I call out of work sick the next morning. I haven’t slept all night. I keep seeing Graham’s face close to mine, and feeling the sensation of being pushed up against the wall, his fingers like grappling hooks. Closing my eyes doesn’t help. Opening them doesn’t either.
I can’t call the police now. They’ll want to know why I didn’t tell Officer Mortimer last night. Besides, there’s a strong possibility that the NYPD would just collude with INN. Power sides with power, and at the moment, I haven’t got any.
I checked myself for bruises, and there were none. There’s no semen or other fluids, no physical evidence at all. Could Graham’s attack have been calculated to ensure he’d leave no trace? Could he have done it before?
He told me to go ahead and scream. That people hear what they want. Translation: No one at INN is going to want to hear this about their golden boy. Or no one’s going to care what happens to me after I botched that story, though I didn’t botch it at all. INN had just reaped what it sowed, after building its audience on the disparagement of the rest of the media.
Speaking of which, CNN, MSNBC, or Fox would be all ears.
But with so many sexual harassment and assault claims coming down the pike about rich and powerful men, the viewers might be reaching their saturation point. Graham is small potatoes, just a producer, not a megastar. At home, people will weigh my story against those of the other women, considering the behavior along a continuum, assigning values: the demeaning calls I got from Graham are nothing compared to Weinstein’s bullying, and being rammed against the wall unsuccessfully is little compared to a completed rape. What I’ve been through could be downplayed and dismissed, and that’s if I’m believed at all. I can hear the speculation now about how after my hubristic failure to take down the president, I’m trying to extend my fifteen minutes of fame by any means necessary, that I got here on my looks and my sexuality, and then I want to cry rape when a man tries to follow through on the promise I’ve made.
I would have to go toe-to-toe against Graham in the court of public opinion. Surely what I did to Chase would come up, with all the attendant black-widow memes about how I mate and kill. To this point, Chase has made no public comments about me (probably at the advice of Until’s counsel), but he could start talking at any time. I can just imagine all the joking tweets about how Until could have stopped Graham, when it was just an idea in his mind.
If I took my story to another network, what would INN do? I’d be fired immediately, unless sexual harassment provisions prevented that. But if I had to stay there in the midst of an investigation, I don’t even want to think of the sort of attacks I’d face. For three years they own me. The damage they could inflict in that time is too awful to contemplate. I can just imagine Edwin and Daphne justifying it because of how I failed with the Until story, as if I ever stood a chance.
The only good thing about the series going out with a whimper rather than a bang is that it’s dampening the internet furor against me. There’s a lot of gloating about the president coming out on top. Fine, let them think they’ve won.
Maybe they have. I’ve never felt so defeated in my life.
Professor Trent tweeted: @theRealCheyenneFlorian, close but no cigar. Better luck next time!
I suppose it could look supportive. It will, to anyone who wants to see him in that light, which is everyone on campus. He’s one of the most popular professors. Who wants to believe that he was sexually harassing me?
Even I didn’t want to believe it, but now I can see. He’s actually gloating about the story falling flat. And it’s because after he groomed me all semester, abusing his power and making me feel like there was no way I could get an A without his direct assistance, he showed up at my apartment uninvited and I did what I should have done the whole time: I said no.
I don’t know if the cigar is a Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky reference or not. If it is, it’s probably because Professor Trent thinks Monica was the young femme fatale manipulating an older man. That’s the narrative I bought into, the one that the rumormongers fed. I felt grateful for the A that I could have rightfully earned, and guilty that I’d turned him down after all his kindness. Sorry that I’d strung him along, when really, I’d told him that I had a boyfriend. When I’d never asked for his help. It was offered—freely, I thought, only it turned out that it actually came at a great cost to how I saw myself and my competence, and how the other students saw me.
You okay? It was a rough night for everyone, with the story not turning out the way we’d hoped it would. We’re all missing you here at INN!
The exclamation point is so unlike the Graham I know that I can’t tell if he’s making fun of me or if this is his warped expression of concern, his version of an apology, even.
This time, I can’t tell myself he doesn’t remember. He wouldn’t have been drinking on the job. He attacked me stone-cold sober, unless you can be drunk on rage.
He failed. I fought back and got away. That might have to count as a win.
But he’s still texting me; I’ll have to keep seeing him, and working with him, and pretending that what happened didn’t.
It beats the alternative. Beth might not have gotten away at all.
The police investigators gave a placeholder press conference about Beth that offered no real information, so on every network and on social media, speculation flourishes. I can’t bear to watch INN’s coverage. I don’t want to see their spin, don’t want to even see that logo. So instead, I watch the other networks, where there’s a nearly vengeful focus on INN and how secretive it is. No one who’s inside talks to those outside, and even the people who’ve left won’t talk.
Won’t, or can’t?
I have a contract, and I ought to finally read it, since I’d rather walk away than be run out. Or disappear.
It’s a daunting task, but it’s blessedly absorbing. Term, Salary/Rate of Pay, Re-assignability . . . that’s all straightforward. Work for Hire—anything I create while I’m an employee of INN will belong to INN. I can’t take any ideas with me, unless I keep them in my head. And off my phone, email, or wherever else INN might be looking. Good to know.
I’m troubled by a phrase in the Job Description/Duties section that I cruised right by that first day: “as reasonably may be required by Company.” I don’t want to think what Company considers reasonable.
Termination for Cause: A breach of agreement would include a refusal to perform assigned tasks, failure to comply with policies, conduct that hurts INN’s reputation, insubordination, criminal conduct, and “ethical lapses.” If they want me out, it shouldn’t be hard for them to make it happen. But I have no escape hatch. Under Liquidated Damages, it says that if I quit in less than three years, they could fine me up to my salary, plus all that they’ve spent in training and developing me. Who knows how they’ll tally it up.
But that’s not the worst of the contract. Conflict resolutions have to be settled in arbitration, not in court, which means that INN will have home court advantage. Then there’s an airtight noncompete clause, which would survive the termination of my employment. In the next section, Confidentiality, it says: “Employee may not reveal company business, trade secrets, terms of employment, general business conditions, current employees . . .” It goes on for a page and a half and ends with, “including the existence of this clause.” As in, this is a gag order so complete that employees aren’t even allowed to reveal that it exists. But it’s not just current employees. The contract specifies that the gag is in effect “throughout the period of employment, and for a period of five years after termination of employment.”
Five years, under penalty of a ten-million-dollar fine. That can’t be standard in the industry, no matter what Edwin said. He’s been lying to me from the start.
For now, I’ll have to be careful about everything I say and write. I’m pretty sure I’m being spied on, given the things that Graham, Edwin, and even Daphne seem to know. I was so gullible, never even questioning the “gift” of this apartment.
I look up at the muted TV and see, “Who is Beth Linford?” I turn the sound back on. Though I missed the beginning, I get the gist. Nothing from Beth’s résumé has checked out. There’s no record of her at her stated alma mater; her previous employment can’t be verified; no family is stepping forward to claim her as theirs. She appeared out of nowhere in 2001 after the September eleventh attacks, just turned up at an NYC news affiliate with tapes of incredible interviews with first responders and victims’ families. She leveraged those tapes into a job, and from there, she worked her way up to INN.
I remember that strange comment from Edwin about how Beth used to be a blonde, about a rose by any other name.
So he knows who she really is. Does he also know what happened to her? Is he behind it?