“What?”
“We only needed everyone to believe we had.”
He signed the document and turned it toward me.
It was a new job offer.
Head of Internal Controls.
The salary was almost double what I had been earning.
I couldn’t speak.
“Why me?”
He remained quiet for a moment.
“Because for the last five years, a lot of people here have worked hard to impress me. You were the only one who worked as if no one was watching.”
Then he looked toward the photo hanging on his office door.
“And that picture is staying there until the end of the day.”
I laughed.
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“People are thinking terrible things.”
Not because I’m standing beside my former director.
But because that was the day I lost my job…
and the next morning, I discovered that he hadn’t really fired me at all.
He had only removed me long enough to find out who he needed to protect the company from.
He laughed too.
“I know. But at noon, I’m going to tell them the truth.”
When I walked out of his office, the same people were staring at me again.
Only this time, I wasn’t embarrassed.
Karen was no longer there.
And strangely enough, years later, I still keep that photo from the lake.
