Chapter 13
The office felt different without him there.
I noticed it the next morning when I pushed through the back entrance at seven forty-five. The lights were on, the marble table was empty, but the air was quieter. No voice calling out coverage checks from the side office, no clipboard handed off at the elevator. Marcus was by the paneled wall with the two suits from before, and Carla from HR had a rolling cart with folders. A younger guy in a gray polo — new, I hadn't seen him before — was wiping down the table with a different cloth, not mine.
"You made it," Marcus said. He didn't sound surprised. He sounded relieved.
I nodded. My throat was dry. "You said seven forty-five."
"And you were right on time," Carla said. She checked her watch. It was 7:46. "Come in, Maya. We want to walk you through today."
The warm spots overhead made the marble shine. My white cloth was folded on the edge now, not trapped under anyone's arm. The silver terminal was gone from the table. In its place was a small sign that said OUT OF SERVICE - USE FRONT DESK TERMINAL.
Carla opened a folder on the table. Inside was my corrected schedule, printed clean on white paper. No yellow highlighter. No handwritten add-ons.
"This is what should have been posted last week," she said. "Three day shifts, eight hours each. Nine to five, with a lunch. No fifteen-oh-seven approvals. The thirty-six hours you actually worked — three overnights back to back — are here on the correction line."
She slid it toward me. I stared at the numbers. Twenty-four hours over my normal. At the proper rate, not the flat coverage rate he'd used.
"That's back pay," she said quietly. "Payroll cut the correction this morning. It will hit your direct deposit tomorrow. After taxes, it's about nine hundred and forty dollars."
I felt my breath catch. Nine hundred and forty dollars was my rent and my electric stacked together. It was the pile of envelopes under my keys at home that I'd been moving from counter to drawer so I wouldn't have to look at them.
"Why are you showing me this now?" I asked.
"Because we need you to confirm it," Carla said. "And because today we are short. With the supervisor suspended, we have no floor manager. Marcus is covering, but we are not assigning you extra to fill it. You work your posted eight today. If anyone asks you to stay, you check with me or Marcus directly. Not a note on the table. Not a verbal at the elevator."
Marcus leaned against the marble. "Dave from IT pulled the old yellow sheet for evidence. The new sheet is locked in the system. No code 4472 works anymore. Olivia's code is frozen until she resets it herself from New York."
I touched the edge of the paper. It was cool and smooth. "So no one can just write me in?"
"No one," Carla said. "Every approval now needs a badge tap plus a code plus a manager override on camera. It's slower, but it's real."
The new guy finished wiping the table and looked at me. "Do you want your cloth back?" he asked. "They said it was yours."
I picked it up. It was damp and clean. I folded it in half, then half again. That small movement made my hands stop shaking.
"Can I ask something?" I said after a second. I looked at Marcus, then at Carla. "Yesterday you said I could stay or transfer. Is that still true if I question the schedule? Like, if I say I'm tired, I don't get written up?"
Carla didn't flinch. "That's exactly what you should do. If you're tired, you tell us. We adjust coverage, we don't punish you. That was the old gap. We covered a gap with you instead of hiring. That ends now."
I wanted to believe it. I stood there in my black and white uniform that suddenly felt less like a costume and more like work clothes, and I realized I was hesitating. The money would help, but money had been the reason I'd said yes without asking three nights in a row. I was scared that saying yes again, even to a correct schedule, would mean I was still the person who fell asleep on the table.
"I want to work today," I said. "But I want to see the clock. I want to leave when it says."
"You will," Marcus said. "Eight hours. I'll walk you out myself at fifteen-oh-seven if you want."
I almost laughed. "Don't call it that."
May you like
He smiled, just a little. "Four o'clock. How's that?"
"Better," I said, and slipped the corrected schedule into my apron pocket. It was light, but I felt it the whole morning.
