Claustrophobic Page 8

  It was going to be a long few weeks.

  When it rained, it poured, and on top of the shit storm sweeping through the office, snow fell on New York City. Any other day of the week, I might’ve delighted in the wintry wonderland. Unfortunately for me, the snow had started late, a glance out the window confirmed the roads were devoid of plows, and I gave it an hour before the weather made a mess of my commute.

  A minute after eleven, I bundled up, did my evening walk around the parts of the office I could reach, and confirmed no one else was around before arming the alarm system and leaving.

  I headed for the coffee shop down the street, indulged in something warm to drink, and called my mother.

  “Chloe? It’s not like you to call this time of night,” my mother answered. “What do you need?”

  I might’ve been offended if I hadn’t made a habit of only calling her when I needed something. “Are you still entertaining offers of temporary couch surfers? I may come couch surf for a while, should you be entertaining offers of temporary couch surfers.”

  “You want to move in. With me.”

  Hmm. Maybe I needed to make a point of calling my mother more often. “Well, the other receptionist at work sent me a selfie, and her eye is a swollen mess. An ‘altercation’ with one of the attorneys. She quit. The monitor was in literal pieces, and I spent an hour cleaning up glass shards. I didn’t even know monitors were made with actual glass, but apparently, some are. That one was, at least. Now they want me to cover her shift and mine. That doesn’t seem too healthy, but hiring prospects this time of year are complete shit. I thought I’d rent a storage unit, grab the necessities, and come visit while I find a new job.”

  “You do realize I live in South Carolina, right?”

  “That had, actually, occurred to me. The firm hasn’t been paying out my overtime. A friend is hooking me up with an employment attorney, but it could be a long time before I see any pay. It’s a mess.”

  “So, they’re forcing you into overtime and probably won’t pay you for it?”

  “Exactly. And I don’t know how well my job prospects here will be. I’m a very bad daughter. I’d apologize, but I’m pretty sure it’s your fault I turned out this way.”

  My mother surprised me with her laughter. “When would you be coming?”

  “Near the end of the month. I have to clean out the apartment, and I’m going to try to work until the holiday break. I’m debating on when I turn in my resignation.”

  “Going to stick around the two weeks?”

  “No. It’s not company policy for non-billing employees. I can walk right away. Considering what happened to Alice and the hours they want me to work, I’ll probably stick around as long as I can and ditch them the same time I ditch town. I’ll have an employment lawyer go over it.”

  “You’re hiring a lawyer? On what money?”

  Damn, my mother could be vicious when she wanted to be. “A friend would be making the arrangements. I have a good case. I’m not crazy. I have a record of all unpaid overtime. It’s a good amount of money for me if they can get the bastards to pay it out.”

  “I’m just saying you don’t like attorneys at all, Chloe. You hate them almost as much as you hate Santa Claus.”

  Wow. My mother had really gone there. “I wouldn’t call it hatred. I’d call it a healthy fear of a mythical fat man who breaks into houses and steals cookies and milk.”

  “Chloe.”

  I giggled. “I dressed up as an elf because a friend begged me, and I did a full eight hour shift at the Christmas Village. I took an ice cream cone to the boobs, but I otherwise emerged unscathed. The first Santa of the day was a cretin. The second Santa—”

  “Was what? Handsome? A gentleman? Looks fantastic in red no matter what his mother says?” the second Santa asked from behind me.

  “Chloe?” my mother asked.

  “The second Santa is standing behind me, apparently.” I twisted in my seat, and Julian grinned at me. “Hi, Julian.”

  He sat next to me and saluted me with his cup of coffee.

  Well, my night had gone from miserable to awkward, yet possibly salvageable. “Anyway, Mom. How does that visit sound?”

  “If you need to, you need to. Keep me in the loop. I think I can do a little better than making you sleep on the couch, though.”

  “Thanks. I’ll call you tomorrow night.” I hung up before she could ask me any more questions. “What are you doing out here at this time of night in a snowstorm? Are you mad?”

  He laughed. “I have my mother’s SUV, and she screamed at me to intercept you or face her wrath. On a serious note, I got a really disturbing phone call today.”

  Oh, shit. I could make a guess. “Alice really called you?”

  “She really did, saying you’d told her to call me about my employment lawyer friend. I gave her his number.”

  I retrieved my phone and showed him Alice’s picture. “The computer was smashed, and someone did this to her face. The phone was destroyed, too. There was glass everywhere.” I showed him the picture of the desk before I’d cleaned it up. “I’ve been told I have to take her shift now, too.”

  “Okay, physical assault is under my umbrella. I’ll give Alice a call and get her into a joint meeting with my friend. She’s going to need both of us for that one. I had no idea she’d been beaten. She didn’t say anything about it.”

  I wasn’t surprised, and I hoped she forgave me for telling Julian. “I’m pretty sure I could use some legal advice right now.”

  “Did they give you any official documents outlining your new hours and responsibilities?”

  I nodded, and I dug out the sheets of paper I’d printed at the office, handing them over. “I don’t have to give two weeks because I’m not a billing employee, but it’s usually good etiquette.”

  “Fuck the etiquette. These hours are lethal. Not necessarily illegal as far as I know, but definitely not good for your health. Your commute can’t be short. Did you sign any papers agreeing to the changes in hours, or was it dictated?”

  “Dictated. I haven’t signed anything.”

  Julian grabbed his phone, dialed a number, and held it to his ear. “Sorry to wake you, Dad, but there’s a situation. I saw a photograph of Alice from today, and Chloe took a picture of the desk in the aftermath. If I have anything to say about it, I’m going to be filing assault charges on Alice’s behalf, and I’ll do the work pro bono. I need you to whip up a resignation letter for Chloe. Don’t date it, but make it solid. She hasn’t signed any papers confirming her willingness to work mandatory seventeen hour days during the week and an additional ten hours on Saturdays. Can you dig up some labor law violations on this?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Julian, is your father the employment attorney friend you keep talking about?”

  He grimaced and gave a helpless shrug. “Okay, Dad. Let me ask. Chloe, are you okay with swinging by my place before I take you home?”

  I pointed at the window. “In this weather?”

  “Your other option is I take you home and you stay there. I’ve already seen one bus skid right through an intersection on my way over here, so I’m really not interested in sending you home via public transit, and I’m totally game to have a spectacular fight with you over it.”

  “I haven’t had dinner yet, and my leftovers are in my fridge at my apartment. Those leftovers can’t go to waste,” I said, smacking a finger to the table. “They absolutely cannot go to waste.”

  “As I’d be the one inconveniencing you for tonight, I will attend to your dinner requirements. And should your leftovers go to waste, I’ll take you back to the restaurant for more leftovers as penance.”

  My stomach demanded immediate surrender, and as I agreed with my stomach’s end goal, I’d deal with the loss. “You win. But I’m expecting to be fed. I didn’t get a chance to make those cookies last night, either. After today, I need cookies.”

  “All the ingredients for cookies are at my house and I just got a
new gallon of milk for the consumption of cookies, so while I get Dad over to help with paperwork, you can bake to your heart’s content. If you want to bake anything other than cookies, I’ll have Mom hit the grocery store.” Julian returned his attention to his phone. “You catch that, Dad? Okay, good. I already have most of the paperwork at my house, so the document gathering phase is mostly complete. She’s pretty thorough. All right. I’ll see you soon. Go ahead and let yourself into my house. Her papers are in my office on my desk. Look for the stack with the red markers.”

  He hung up and slipped his phone into his pocket, heaving a sigh.

  “That explains why you were so confident you could get an employment attorney to take the case.”

  “Dad enjoys tangoing with the big corporations, and he’s pretty miffed with how they handled my employment. They didn’t do anything he could nail them on, so he’s been looking for an excuse. I shouldn’t have hid that from you, but I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

  “I, obviously, should have wagered with him over that Scrabble game, too.”

  “As I said, he’ll do it just to watch the bastards take a hit on it, and once he sees the picture of Alice, he’s going to be extra eager to nail them for any infractions on her case, too. Do you think her records are as good as yours?”

  “Probably not. She wasn’t a bad receptionist, but I’m better. The firm’s never really had an ideal setup. The partners try to bag the clients, and Alice could do the scheduling work like a champ, but she’d lose the clients on the calls. I wrote a script.”

  “You wrote your own script?”

  “It was needed. Otherwise, the calls go to hell in a hurry. This whole fucking thing pisses me off!”

  “I bet. This isn’t what you needed right now, that’s for sure. Let me get fresh coffees for the road. What do you want in yours?”

  “You know those disgustingly sweet syrups they bring out this time of year?”

  “Typically peppermint, but yes.”

  “Try to prove to me the holidays don’t completely suck through something good to drink.”

  Julian laughed, got to his feet, and dipped into a bow. “I’ll do my best.”

  The next time I challenged Julian, I needed to remember I loved peppermint and hot chocolate. It took a single sip to cast some serious doubts on my approach to the holidays. I didn’t have to like Christmas to enjoy peppermint hot chocolate, right? It wasn’t coffee, but who cared? It was delicious.

  It even had crushed candy canes sprinkled liberally on the whipped cream.

  “So, how’d I do?”

  “All hail Santa, not to be confused with Satan.”

  He laughed. “Somehow, I find your full conversion due to a single sip of hot chocolate unlikely. I figured hot chocolate was the equivalent of ice cream but in drink format.”

  “You might be right.” In what counted as a miracle, he’d found a parking spot around the corner, and he opened the door for me. “Thanks.”

  He wasted no time sliding behind the wheel and starting the engine, and the vents immediately blew hot air onto me. “Absolutely no problem. Honestly, I didn’t even need Mom’s prodding to try my luck to see if I could intercept you. I was five minutes from asking her to borrow the SUV anyway. There’s no way in hell I’m driving my car in this mess. My car handles fine, but it’s slicker than I like and the SUV has four-wheel drive. Fortunately for me, Dad works near where I work, so I’ll hitch a ride with him tomorrow rather than test my luck.”

  “Define near, just out of curiosity.”

  “I’m ten minutes closer to the house than he is, and it’s right on the way. It’s my problem crossing the street without getting killed. So far, I’ve managed without incident. It makes him feel important when he drives me around in the winter.”

  “You should get an SUV for the second spot in your garage. It would be useful.”

  “Mom keeps suggesting that.”

  “She’s right.”

  “Anyway, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the employment lawyer is my father.”

  I waved off his apology. “I’m not worried about it. Honestly, it’s easier to deal with knowing he’s your father. It’s easy to get a hold of him that way. I could just stage an invasion of your house and walk down the street.”

  “That’s one way to look on the bright side. A few warnings about Dad. He’s aggressive when building a case. He may ask uncomfortable questions. It’s his job to find out all the various violations, so he’ll pursue all elements of your case, including sexual harassment and gender-based discrimination. Having worked there, it’s entirely probable Dad can build you a viable discrimination case. There’s one complication, and it’s one I’m concerned about.”

  “They’ll want to shut me up because it’s a legal firm. They might attempt blackmail, coercion, or even violence. I don’t think Alice’s eye was a mistake. That probably takes a lot of force, but she could’ve been startled into falling off her chair and hit the desk. But that is still a bad situation, even if that’s a better situation than someone socking her in the eye.”

  “Exactly. And they’re not against using abuse tactics on the associates, which feeds the cycle. That’s why I left as soon as I was promoted from associate; I’m paid a lot better here and in a much better work environment, and company policy bars harassment of any sort—including hassling the associates. It makes for a better workplace. Now, that said, there are scheduled dry runs. We do have to get the associates used to being put under pressure. We don’t want a raw associate trying cases without having to deal with aggressive opposing attorneys. So, we put the meanest of our attorneys up against them in fake trials to get them used to having to field questions. It gives the rest of us a chance to play uncooperative witnesses, too. They’re hell scenarios, but it helps a lot.”

  “Beats office pranks, cussing at them, and treating them like shit.”

  “Exactly. That sort of bullshit isn’t worth the sixty grand a year they pay new associates. And yes, that’s how much your firm pays a new associate, in case you were wondering. And the raises each year are piddly at best. The offer they pitch looks a lot better than it actually is, but it’s, in a way, easier to get a promotion if you can survive the bullshit, and the promotion is good for getting into other firms.”

  Damn, and I thought my forty-something was hard to live on in New York City. The attorneys, especially the associates, had to dress well and look like they made a hell of a lot more money than they did. No wonder Julian had lived with his parents before staging his escape. On my salary, had my mother stayed in New York, I might’ve succumbed to the inevitable and moved in with her a hell of a lot sooner to do better than barely get by. “I’m not really sure they’ll try anything. Everyone seemed pretty cordial yesterday.”

  “It hasn’t sunk in there was an assault at the office yet—or they are so lacking in ethics they don’t think it matters. I’m going to call Alice when I get back to my house while Dad starts going over your papers. He’s probably already there raiding my office and seeing how much of a case can be put together. How many requests have you put in for your overtime payment?”

  “I send them every Tuesday at seven or eight, and I send them to HR, and I CC my boss.” Unfortunately for me, who my boss was changed, although Mr. Whiteman was technically supposed to be my actual boss. I still CC’d Mr. Whiteman, but I doubted he read the emails.

  “Who is your boss?”

  “That changes almost weekly, but I do CC Mr. Whiteman about my overtime. I don’t think he reads the emails.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me. Unless HR contacts him directly, anything sent to HR isn’t important to him. He’s probably completely oblivious. He’s too worried about his client roster to care about his employees. Honestly, I’m amazed he hasn’t been nailed before now.”

  I took another sip of my hot chocolate, set it down long enough to buckle my seatbelt, and relaxed. “Realistically, they wouldn’t do anything to me.”

&nb
sp; “They did something to Alice. The photos you got show a lot of force used. I have no idea what they really did from the pictures, but the photograph of her face wasn’t pretty. That could’ve easily been you.”

  I grimaced. “Point.”

  “Not the kind of point I want to be winning. I really hope you don’t try to work those hours when they aren’t paying you overtime. Your current work schedule isn’t healthy. Adding so many hours could be dangerous. You’ll be fatigued. You’ll make mistakes—and that’s not a slight against you or your work ethic. It happens with attorneys all the time. Once exhausted, more mistakes are made. I’ve done all-nighters, and every damned time I’ve had to do it, it’s been a mess. That costs me more hours down the road to fix. Once you start making mistakes, they’ll fire you, and they’ll try to use that against you in their case. You’re best off handing in your resignation tomorrow, and you’d best be doing so with my father in attendance. I’ll probably come as well to stand as a witness if the case goes to trial. As I won’t have anything to do with your employment case, I can stand in. Alternatively, I can request one of the partners from my firm to attend. All I’ll have to do to get someone willing is tell them the other receptionist had gotten into a physical altercation. It’s unusual, but it should suffice, especially if someone tries something.”

  “He’d do that? Go with me to work?”

  “He’s probably going to insist on it, and he’s probably going to give them an ultimatum to settle outside of court with a warning he’ll be filing within a week with the Department of Labor. If they’re smart, they’ll settle, and he’ll make their settlement charges pretty high. It’ll be everything you’re owed plus the fine for each infraction, which he’ll charge once a week for the entire duration. That should be a fair settlement for you, but if they don’t, he’ll go after them for damages, too.”

  “Damages? What sort of damages?”

  “Emotional and physical ones. He’ll also nail them for discrimination if he can. It’ll get nasty if he can prove there’s been any discrimination. With luck, you could be settled within a month.”