“Meredith . . .”
“You think you’ve finally paid me back? Well, I have news for you, Tom. You don’t know anything about what’s really going on.”
She pushed away from the desk, and as she moved away, he saw a cardboard packing box on the desktop beside the telephone. She walked around behind the desk, and began putting pictures and papers and a pen set into the box.
“This whole thing was Garvin’s idea. For three years, Garvin’s been looking for a buyer. He couldn’t find one. Finally he sent me out, and I found him one. I went through twenty-seven different companies until I got to Conley-White. They were interested, and I sold them hard. I put in the hours. I did whatever I had to do to keep the deal moving forward. Whatever I had to do.” She pushed more papers into the box angrily.
Sanders watched her.
“Garvin was happy as long as I was delivering Nichols to him on a platter,” Johnson said. “He wasn’t fussy about how I was doing it. He wasn’t even interested. He just wanted it done. I busted my ass for him. Because the chance to get this job was a big break for me, a real career opportunity. Why shouldn’t I have it? I did the work. I put the deal together. I earned this job. I beat you fairly.”
Sanders said nothing.
“But that’s not how it turns out, is it? Garvin won’t support me when the going gets tough. Everybody said he was like a father to me. But he was just using me. He was just making a deal, any way he could. And that’s all he’s doing now. Just another fucking deal, and who cares who gets hurt. Everybody moves on. Now I’ve got to find an attorney to negotiate my severance package. Nobody gives a damn.”
She closed the box and leaned on it. “But I beat you, fair and square, Tom. I don’t deserve this. I’ve been screwed by the damned system.”
“No you haven’t,” Sanders said, staring her straight in the eye. “You’ve been fucking your assistants for years. You’ve been taking every advantage of your position that you could. You’ve been cutting corners. You’ve been lazy. You’ve been living on image and every third word out of your mouth is a lie. Now you’re feeling sorry for yourself. You think the system is what’s wrong. But you know what, Meredith? The system didn’t screw you. The system revealed you, and dumped you out. Because when you get right down to it, you’re completely full of shit.” He turned on his heel. “Have a nice trip. Wherever you’re going.”
He left the room, and slammed the door behind him.
He was back in his office five minutes later, still angry, pacing back and forth behind his desk.
Mary Anne Hunter came in, wearing a sweatshirt and exercise tights. She sat down, and put her running shoes up on Sanders’s desk. “What’re you all worked up about? The press conference?”
“What press conference?”
“They’ve scheduled a press conference for four o’clock.”
“Who says?”
“Marian in PR. Swears it came from Garvin himself. And Marian’s assistant has been calling the press and the stations.”
Sanders shook his head. “It’s too soon.” Considering all that had happened, the press conference should not be held until the following day.
“I think so,” Hunter said, nodding. “They must be going to announce that the merger has fallen through. You heard what they’re saying about Blackburn?”
“No, what?”
“That Garvin made him a million-dollar settlement.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“That’s what they say.”
“Ask Stephanie.”
“Nobody’s seen her. Supposedly she went back to Cupertino, to deal with finances now that the merger is off.” Hunter got up and walked to the window. “At least it’s a nice day.”
“Yeah. Finally.”
“I think I’ll go for a run. I can’t stand this waiting.”
“I wouldn’t leave the building.”
She smiled. “Yeah, I guess not.” She stood at the window for a while. Finally she said, “Well, what do you know . . .”
Sanders looked up. “What?”
Hunter pointed down toward the street. “Minivans. With antennas on the top. I guess there is going to be a press conference, after all.”
They held the press conference at four, in the main downstairs conference room. Strobes flashed as Garvin stood before the microphone, at the end of the table.
“I have always believed,” he said, “that women must be better represented in high corporate office. The women of America represent our nation’s most important underutilized resource as we go into the twenty-first century. And this is true in high technology no less than in other industries. It is therefore with great pleasure that I announce, as part of our merger with Conley-White Communications, that the new Vice President at Digital Communications Seattle is a woman of great talent, drawn from within the ranks in our Cupertino headquarters. She has been a resourceful and dedicated member of the DigiCom team for many years, and I am sure she will be even more resourceful in the future. I am pleased to introduce now the new Vice President for Advanced Planning, Ms. Stephanie Kaplan.”
There was applause, and Kaplan stepped to the microphone and brushed back her shock of gray hair. She wore a dark maroon suit and smiled quietly. “Thank you, Bob. And thanks to everyone who has worked so hard to make this division so great. I want to say particularly that I look forward to working with the outstanding division heads we have here, Mary Anne Hunter, Mark Lewyn, Don Cherry, and, of course, Tom Sanders. These talented people stand at the center of our company, and I intend to work hand in hand with them as we move into the future. As for myself, I have personal as well as professional ties here in Seattle, and I can say no more than that I am delighted, just delighted, to be here. And I look forward to a long and happy time in this wonderful city.”
Back in his office, Sanders got a call from Fernandez. “I finally heard from Alan. Are you ready for this? Arthur A. Friend is on sabbatical in Nepal. Nobody goes into his office except his assistant and a couple of his most trusted students. In fact, there’s only one student who has been there during the time he is away. A freshman in the chemistry department named Jonathan-”
“Kaplan,” Sanders said.
“That’s right. You know who he is?” Fernandez said.
“He’s the boss’s son. Stephanie Kaplan’s just been named the new head of the division.”
Fernandez was silent for a moment. “She must be a very remarkable woman,” she said.
Garvin arranged a meeting with Fernandez at the Four Seasons Hotel. They sat in the small, dark bar off Fourth Avenue in the late afternoon.
“You did a hell of a job, Louise,” he said. “But justice was not served, I can tell you that. An innocent woman took the fall for a clever, scheming man.”
“Come on, Bob,” she said. “Is that why you called me over here? To complain?”
“Honest to God, Louise, this harassment thing has gotten out of hand. Every company I know has at least a dozen of these cases now. Where will it end?”
“I’m not worried,” she said. “It’ll shake out.”
“Eventually, maybe. But meanwhile innocent people-”
“I don’t see many innocent people in my line of work,” she said. “For example, it’s come to my attention that DigiCom’s board members were aware of Johnson’s problem a year ago and did nothing to address it.”
Garvin blinked. “Who told you that? It’s completely untrue.”
She said nothing.
“And you could never have proved it.”
Fernandez raised her eyebrows and said nothing.
“Who said that?” Garvin said. “I want to know.”
“Look, Bob,” she said. “The fact is, there’s a category of behavior that no one condones anymore. The supervisor who grabs genitals, who squeezes breasts in the elevator, who invites an assistant on a business trip but books only one hotel room. All that is ancient history. If you have an employee behaving like that, whether that employee is male or female, gay or straight, you are obliged to stop it.”
“Okay, fine, but sometimes it’s hard to know-”
“Yes,” Fernandez said. “And there’s the opposite extreme. An employee doesn’t like a tasteless remark and files a complaint. Somebody has to tell her it’s not harassment. By then, her boss has been accused, and everybody in the company knows. He won’t work with her anymore; there’s suspicion, and bad feelings, and it’s all a big mess at the company. I see that a lot. That’s unfortunate, too. You know, my husband works in the same firm I do.”
“Uh-huh.”
“After we first met, he asked me out five times. At first I said no, but finally I said yes. We’re happily married now. And the other day he said to me that, given the climate now, if we met today, he probably wouldn’t ask me out five times. He’d just drop it.”
“See? That’s what I’m talking about.”
“I know. But those situations will settle out eventually. In a year or two, everybody will know what the new rules are.”
“Yes, but-”
“But the problem is that there’s that third category, somewhere in the middle, between the two extremes,” Fernandez said. “Where the behavior is gray. It’s not clear what happened. It’s not clear who did what to whom. That’s the largest category of complaints we see. So far, society’s tended to focus on the problems of the victim, not the problems of the accused. But the accused has problems, too. A harassment claim is a weapon, Bob, and there are no good defenses against it. Anybody can use the weapon-and lots of people have. It’s going to continue for a while, I think.”
Garvin sighed.
“It’s like that virtual reality thing you have,” Fernandez said. “Those environments that seem real but aren’t really there. We all live every day in virtual environments, defined by our ideas. Those environments are changing. It’s changed with regard to women, and it’s going to start changing with regard to men. The men didn’t like it when it changed before, and the women aren’t going to like it changing now. And some people will take advantage. But in the final analysis, it’ll all work out.”
“When? When will it all end?” Garvin said, shaking his head.
“When women have fifty percent of the executive positions,” she said. “That’s when it will end.”
“You know I favor that.”
“Yes,” Fernandez said, “and I gather you have just appointed an outstanding woman. Congratulations, Bob.”
Mary Anne Hunter was assigned to drive Meredith Johnson to the airport, to take a plane back to Cupertino. The two women sat in silence for fifteen minutes, Meredith Johnson hunched down in her trench coat, staring out the window.
Finally, when they were driving past the Boeing plant, Johnson said, “I didn’t like it here, anyway.”
Choosing her words carefully, Hunter said, “It has its good and bad points.”
There was another silence. Then Johnson asked, “Are you a friend of Sanders?”
“Yes.”
“He’s a nice guy,” Johnson said. “Always was. You know, we used to have a relationship.”
“I heard that,” Hunter said.
“Tom didn’t do anything wrong, really,” Johnson said. “He just didn’t know how to handle a passing remark.”
“Uh-huh,” Hunter said.
“Women in business have to be perfect all the time, or they just get murdered. One little slip and they’re dead.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“Yes,” Hunter said. “I know.”
There was another long silence. Johnson shifted in her seat.
She stared out the window.
“The system,” Johnson said. “That’s the problem. I was raped by the fucking system.”
Sanders was leaving the building, on his way to the airport to pick up Susan and the kids, when he ran into Stephanie Kaplan. He congratulated her on the appointment. She shook his hand and said without smiling, “Thank you for your support.”
He said, “Thank you for yours. It’s nice to have a friend.”
“Yes,” she said. “Friendships are nice. So is competence. I’m not going to keep this job very long, Tom. Nichols is out as CFO of Conley, and their number-
two man is a modest talent at best. They’ll be looking for someone in a year or so. And when I go over there, someone will have to take over the new company here. I imagine it should be you.”
Sanders bowed slightly.
“But that’s in the future,” Kaplan said crisply. “In the meantime, we have to get the work here back on track. This division is a mess. Everyone’s been distracted by this merger, and the product lines have been compromised by Cupertino’s ineptitude. We’ve got a lot to do to turn this around. I’ve set the first production meeting with all the division heads for seven a.m. tomorrow morning. I’ll see you then, Tom.”
And she turned away.
Sanders stood at the arrivals gate at Sea-Tac and watched the passengers come off the Phoenix plane. Eliza came running up to him, shouting “Daddy!” as she leapt into his arms. She had a suntan.
“Did you have a nice time in Phoenix?”
“It was great, Dad! We rode horses and ate tacos, and guess what?” “What?”
“I saw a snake.”
“A real snake?”
“Uh-huh. A green one. It was this big,” she said, stretching her hands. “That’s pretty big, Eliza.”
“But you know what? Green snakes don’t hurt you.”
Susan came up, carrying Matthew. She had a suntan, too. He kissed her, and Eliza said, “I told Daddy about the snake.”
“How are you?” Susan said, looking at his face.
“I’m fine. Tired.”
“Is it finished?”
“Yes. It’s finished.”
They walked on. Susan slipped her arm around his waist. “I’ve been thinking. Maybe I’m traveling too much. We ought to spend more time together.”
“That’d be nice,” he said.
They walked toward the baggage claim. Carrying his daughter, feeling her small hands on his shoulder, he glanced over and saw Meredith Johnson standing at the check-in counter of one of the departure gates. She was wearing a trench coat. Her hair was pulled back. She didn’t turn and see him.
Susan said, “Somebody you know?”
“No,” he said. “It’s nobody.”
POSTSCRIPT
Constance Walsh was fired by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and sued the paper for wrongful termination and sexual discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The paper settled out of court.
Philip Blackburn was named chief counsel at Silicon Holographics of Mountain View, California, a company twice as large as DigiCom. He was later elected Chairman of the Ethics Panel of the San Francisco Bar Association.
Edward Nichols took early retirement from Conley-White Communications and moved with his wife to Nassau, Bahamas, where he worked part-time as a consultant to offshore firms.
Elizabeth “Betsy” Ross was hired by Conrad Computers in Sunnyvale, California, and soon after joined Alcoholics Anonymous.
John Conley was named Vice President for Planning at Conley-White Communications. He died in an automobile accident in Patchogue, New York, six months later.
Mark Lewyn was charged with sexual harassment under Title VII by an employee of the Design Group. Although Lewyn was cleared of the charge, his wife filed for divorce not long after the investigation was concluded.
Arthur Kahn joined Bull Data Systems in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Richard Jackson of Aldus was charged with sexual harassment under Title VII by an employee of American DataHouse, a wholesale distributor for Aldus. After an investigation, Aldus fired Jackson.
Gary Bosak developed a data encryption algorithm, which he licensed to IBM, Microsoft, and Hitachi. He became a multi- millionaire.
Louise Fernandez was appointed to the federal bench. She delivered a lecture to the Seattle Bar Association in which she argued that sexual harassment suits had become increasingly used as a weapon to resolve corporate disputes. She suggested that in the future there might be a need to revise laws or to limit the involvement of attorneys in such matters. Her speech was received coolly.
Meredith Johnson was named Vice President for Operations and Planning at IBM’s Paris office. She subsequently married the United States Ambassador to France, Edward Harmon, following his divorce. She has since retired from business.
AFTERWORD
The episode related here is based on a true story. Its appearance in a novel is not intended to deny the fact that the great majority of harassment claims are brought by women against men. On the contrary: the advantage of a role-reversal story is that it may enable us to examine aspects concealed by traditional responses and conventional rhetoric. However readers respond to this story, it is important to recognize that the behavior of the two antagonists mirrors each other, like a Rorschach inkblot. The value of a Rorschach test lies in what it tells us about ourselves.
It is also important to emphasize that the story in its present form is fiction. Because allegations of sexual harassment in the workplace involve multiple, conflicting legal rights, and because such claims now create substantial risk not only for the individuals but for corporations, it has been necessary to disguise the real event with care. All the principals in this case agreed to be interviewed with the understanding that their identities would be concealed. I am grateful to them for their willingness to help clarify the difficult issues inherent in investigations of sexual harassment.
In addition, I am indebted to a number of attorneys, human relations officers, individual employees, and corporate officials who provided valuable perspectives on this evolving issue. It is characteristic of the extreme sensitivity surrounding any discussion of sexual harassment that everyone I talked to asked to remain anonymous.