Matt pushed his chair away from the table and said he would check with me later. I was about to leave too, but Julia said, “Stay for a minute, Kimberly.”
Okay, there was that tentative feeling again, like the other shoe was about to drop. She said, “Um, there’s one more little thing. You know, of course, our compensation plan is set up so the bonus checks are issued for merchandise shipped before the end of each quarter.”
I nodded, but couldn’t shake the feeling she was setting me up.
“Eventually you’ll have full access to the new software system, but for now some portions will remain confidential until our consultants work out the bugs.”
I was about to question that when she added, “For example, I’m afraid certain dates previously shown for merchandise shipped in the last quarter were wrong. Like I said, there was a glitch in the program.” Her lips tightened. Here it comes flashed through my mind.
A wry smile replaced the tight expression. “Some of the shipments were entered with the date the order came out of production instead of the shipping date.” A bit of a flush crept from her neck to her cheeks. I knew she was lying. Her eyes flitted around the room, as though looking for any place to rest. Anywhere but connecting with mine, that is.
“That has created a bit of a problem. Several of those large orders didn’t actually go out until the following week, which means they won’t be payable until next quarter. I don’t have the corrected figures yet, so I just made a list for you and highlighted the ones I’m talking about. There are quite a few.”
I definitely didn’t like the sound of that. What reason could she possibly have for not letting me access that information directly? I’m the financial whiz. I know quite a bit about computer programs, and it simply didn’t seem reasonable that only certain big orders would have automatically been entered wrong while others weren’t. Besides, where were the actual printouts with corrected dates and the backup information?
Why hadn’t Julia given me the supporting documents showing actual shipping dates? The only thing she handed me were some sheets with the supposed wrong dates highlighted. Bands of yellow decorated the pages like stripes on a bumblebee. Obviously, she expected me to take her word. But I didn’t. She should have given me a report of all the shipped orders in complete detail, not just her own tabulations.
She probably saw the shadow of doubt cross my face. I don’t know how else to describe the flinty quality in her eyes at that moment. It was clear our meeting was at an end. She shuffled the papers and restacked them. While ushering me to the door, she said, “Don’t worry. When the program is working correctly, you’ll be bombarded with more paper than you could ever want. Enjoy it while you can.”
Somehow I’d expected her to be less transparent. Those “things I didn’t need” were probably the exact ones that showed our team was owed quite a bit more than the checks she intended to pass out.
Just as I suspected when I opened the file, a quick glance at the top paper told me despite all the highlighting, there was a lot of missing information. She’d given me only what she wanted me to see and no more. Who did she think she was kidding? I was being set up to take the flack that was sure to blossom when the checks were disappointing. That’s why the meeting was scheduled after the party and not before. She needed everyone to be their charming best for the corporate executives and key clients, and if they realized they were being cheated, it certainly wouldn’t put anyone in a party mood.
Oh, she had been clever about it. I would be her buffer when pandemonium broke out. Kimberly Martin, punching bag.
To me her smile had looked much more like a smirk when she said, “There are bound to be complaints. When that happens, it will be your job to explain about the cutoff dates glitch. Regardless of the amount, every one of them should be delighted to receive any check at all, but people get greedy. Just keep calm. Make sure to say it looks like next quarter will be quite lucrative. That will calm them down.”
What a clumsy cover up. I remember how Matt had caught my eye during the meeting. Had he been giving me a silent message to be careful? How was I going to keep people pumped up if they were being screwed?
Talk about walking a tightrope. On one hand I knew I had to tell Kate and Cameron what was happening. On the other hand, I dreaded it. I couldn’t keep it from them, which meant they would be the only ones on the sales team who knew. Would they explode or go along with me? And then there was Matt. Just when I’d come to think of him as a trusted friend, the doubts were burgeoning. Was he tied in with Julia in some underhanded scheme? Did he really inherit from a rich grandmother, or was he a liar?
I opened the file and fingered the pages, wondering whether to take a crack at them or wait until I could sort out my thoughts. It was too tempting. Every page had those yellow highlighter streaks, and every streak seemed to represent an amount that some salesperson was entitled to and wouldn’t get. At least not now. Realizing I was too confused and upset to deal with it right then, I closed the file, and promised myself I would get to the bottom of it. I had no idea what “it” might turn out to be, but as my mom used to say, “Something was rotten in Denmark.”
I spent the rest of the day doing busy work, trying not to look at the file even as it sat on my desk beckoning to me. Matt was nowhere to be seen the entire afternoon. Who was I kidding? I couldn’t wait until tomorrow to tear Julia’s figures apart. I’d do it tonight in the privacy of my office at home.
That evening I stopped for gas, then went to the market where I bought a takeout dinner at the deli counter and a cheerful bouquet of flowers. I put the flowers in a nice cut crystal vase and displayed it on my dining table. As I spread out my dinner, my mind wandered. I didn’t like being used. One thing was painfully clear. Julia had figured out how to fabricate a three month delay in paying thousands of dollars of commissions that should have been due now. Worse yet, she was using me as the goat. What in the hell was she up to?
That night, snuggled in my big blue bathrobe, I poured over everything in the file, then went through it again. I’d moved the flowers from the dining room to my office, feeling a need to fill the small room with their delicate fragrance. Occasionally I’d glance at the colorful array, telling myself there was no point in alerting Cameron and Kate until I had something solid to tell them. Around ten o’clock, I fixed myself a cup of coffee in an attempt to stay alert and continued through the sales figures. What other double dealings were hidden in Julia’s locked cabinet? Would I be able to figure out how to see the real files—the ones she supposedly used to compile the contrived sheets she’d given me?
Another thing bothered me. I knew I’d never seen some of the large orders that weren’t highlighted in yellow. Each of those was somewhere around $500,000 plus or minus and Julia had noted HRF next to each of them in the salesperson’s column. Projects that size usually involved several quotes before the actual purchase was made, so why had I never seen even one? Details. The little details were what bothered me the most. There were a ton of small and medium shipments, and not one was yellow lined. The yellow-lined orders jumping out at me were all $300,000 or more.
By one in the morning I realized I was just staring at the pages without comprehending, so I decided to turn in for the night. Tomorrow was another day.