Definitely Against Policy, page 1
Table of Contents
Definitely Against Policy
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
A word about the author…
Thank you for purchasing
Definitely Against Policy
by
Renata North
Copyright Notice
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Definitely Against Policy
COPYRIGHT © 2024 by Renee Lehnen
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: info@thewildrosepress.com
Cover Art by Lea Schizas
The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
PO Box 708
Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708
Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com
Publishing History
First Edition, 2024
Trade Paperback ISBN 978-1-5092-5585-6
Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-5586-3
Published in the United States of America
Dedication
To Andy
Chapter One
Stephen’s teeth were straight and square and bright yellow, his smile a double fence of lemon Chiclets surrounded by fleshy, pink lips. Mary Rose sank into a seat near the rear door of the streetcar, wiped the fog from the window with her sleeve, and peered through. If this wasn’t a one-off misprint and her boss looked the same in the other ads, she would be so dead. Or worse. Unemployed.
She caught a glimpse of the university express as it rushed by in the left lane with the ad on its starboard side, “Stephen Hill, Realtor, Matching people with property!” in true blue Baskerville font, nary a hint of green, Stephen’s collar as white as a virginal Yuletide snowdrift. Why, then, were his teeth so yellow? And not “overdue for hygiene” yellow, but full-on bingo-dabber yellow.
It was Stephen’s fault for never smiling a warning, never revealing the problem with even so much as a mild chuckle. Except it wasn’t his fault. It was all on her. She should’ve opened the attachments to see the proofs before she approved them with a distracted thumbs-up. Photoshop could’ve worked a miracle, if only she’d known.
She was so very, very fired.
Heart pounding, temples thrumming, consciousness evaporating from her body into the ether, she shrank into the seat for refuge. Breathe, goddamn it! In for the count of three and out for five. Or was it the other way round? Expel the bad to make space for the good. Just breathe.
“Mary Rose! Golly! Is that you? Both of us on the same streetcar? Imagine!”
Mary looked up. The face and voice were vaguely familiar, like spotting a minor celebrity in a café. The young woman was already wedging herself onto the bench. Mary squeezed over.
“I’m Dr. Silverstein’s student? Philosophy 307? Theories on Justice?”
“Of course.” The talkative personal trainer who thought Kant’s categorical imperative was ‘a brilliant game-changer.’ “Umm…”
“Megan. Like the princess!”
“Megan. Right.” Mary looked sideways at her seatmate. “May I ask you a question? As a student of philosophy.”
“Shoot.” Megan mimed a pistol aim and trigger pull, then elbow-nudged Mary’s ribs. “Don’t be a bashful Bonny. Go on.”
“What would you do if you made a mistake at work and accidentally humiliated your boss?”
“That’s easy. I’d confess and apologize. Like Jocko Willink, the motivational guru? Extreme ownership?”
“Even if you were only half responsible? And it wasn’t on purpose?”
“Mary, you know the Challenger disaster? Back in the 80s? That wasn’t ‘on purpose.’” Megan flashed air quotes with bedazzled fingernails. “The engineers still manned up and took all the blame. One hundred percent. People respect that.”
A dubious assertion. In Mary’s experience, people who accepted blame wore the mantle of the scapegoat. Anyway, maybe she was catastrophizing. A mistake at the wheel, a mechanical failure, they could actually kill someone. A poster, on the other hand—
“Would you still confess and apologize for something really minor?” asked Mary. “Like an unfortunate printing error?”
“You mean a typo?” Megan’s gaze flitted to the window. “Or that hilarious ad with Stephen Hill?” She graced her giggle with a snort. “My Gawd. Those teeth!”
“Yes. Something like that,” Mary said weakly.
“Same diff. The only way out of a mistake is through. An apology…maybe bring a cake for the office with a humungous, ginormous ‘Forgive me’ in pink frosting. A heartfelt mea culpa. That means ‘I’m sorry’ in Greek.”
“And if your boss was Stephen Hill?”
“I’d buy him a gift certificate for tooth cleaning.” Snort, snort.
The streetcar turned onto Lakeshore, pitching standing passengers into wide stances.
“Almost me,” lied Mary. She could use a walk in the cold air of late February.
“See you on Thursday evening?” Megan shifted sideways as Mary squeezed by.
“As always.” Mary staggered to the door.
****
Though taxonomically classified as boots in the kingdom of footwear, her suede desert boots were leaky, stain-prone, and ill-suited to the slush of a northern city sidewalk in winter. They were boot in form but not in function. Mary hopped over salty puddles and dodged the soiled packaging and wet dogshit that spontaneously generated as the snowbanks melted in freezing drizzle. Who cared about shoes, anyway? Might as well be late and fired in ruined boots.
As she skirted an ill-parked utility van, Mary spotted Eli Klassen, Hill Realty’s top-selling agent, further up the street. She stopped dead in her tracks and stepped back. Too late. He’d seen her. He pushed something into a homeless man’s hand and loped toward her in long strides, a goofy, Stephen Hill-imitation grin on his face, all teeth and lips. Though unfailingly cheerful, Eli unbalanced her. She’d pegged him as a wily lone wolf who used charm to get whatever he wanted, but she suspected she wasn’t being fair, not really—
“Well, if it isn’t the semi-buoyant Mary Rose!” Eli called on approach. He never missed a chance to tease her about her nautical name. “What are you doing so far from the office at this late hour?”
“Walking to work. And an equally pressing question is, ‘How can you be so happy at this early hour?’”
Pivoting to walk alongside, he replied in a deep, oily tone. “Simple. After you get fired in fifteen minutes, I can ask you on a date. Workplace anti-harassment rules shall no longer stand against the prospect of our love.”
Ugh. He pronounced ‘harass’ to rhyme with ‘ferrous’ and ‘love’ like something greasy. She couldn’t stop herself from smiling. “What makes you think I’ll be fired?”
Eli’s handsome face twisted into Stephen Hill’s leering countenance, and Mary shuddered.
After a brief silence, Eli said, “I was only joking, Mary. They won’t fire you. Stephen will hide out in that Soviet-style, concrete box they call their ‘city nest’ and anesthetize his embarrassment with lines of coke, and Claudia will call you into her office and flay you with her tongue, but you’ll survive this.”
“You think so?” Mary looked up at Eli to be sure he was serious.
His dark eyes were earnest. “I know so. You’re competent when you don’t have your nose in a book and the unemployment rate is two percent. For exactly five minutes, Claudia will wish she could fire you, but she can’t. Then she’ll be all ‘future-focused’ and this whole beaver-tooth scandal will blow over like a bald man’s haircut.”
Eli flashed a smile and high-fived the homeless man as they passed, then answered the curious lift of Mary’s brow.
“That’s Dino. Best source of information in the downtown core. Like a freaking seismograph for predicting sales trends—which blocks will gentrify, which are stagnant. Who’s scouting what for redevelopment.”
“Your spy.”
“My inside edge.”
Minutes later, they turned onto Fountain Street and gained the front steps of a solid, red sandstone building that was once an armory. The Hill Realty offices occupied the northwestern corner of the second floor. Eli pulled open the heavy glass door and Mary stepped into the overheated lobby.
As they wiped their footwear on the bristle
Like a mother on the first day of kindergarten encouraging a child, Eli brushed the rain from her tweed-clad shoulders. “Just batten down the hatches for heavy seas and you’ll sail through this storm just fine, Mary Rose.”
“Less said the better?”
“Yeah. Apologize and shut up. If I were you, that would be my survival strategy.”
****
Mary knocked on the door, nudged it ajar, and peeked into the corner office. “Jonquil told me you wanted to have a word, Claudia?”
“Please. Sit down.” Claudia karate-chopped toward the straight-backed chair opposite her.
Mary slid into the naughty seat.
“Have you seen the posters for Stephen’s ad campaign?”
Mary nodded.
“Do you have any idea what you have done to my husband?”
Deciding the question was rhetorical, Mary clasped her hands contritely over her lap and waited.
Claudia’s voice quivered like an over-tightened violin string. “Answer me.”
Mary swallowed hard. “Umm, perhaps I have an idea, Claudia. It’s likely that this incident has affected Stephen’s self-esteem. I mean, he probably didn’t realize that he has, umm, such fascinating dentition. Until he saw the ad. Many of us suffer from self-delusion when we look at ourselves in the mirror. It’s the human condition to view ourselves subjectively rather than objectively, which is, after all, impossible. Most of us would crawl under a proverbial rock if we knew how others really saw us and unfortunately—”
“This morning, my husband was so traumatized by what he saw that he was forced to return to our residence. Now he cowers at home because it’s the only place he feels safe. He certainly doesn’t feel safe in your presence.”
“I understand—”
“Really, Mary? I doubt you’re capable of comprehending how Stephen must feel. Last week he finally emerged from rehab, hopeful yet fragile, cautiously optimistic about taking clients again, only to find photos of his face with a gruesome, gauche, cartoon grin plastered on the side of every streetcar in the core. Stephen may have neglected his appearance—he was ill after all—but he was improving. When he saw the ads, he wept. I had to drive him home and tuck him into bed with not one but two Ativans. I only pray he doesn’t relapse because of your negligence.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Claudia stood abruptly, propelling her office chair into the bookcase behind her. She stalked back and forth across the rug behind her desk, rubbing her temples all the while. “Sorry? No, no, no, Mary. That will not do.”
“I’m truly, really, very sorry.”
“Truly, really, very.” Claudia turned and glared. “Puh-lease.”
“If there’s anything I can do…for Stephen.”
Mary was about to offer the loan of her text of Stoic philosophy with the section on “locus of control” helpfully bookmarked when she remembered Eli’s advice. She pursed her lips and directed her eyes at Claudia, who was now darting back and forth across the room like a piranha in a bowl. No wonder the woman was so skinny. She moved in a constant staccato on high heels, her internal metronome set at a relentless allegro, and Mary wondered if Stephen weren’t the only Hill with a cocaine habit. At last, Claudia shoved her chair back to her desk, sat, and stared across the shiny woodgrain expanse between them. The stare was unnerving, but Mary kept her silence and stared right back.
“Your performance has been uneven,” Claudia said flatly. “You had one job to do, and you failed to do it.”
Actually, she had several jobs. Answering the phone, sorting mail, deleting spam, making coffee, buying gifts…
“Working with Out-of-the-Box Communications should have been your priority. Instead, let me guess”—again Claudia rubbed her temples theatrically— “you were absorbed in Nietzsche, and you approved the entire campaign without so much as a glance, without running it by me, let alone floating a test ad.”
A remarkable guess. It’d been Schopenhauer, not Nietzsche. Anyway, she should’ve been able to trust Brad to do his job. He was the graphic designer, wasn’t he?
“This was your chance to take on more responsibility. To shine. Now I wonder. I waver. I question.”
Mary shrank under the heat of Claudia’s intensifying stare. “It won’t happen again,” she blurted. “If I’m lucky enough to be given another chance, I won’t let you down.”
Claudia fake-chuckled. “Marking incoherent essays and giving dull PowerPoint lectures doesn’t cover the bills, does it? You’re smart, Mary, but not smart enough for a full scholarship. I’m sure you have a big, fat unpaid tuition bill and, if I fire you, I have a big, fat staffing gap.”
Big? Fat? Everyone was big and fat compared to Claudia, who was once more on her feet, pacing frenetically.
“We manifest what we do. Where we place our energy. That’s key.” Claudia smiled with teeth so white, so diametrically opposed to the condition of her husband’s, that they positively shone, though her eyes didn’t crinkle up. In fact, they looked frozen.
As Mary pondered the reasons for the weird facial expression—insincerity? Botox? A neurological condition?—Claudia’s attitude shifted from anger to stridency.
“Hill Realty is future focused. We succeed because we keep our eyes on the prize.” Claudia turned on her spiked heel. “After you leave my office, you’ll call Out-of-the-Box and have the offending images removed and destroyed immediately.”
Mary nodded and rose.
“Have I given any indication that I am through?” Claudia scolded.
Back into the naughty chair.
“If you hope to have a future at Hill Realty, your performance must improve, Mary. But with a sick husband, I haven’t the time or, frankly, the patience to mentor you. Eli is taking over sales at In-Spire.”
“Inspire?” Forehead knit in confusion, Mary mouthed the word.
Claudia looked disappointed already. “It’s the new condo development at Lakeshore and Navy. I’d like you to assist Eli. Shadow him. Copy him. Take notes. Whatever it takes to up your game.”
“Eli Klassen?” Mary squeaked.
“The one and only.” Claudia smiled, this time eyes included, albeit faintly.
Mary nodded and gulped. Working for Eli directly would be…peculiar.
****
Eli usually went to Roasters to flirt with the baristas and answer email over a double espresso after checking in at the office. Not this morning. Not yet. He rolled his office chair to the wall side of his worktable, opened his laptop, and settled in to enjoy the show.
Jonquil Herrington floated up in a cloud of patchouli and diaphanous drapery and parked her matronly butt on the next table.
“Have a moment?”
“For you, always, Jonquil,” he replied sweetly. She hovered so near he could see up her nostrils.
“A little birdy told me that you’ll be handling sales at the condo development on Lakeshore and Navy,” she said in singsong.
“That’s funny. I heard the same thing.” Eli suppressed the urge to gloat.
“It’s what, nearly three hundred units?”
“Three hundred sixteen.”
“For someone who’s fairly new to the game, that’s a big job.”
“You mean a big pie.”
Jonquil shrugged. “If I were Synergy Developments, I’d want someone with experience leading the sales team. Someone with gravitas. Someone who can relate to boomers. Understand their needs. Speak their language.”
“English?”
“Humph. Always the jokester, aren’t you, Eli? And that is precisely where intergenerational misunderstandings can seep in and damage a relationship with an older buyer.”
“The project is attracting younger people, too.”
“Exactly. Boomers and millennials. We’d work well together. As complements. Diversity of experience, of age. My fingers on the pulse of the relatively wealthy, older buyer while you seduce the up-and-comers with your wit. Your charm.”
“Jonquil, are you flattering me?” He winked.
She exhaled heavily. “No. I’m merely pointing out your strengths and offering to help if you find yourself out of your depth.”
“Thank you.” Eli tapped the touchpad and focused on his screen.
As Jonquil drifted back to her worktable, Claudia’s door opened. A very pale Mary made a beeline for the reception desk. Despite her plain office attire, she was smoking hot and completely, charmingly unaware of it.
