Disclosure

"And black people have rhythm," Fernandez said. "Asians are workaholics. And Hispanics don’t confront . . ."

"But this is different. I mean, there are studies about this. Men and women don’t even talk to each other the same way."

"Oh, you mean like the studies that show that women are less good at business and strategic thinking?"

"No. Those studies are wrong."

"I see. Those studies are wrong. But the studies about sexual differences are right?"

"Well, sure. Because sex is fundamental. It’s a primal drive."

"I don’t see why. It’s used for all sorts of purposes. As a way of relating, a way of placating, a way of provoking, as an offer, as a weapon, as a threat. It can be quite complicated, the ways sex is used. Haven’t you found that to be true?"

The woman crossed her arms. "I don’t think so."

Speaking for the first time, the young man said, "So what’d you tell this guy? Not to litigate?"

"No. But I told him his problems."

"What do you think he should do?"

"I don’t know," Fernandez said. "But I know what he should have done."

"What?"

"It’s terrible to say it," she said. "But in the real world? With no witnesses? Alone in the office with his boss? He probably should have shut up and fucked her. Because right now, that poor bastard has no options at all. If he’s not careful, his life is over."

Sanders walked slowly back down the hill toward Pioneer Square. The rain had stopped, but the afternoon was still damp and gray. The wet pavement beneath his feet sloped steeply downward. Around him the tops of the skyscrapers disappeared into the low-hanging, chilly mist.

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.