
The rent.
Her credit card.
The balance she still owed a community college after leaving a hospitality management program halfway through the second year because her father had needed help after surgery and then, somehow, one missed semester became three years.
She hated that Victoria was right about one thing.
Numbers mattered.
“How much?”
Victoria told her.
Clara’s stomach tightened.
For one second, she imagined it.
No debt.
A different apartment.
A working car.
Finishing school without calculating grocery prices in the aisle.
Victoria watched her carefully.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she said. “You reacted. I reacted. It got out of control.”
Clara looked at the envelope.
“You kicked her medicine across the floor.”
Victoria’s face went blank.
“It was a pill case.”
“It was hers.”
“She’s fine.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point?”
Clara looked up.
“You still don’t know.”
Victoria stood.
“You are going to lose this job when Lucas gets what he wants.”
“Maybe.”
“He doesn’t need you. He needed a symbol.”
That hurt because it was partly true.
Clara pushed the envelope back.
“Then I’ll try not to become yours.”
Victoria stared at her.
Clara opened the door.
Outside, both attorneys looked up.
Victoria spoke behind her.
“You think saying no makes you powerful?”
Clara turned.
“No.”
She glanced at the envelope.
“It just means no.”
That afternoon, Clara told Rebecca about the offer.
Rebecca wanted the envelope preserved.
Clara had left it on the table.
Rebecca closed her eyes.
“You left the written settlement proposal in a public sitting room?”
“It was her paper.”
“Clara.”
“What?”
“That’s evidence.”
“Nobody told me I was supposed to collect evidence from rich people.”
Rebecca stood.
They found the envelope gone.
For the first time all week, Clara saw Rebecca genuinely angry.
Not at Victoria.
At Clara.
“You cannot improvise around documents.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You ask.”
“I didn’t know I needed to ask.”
“That is the problem.”
Clara’s face heated.
“I am a maid you people put in the middle of a restructuring.”
Rebecca stopped.
The room went quiet.
Then she nodded.
“Yes.”
Clara had expected an argument.
Rebecca sat down.
“That was unfair.”
Clara leaned against the table.
“Which part?”
“Most of it.”
The settlement proposal reappeared two hours later when Victoria’s attorney sent an electronic copy to Rebecca as part of a formal offer.
Nothing had been lost.
Clara still felt stupid.
That night, she called her father.
She had avoided it for five days.
He answered on the third ring.
“You’re famous.”
“Hi, Dad.”
“I saw you on television.”
“I figured.”
“You grabbed that woman.”
“Yes.”
“You could’ve been arrested.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You could’ve been.”
“She was going to hit somebody.”
“That’s not what I said.”
Clara closed her eyes.
Her father had always loved her through criticism.
He worried in practical nouns: rent, tires, insurance, police, bosses.
“I know.”
“You still have the Corolla?”
“Yes.”
“Clicking noise?”
She sat up.
“How do you know about that?”
“You called me two weeks ago and started the car.”
“Oh.”
“CV joint maybe.”
“Can we not talk about the car?”
“We can. It’ll still be broken afterward.”
Clara smiled.
Then silence.
Her father cleared his throat.
“You did the right thing.”
She waited.
“But?”
“No but.”
That was harder to hear than criticism.
Clara looked out the apartment window.
A lawn sprinkler ticked across the courtyard.
“I reported Patrice.”
Her father did not know Patrice, but he knew the tone.
“Friend?”
“Boss.”
“Did she do something?”
“Yes.”
“Then why you sound guilty?”
“Because I understand why.”
“Understanding isn’t permission.”
Clara rubbed her forehead.
“You practicing speeches?”
“No. I’m watching baseball.”
She laughed.
“Your team losing?”
“Badly.”
Another silence.
“You going back to school?”
“What?”
“Hotel management.”
“Why are we talking about this?”
“Because I asked.”
“I don’t know.”
“You liked it.”
“I couldn’t afford it.”
“You couldn’t afford it then.”
“That’s still how money works.”
“Sometimes.”
She heard the television announcer in the background.
Her father said, “Don’t let rich people make you feel like money isn’t real. They’re the ones who know it’s real.”
Clara sat with that after they hung up.
On Friday, Daniel Cho asked to meet privately.
He chose an empty conference room on the fifth floor and checked the door twice.
Clara noticed his hands.
They shook more than Margaret’s had.
“I heard you’re collecting concerns.”
“I’m listening to employees.”
“I’m an employee.”
Technically, perhaps.
Clara sat.
Daniel remained standing.
“What do you want to tell me?”
He looked toward the door.
“Nothing.”
Clara waited.
“I just wanted to know what people are saying.”
“About what?”
“Finance.”
“I don’t discuss names.”
“Are people blaming me?”
“Some.”
His face tightened.
“Of course.”
“Should they?”
He stared at her.
Clara regretted the bluntness.
Then Daniel laughed once.
“That’s the first honest question anyone has asked me.”
He sat.
For several seconds he picked at the edge of his phone case.
“I signed the certification.”
Clara knew enough by now to understand which certification.
“The one Moretti says was wrong.”
“Yes.”
“Was it?”
Daniel’s eyes remained on the phone.
“The numbers were accurate when isolated.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
May you like
“It means accountants learn how to say things that keep them employed.”
“That sounds bad.”
