Free Company Man by Joseph Finder

it.” Nick’s voice was arctic. “Are we clear?”

10
    As soon as Claflin left, Julia entered the kitchen. She was wearing a gray sweatshirt emblazoned with the arch-shaped logo of the Michigan Wolverines. Her friend was still sitting at the computer in the family room, busily tyrannizing the lives of her Sims family like some high-tech Hitler.
    â€œDaddy, are you the president of Stratton?”
    â€œPresident and CEO, baby, don’t you know that? Give me a hug.”
    She ran to him as if she’d been waiting for permission, threw her arms around him. Nick leaned over and gave her a kiss on her forehead, thought: She’s just figuring this out?
    â€œEmily says you fired half the people in Fenwick.”
    Emily looked up from the computer screen, stole a furtive glance at Nick.
    â€œWe had to lay a lot of really good people off,” Nick said. “To save the company.”
    â€œShe says you fired her uncle.”
    Ah, so that was it. Nick shook his head. “I didn’t know that. I’m sorry to hear it, Emily.”
    Emily gave him an imperious, condescending look, almost withering, quite remarkable for a ten-year-old girl. “Uncle John’s been unemployed for almost two years. He says he gave everything to Stratton and you ruined his life.”
    Nick wanted to respond— It wasn’t me, and anyway we provided extensive outplacement counseling, you know —but once you start debating with ten-year-olds you might as well hang it up. He was saved by the honk of a car horn. “Okay, Em, you’d better get going. You don’t want to keep your mom waiting.”
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    Emily’s mom drove a brand-new gold Lexus LX 470 roughly half as long as a city block. She wore a white Fred Perry tennis shirt, white shorts, a Fenwick Country Club windbreaker, expensive-looking white tennis shoes. She had great, tanned legs, short auburn hair coiffed in a high-fashion cut, a giant glittering diamond engagement ring. Her husband was a plastic surgeon who was rumored to be having an affair with his receptionist, and if even Nick, who was completely out of the gossip stream, had heard it, it was probably true.
    â€œHello, Nick.” Her cigarette-husky voice was chilly and bone-dry.
    â€œHi, Jacqueline. Emily should be out in a second. I had to tear her away from the computer.”
    Jacqueline smiled in an artful semblance of sociability. Nick knew her only enough to say hi: maintaining friendships among the school parents had been Laura’s job. Not that long ago, Jacqueline Renfro would light up when she saw him at school plays and parents’ nights, as if he were a long-lost friend. But people didn’t suck up to him so much anymore.
    â€œHow’s Jim?” he said.
    â€œOh, you know,” she said airily. “When people lose their jobs they don’t get Botox quite as often.”
    â€œEmily mentioned that her uncle got laid off from Stratton. Is he your brother or Jim’s?”
    She paused, then said sternly, “Mine, but Emily shouldn’t have said that. Honestly, she has no manners. I’ll talk to her.”
    â€œNo, no—she was saying what was on her mind. Where’d your brother work?”
    â€œI don’t—” she faltered, then she called out, “Emily, what is taking you so long?”
    They stood in awkward silence for a moment until herdaughter emerged from the house, struggling under the weight of a backpack the size of a Sherpa’s.
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    Julia didn’t look up from the computer monitor as Nick approached and asked, “Where’s your brother?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œYou finish your homework?”
    Julia didn’t answer.
    â€œYou heard me, right?”
    â€œWhat?” What was it with the selective hearing? He could whisper “Krispy Kreme” in the kitchen and she’d come bounding.
    â€œYour homework. We’re eating dinner in half an