How it All Started
Kaliope Barnes was no stranger to trouble. No matter how hard she tried to avoid it, trouble was inescapable because dealing with other people in her line of work was part of the job.
Her latest dilemma placed her outside the Human Resources office, certain the outcome of her meeting might not end in her favor. Arms crossed, her leg bouncing, she waited.
The door to the office opened, and she scowled at the man who emerged. Larry Cooke, her team leader and garden variety asshole. He sneered at her as he buttoned his suit jacket and sauntered down the hallway. Kaliope wanted to take up her chair and slap him in the head with it. He deserved it. The man was a liar and an incompetent lout. He only had the team leader position because he was the nephew of the VP of Public Relations for the company. She cut her eyes from the man’s departing figure.
Moments later, the secretary appeared at the door. “Ms. Barners, Mr. Blandcahrd will see you now.”
Kaliope stood, adjusted her shirt, and marched inside, head held high. She had nothing to be ashamed of. She’d done the right thing. That lout was the one who screwed up their client’s account, then he blamed his subordinate for it. They fired the falsely accused woman without due process. Thinking about it made Kaliope’s blood boil.
Unremorseful about speaking out against the incident, Kaliope sat across from the HR Manager. Roy Blanchard was a middle-aged man with more gray than black in his hair, his wire-rimmed glasses always riding low on his nose. Kaliope fancied him as much as she did Larry.
Less, even. Blanchard was a shameless bootlicker.
Blanchard clicked his pen twice before he spoke. “Ms. Barnes, here we are again. And for the same reason—insubordination.”
Kaliope held herself stiff. Her mouth shut.
“Nothing to say?” Blanchard raised a brow and waited for Kaliope to mount her defense.
She counted back from five, reigning in the slew of belligerent responses her indignation threw at her. “Larry—Mr. Cooke, lied.” That summed up her entire defense. No excuses. No apologies. “He lied and blamed someone else for his incompetence. An innocent bystander was fired for no fault of her own.” She had a son and a sick husband. Now she’s unemployed. “It’s unfair.” But, of course, Blanchard knew that. Anyone with half a brain would. But to reprimand the nephew of a VP? He didn’t have the balls or the integrity.
Blanchard reclined in his chair. Clicked his pen. “And the other cases of insubordination?” Click. Click.
With each click of his pen, Kaliope’s eyes twitched. He was doing it on purpose to annoy her. Her hands fisted in her lap. “Those were also instances of incompetence on Mr. Cooke’s part. He’s the problem.”
Another snippet of fact upper management overlooked.
A muscle in Blanchard’s jaw twitched. Click. Click. “I’m afraid there is only one recourse left to the company—”
Kaliope sprang to her feet, pulled a crumbled letter from her back pocket, and slapped it on the desk. She’d burn in the rings of hell before she allowed these assholes to fire her. “You’re all a bunch of spineless, incompetent jackasses only concerned about your lofty titles and bonuses. You don’t deserve me, my loyalty, or my hard work.” She reached across the desk, snatched the pen from Blanchard, and tossed it in the bin. “Grow a pair.”
Kaliope stormed out of the office, satisfied with the stricken look on Blanchard’s face. She could kiss any recommendations from her now previous employers goodbye.
Back in her office, Kaliope shoved her laptop into her bag and grabbed her coffee mug. The cup was the only personal effect she had in her cubicle. Kaliope wasn’t one to form attachments. Plus, she’d realized early in her six-month stint at Baylor and Company she was not a perfect fit. And at this rate, she was running out of places she might.
Kaliope’s coworkers watched soundlessly as she headed for the door. Larry Cooke, however, had to have the last word. Kaliope pulled up short when he stepped in front of her.
“It really is a shame. If you’d played nice, we could have been,” Larry’s slimy gaze slid over her body, pausing at her chest. “Friends.”
Larry crowded her personal space. He smelled of aftershave and assholery, all wrapped in a musty cologne of inflated self-importance. Kaliope’s hand tightened on her mug.
Don’t do it. Don’t do it.
“Maybe we can still be—”
Kaliope’s knee to Larry’s crotch ended his solicitation. Face beetroot red, he grabbed his crotch and crumpled to the floor. Gasps filled the office space. No one moved to offer him assistance. A few of her former coworkers snickered behind their hands while others showed her thumbs up and fist pumps. Kaliope stepped over Larry’s pained form and exited Baylor and Company head held high and unemployed.
~
The reality of her jobless status hit on the bus ride home. She grabbed food at her usual place, a small restaurant around the corner from her apartment, and slogged home. Inside her cozy studio apartment, she deposited her dinner in the kitchen and slumped on her couch.
Kaliope had no debts, having paid her way through university out of pocket and with scholarships, but she had living expenses. Bills. Rent to pay. She groaned and dropped sideways, pulling the multicolored throw on her couch over her head. If only that mattered in her impassioned moments when righteous fury dashed it all out the window.
Baylor and Company was her second longest stretch of employment in the past three years since her graduation. Kaliope’s conscience, her temper, and her face’s inability to use its indoor voice were always the problem. But also, those bastards she encountered. And the fact that no one else but her ever spoke out about the unfairness and mistreatment made her a target. The nail that stuck out. She’d take a hammer to them before they did to her.
She spent the next few days job-hunting with few prospects. None of the big PR and marketing firms in her area were hiring. All the vacancies she found were in small-time firms, offering compensation way below her usual pay bracket. It hurt her pride, but she’d have to settle with one for now. Her cash reserve wasn’t inexhaustible.
Burdened with more free time than she was used to, Kaliope punched out her frustrations at the gym. Out of all the skills she accumulated growing up, kickboxing stuck. The high-intensity workout boosted her mood, kept her in shape, and she relished the burn. It, however, fell short of filling all the newfound time on her hands.
Still dressed in her gym clothes, she visited her alma mater—Elk Ridge University. Her old communications and media professor was in his office pruning his bonsai tree with a clipper too small for his big hands. She smiled, the weight on her mind easing on seeing him.
There was something intriguing and timeless about Eli Reynolds. The man never appeared to age, the lines around his eyes more from laughter than time. He was steadfast and true while everything else in her life changed.
“Lost in thought?” Eli asked the question as he continued his pruning.
Kaliope shook her head. “You and that tree.” She plopped into one of the cushioned seats he positioned for his visitors to sit facing his desk.
“Bonsai trees require regular care and maintenance; it teaches patience. Something a certain someone lacks.”
Another bonsai tree occupied a space on the windowsill of his office. Beyond the glass, the yellow blooms of the poui tree reveled in the afternoon sunlight.
“I prefer to kick things.” Like she did her former team leader. Kaliope smirked.
Eli raised his eyes at her comment. She straightened in the chair. Her professor had a strange way of reacting, as if he could read her mind. His following question drove home the eeriness of his accuracy. “And who did you kick?”
Kaliope fidgeted. Eli was more than a professor for Kaliope. He was a mentor and a confidant, and what he thought of her mattered. He’d find no amusement in what she did.
“Who? Kaliope?”
Kaliope confessed her wrongdoings. She started from the botched client campaign, her snap at the HR manager, and typing her report in a bow with her kneeing the VP’s nephew in the crotch.
Eli pinched the bridge of his nose. “I admire your sense of justice and rebellious spirit, Kali, but sometimes your stubborn resolve poses a greater threat and obstacle to you than anything or anyone else. The PR world is smaller than you think. Baylor and Company is a top-five PR firm. If word spreads that you kneed the VP’s nephew.” He expelled a heavy breath. “After all the bridges you’ve burned, you’re running out of rope. With your brains, your talents, your drive, working in some small nondescript firm will be like a shark swimming in a fish tank.”
Her professor was right. The PR world was small. Cross the wrong people, like the nephew of a VP, and you’ll end up on a corporate “do not employ blacklist.” Kaliope wanted to make a name for herself. Still, climbing the corporate ladder without compromising one’s principles was a tedious balancing act.
Eli shook his head. “What am I to do with you?”
Kaliope stopped at the vending machine on her way off campus. Her phone chimed, and she pulled it out. A private message from Larry Cooke waited in her inbox. What the hell did he want? She opened the message. Tapped the video clip inside. On the screen, her run-in with her former team leader, captured by someone’s phone, played.
Fuck.
Another message.
“You’ll be lucky if you ever find another job in this city again. Be nice, and I might forgive you.”
Two winky faces and an eggplant proceeded the message.
That little piece of shit.
Kaliope squeezed the side of the juice box she bought and sucked the content until the sides caved in.
Blackmail? Did this bastard actually think he could blackmail her?
Distracted, Kaliope bumped into someone. She apologized, catching sight of the man’s tie pin with a wolf’s head, but not his face, as she moved on, vowing to murder Larry Cooke.
Comments (0)
See all