The Big Dream (21 page)

Sanjeet liked his commute. When he was doing his MBA and living on soba, when he and Mark were putting together their first scrappy-weird fashion mag and working 17 hours a day, he had pictured a lot of things about his future, but not the crush of the 401 as the sun rose behind him, tinting his dashboard gold and fuchsia. This had never been the status symbol he'd had in mind: a dull silver Mercedes stuck in traffic for 45 minutes as Kelly Clarkson gasped along with the string section. Still, it was nice. Satellite radio pre-sets, expensive Free Trade coffee in a stainless steel coffee mug – these were the little signs that a life was working out pretty goddamned well.

What he didn't like was the way the problems of the upcoming infringed upon the drive. It was supposed to be just him and Kelly and his coffee, all the way from the loft by the water to the sprawling Mississauga parking lot of Dream Inc. But when he was fretting about how pissed the laid-off people were going to
be, he was not savouring the traffic and sky and coffee. The fretting was like the music – the second he silenced the radio, that dark grimy tune from the restaurant-girl's laptop was droning in his head. He didn't like not being able to control his internal pre-sets.

At work, Sanjeet was rounding the corner to the exec wing when he couldn't resist glancing into HR – another pre-set he hadn't chosen. Belly's big clean office faced the hall, and she sproinged up from her ergonomic chair when she saw him. Her silk blouse tightened against her chest in the wind of her stride. Her briskness was only somewhat undercut by the fact that her shoes made no sound.

“Welcome back. You missed some things. How did it go?”

“Thanks. What things? Terrible.”

“A girl fell down the east stairwell and broke her leg. We have a mouse infestation and they've been chewing through the phone jacks. And there was some kind of scuffle in Customer Service yesterday – huge mess.”

“Ah. So, you haven't been running the company all that well in our absence.”

Belly drew herself up. “What happened?”

They walked down the wide bright hallway in silence. Sanjeet wondered where the art on the walls had come from – there was one of a nude turned away in blue and purple shadows, another of a puppy staring quizzically at the viewer. He liked them all.

“Is it really that bad, Jeet? Or are you just not allowed to tell me?”

“It's . . . it's bad, Belly. Maybe you
should
run the company. We're gonna outsource the customer service team, and
Dream Woman
is gonna fold. And then . . . we can hold on for a while.”

“Even worse than the mice.” Belly flopped onto the leather couch in his office, which made a
whoomp
noise as the air shot out. “But what about all the staff issues at
Dream Condo
? What
about the mess with art and design? What did they say about that stuff?”

“We didn't . . . we didn't go over every single issue. The parent-company guys, they have a dozen international outfits, a hundred publications. We did the big stuff.”

He realized Mark was behind them by the noise of his mastication. He turned as a fat cranberry fell out of Mark's muffin onto the steel-grey carpet. “He lives!”

“Hello, darling. What's for dinner?”

Mark thrust the muffin at him and Sanjeet took a big bite without using his hands.

“You guys are hilarious,” said Belly, trying to put her hands on her hips while sunk in the couch. “You're really going to let all of customer service go?”

“You say
you
like it's our brilliant idea. This is coming from head office. They have some great deal in Chennai for the American mags, so they're trying it . . . .”

Belly looked at Mark. “Is there a muffin tray?”

“No, I just got this for myself at Coffee Time. Sorry.”

She sighed. Mark and Sanjeet chewed. Finally Mark swallowed and cleared his throat. “So, you'll get on it?”

“On what?”

“On the layoffs, Belly, can you arrange the paperwork?”

“Right away?” Her voice was bright, but her jaw clenched. They stared at her; Belly was usually ironically put-upon, but this time there was something else.

“This has got to be as soon as possible, the notice and the severance and everything, so the new team can start up.”

“Yeah.” She shrugged. “Gotta be.”

Sanjeet tipped his head back against the wall above the couch. His eyes were shut but he felt the couch lower then rise when she stood.

After Belly left, Sanjeet realized he was sweating through the collar of his lavender dress shirt. “She didn't sound too hop-to-it,” he said, struggling out of his jacket.

“Hop?” Mark muttered as if just waking.

“The layoffs? Symonds said we should – ” he made curly-fingered quotation marks “ –
hop to it
.” More quotation marks.

Mark sat up and looked Sanjeet in the eyes. “I'm a good person.”

Sanjeet rubbed the fronts of his thighs. “Sure.”

“I still don't really remember but I am sure I just wouldn't have. Not witha – Christ, if she were 18, I'm almost two-and-a-half times that.”

“I'm the ops guy, I'll do the math.” Sanjeet flipped open his portfolio and sucked something out of his molar. “Apparently, our inbound
and
outbound call-scripts suck.”

“You don't believe me.”

“I have no interest in what you said. That can't be called belief or non-belief.”

“You care. Jeet, I saw, yesterday in the Denny's – you were disgusted with me.”

“No. You're my CEO. You get your dick out in public and the wrong people take an iPhone pic, I'm in almost as much shit as you. But I don't
judge
you
.
Also, that was not a Denny's.” The song in his head was just a couple bars on endless repeat – he couldn't remember the words or even most of the melody. Maddening.

“Bullshit.”

“Denny's does not have a franchise in O'Hare airport. I would – ”

“Bullshit, ‘I don't judge, I just think you are a tabloid headline waiting to happen.' If you weren't such a prude – ”

“I really don't think it's repressed – what are we talking about? How do you make your sex life take precedence over people getting fucked in a way that actually matters?”

“I don't.”

“Do you think any of customer service cares about your
issues
when they're not going to be getting cheese on their burgers for the next while?”

Mark inhaled deeply through his nostrils. “Ok, ok, right. I'm being ridiculous. Over something that maybe,
probably
didn't even happen. What do we have to do?”

“For the layoffs, actually, not much. It's a Belly thing – an HR thing. We just need to think about what's next in terms of editorial, and decide – ”

Mark swallowed the last bit of muffin. “We should plan some remarks . . . .”

“I don't think . . . I don't think so.”

“I'm a good person.” Mark's lower lip stuck out slightly.

“You think no one ever got laid off before?”

“Not by me.”

Mark's earnest speech on accountability and acknowledging errors won over Sanjeet. Belly was tougher, concerned that their presence would tempt laid-off employees to assign blame, get hostile. They had promised to follow her script to the letter.

Belly explained that the best time to do these things was nine a.m. Studies showed that people felt stupid for working all day not knowing that it was for nothing. So they all had to come in early on Tuesday to prepare for all those workdays that wouldn't be.

They were using the HR meeting room, not the CSR one, for a reason Belly had explained but Sanjeet forgotten. He liked to think it was because that people were more reserved in unfamiliar territory. Why he broke up with women in parks and malls.

It had taken two weeks to get to this point in the layoff process, and yet Sanjeet still had that damn sad song in his head. It was the soundtrack as Mark wandered in carrying a briefcase though he usually had a courier bag and usually left that in his office.

“Where's the catering?”

“No catering. This is a short, focused meeting – no mingle-muffin time,” Belly snapped without looking up from her folder.

“I feel like – ” Mark dropped the briefcase heavily “ – we should at least give'em breakfast. So they're ahead on that front, you know. One less meal to buy?”

“I do not think an 80-cent muffin will put them very far ahead. But you can go to the caf and ask if it's too late to set up a tray. If you want.” Belly was wearing an emerald green blazer, as if she had just won the Masters, but sexier, with a silky white blouse. It should not have been sexy at all, but it was. The blouse was probably not even real silk.

Ahead popped into the doorway. Pale with blond cropped hair like a soldier. “Is this where the CSR update is?”

Belly straightened, which had the effect of thrusting out her breasts. “Yes. But not for half an hour.”

The guy nodded. He was wearing a greyed white button-down and dark jeans – clearly the last rung of business-casual. “Cool, I'll hang out in here, cause the CSR room is locked for some reason. Is there muffins?”

Belly's eyes bugged. “Actually – no, no muffins. And we need the room.” The guy jerked back slightly. “Sorry. We're just . . . could you wait in the cafeteria, please?”

“Oh. Ok.” He backed out slowly, gaze lingering on the table at the front of the room, as if the muffins might appear there. Then he was gone.

Belly clomped over to shut the door. At least she was wearing shoes that made a sound. “Shit. I told building services to box the department this after
noon
.”

Sanjeet glanced at Mark. “Should I check in with the new call centre?”

Mark nodded, then shook his head. His hair needed a cut; it flopped like Hugh Grant's. “I got it covered. Well, Shulman
and I do. The guys in Chennai come online today at nine a.m. our time. They did a training session last week. It's all easy. And cheap.”

“You arranged all this without my input? Isn't this more of an operations thing?”

“It would seem that letting the old team go would be your implicit consent to having a new team start. Or were you planning on just letting the phone ring?”

“You just should have involved me.”

Mark sat in a folding chair. “We're in a bad spot. I'm trying to improve things.”

Sanjeet slid down the wall until he was poised as if sitting in a chair. He knew it was an exercise his trainer recommended, but he couldn't recall the name. The song in his head was a kind of looping swirl, and it was starting to give him a headache. “It's not a ‘spot.' We haven't met any of our financial targets, operating costs are way up, circulation's tanking and staff is heading to the competition. This company isn't going to be ours much longer. If it exists at all.”

“That's not the take-away I got from the head-office dudes in Chicago.”

Sanjeet sank lower, onto the floor. “If you weren't busy fucking teenagers, you would've – ”

“I didn't fuck her!” Mark stood, towering over Sanjeet.

“Fine, face-fucked then. Is the technical term.”

“Je
sus.
I'm
here,
guys.” Belly waved her brightly manicured hand and, when the men just stared at her, added quietly, “I've outlined the issues with overhead – ”

“An overhead projector? What is this, grade 5 geography class?”

“Would you
listen
? I was going to say, the overhead
costs
making it difficult to maintain an in-house customer service team.” She paused and blinked rapidly, then kept talking. “There'll be time for your remarks after that. Stick to your script, or legal will have an aneurysm. I'll have the packages by the door. It'll be
awkward – people have to say their names and wait while I flip through. I'm gonna get Kat helping, but it'll – ”