As I walked in that morning with Susan, I was again struck by just how large the room actually was. Mary’s office was so large that it couldn’t be brought together into a single, cohesive space, no matter how creative the interior decorator they hired. It felt less like an office and more like one of those upscale studio loft apartments only millionaires could afford. Front and center was Mary’s desk, a modern-styled behemoth with an executive credenza behind and two uncomfortable visitor chairs in front; and over there to the left was a conference table, a cut piece of beveled glass exactly fitting over the oval-shaped tabletop and a speaker phone crouching like a venomous spider in its very center; and on the opposite side was a kind of sitting area, two low, leather chairs and a matching loveseat trying to surround a glass-topped coffee table, a spread of business and news magazines pushed across it like a winning hand; and farther on was the library, two enormous bookshelves filled with books featured in the Harvard Business Review and not a one of them with a cracked spine or a dog-eared page. They were all in the same room, but they were also rooms in and of themselves, making up a kind of posh apartment in the sky with no walls necessary to mark the transitions between spaces.
Mary was standing there behind her desk, her reading glasses held absently in one hand and her other hand planted impatiently on her hip. Ruthie hadn’t shared the details of Mary’s schedule that day, but I figured she must have had some kind of power lunch planned with clients or with local business leaders because she was wearing one of her best suits—gray Italian wool over a red silk blouse. Mary dressed well, but whatever she wore in the office it always looked more like an affectation than something she was comfortable with—almost like something she had rented for the occasion. And the designer reading glasses really struck me as out of place. I don’t know what she could have been reading with those glasses before we came in. There was not a scrap of paper anywhere to be found on her desk and her computer monitor obliquely but clearly showed us nothing but the company’s familiar sign-in screen.
“Alan, Susan,” Mary said quickly. She made eye contact with me and with Susan in turn. “What’s going on?”
I led Susan deeper into Mary’s office, coming to a position right behind one of her visitor chairs. Susan came up beside me, and made a move as if she intended to sit down, but checked herself when it became clear that I had no intention of doing so. I waited for Ruthie to shut the door completely behind us. Knowing that Ruthie would be hanging on every word I had to say, and still angry at Susan for revealing too much too soon, I decided to start slowly, and to hedge my own bets as best I could.
“Something happened at Susan’s meeting,” I said. “She just told me about it, and I think you’d better hear it directly.”
Mary turned her attention away from me. “Susan?”
I don’t know if Susan knew she was being maneuvered into doing all the talking, and therefore take all the risks, but she didn’t seem to mind. I think she might have even relished the opportunity, because she launched into it with Mary just as she’d launched into it with me fifteen minutes before. She told the whole story again from top to bottom, her anger and frustration overriding any sense of embarrassment she had felt over how Wes and her staff people had mocked and belittled her.
I intended to pay close attention to Mary’s reactions while Susan spoke, but first my eyes were irresistibly drawn over Mary’s shoulder and out into the city beyond. I was like that then, you see, often getting distracted at the most critical of moments, and Mary’s office had the greatest of all distractions. Unlike every other office in our space, Mary’s office had windows—two entire walls of floor-to-ceiling windows—accentuating not just the office’s position in the corner of our building, but also its commanding view of the city we all called home.
“He’s a predator, Mary. Wes Howard is a predator and the young women of this company are his prey.”
It was this dramatic and somewhat practiced opening salvo of Susan’s that pulled my eyes away from the intoxicating daylight and reminded me that I should be studying Mary—and I forced myself to do exactly that, watching for signs of shock or concern as Susan went on with her story, piling on the details surrounding Amy and Caroline’s poor judgment and Wes’s boorishness. But throughout all I saw was the typical Mary Walton poker face—a stoic and impenetrable expression I had seen her adopt in countless board meetings and negotiations. It was the face she showed the world and it was meant to mask her emotions and the wheels of number-crunching thought that were always spinning in her head. It was so effective that I’d heard people say they didn’t think Mary had any emotions or, worse yet, that she was incapable of higher thought—but I knew better. I knew it was a mask because I had seen what Mary looked like underneath. Mary didn’t let the mask slip very often, but when she did it was something to see.
I saw Mary’s true face the day Ryan left the company, when I had gone looking for him in his old office and had found Mary and Don there, Mary looking for all the world like the basement walls had just caved in on her family. It was such an unbelievable and oddly captivating sight—Mary Walton completely thrown off her game—that there was always part of me that longed to see it again.
But this would not be one of those times. Even as Susan finished and started to make her demands, I could tell that Mary had a full grip on her faculties.
“Something needs to be done, Mary,” Susan said. “That man can’t be allowed to victimize members of our staff this way.”
Mary nodded her head as if she agreed with Susan. “Did you actually see Wes touching either one of them inappropriately?”
Susan seemed surprised by the directness of Mary’s question, and she stumbled on her response. “I was—well, I was sitting right next to them.”
“Yes,” Mary said. “But did you see him actually touching them?”
Susan stood and looked dumbly at Mary for a moment. “Mary, it was pretty clear what was going on.”
“Is that a no, Susan?” Mary said sharply. “Did you or didn’t you—”
“Did I actually see his grimy hands on their thighs?” Susan said suddenly, her voice loud and hostile. “Is that what you want to know, Mary? No, I guess I didn’t, and I don’t have any photographic evidence, either, but his hands were under the table and they certainly weren’t in his own lap. What are you trying to do here?”
I was surprised by Susan’s outburst, knowing it was more impassioned than what was typically seen in the company, especially inside Mary’s office. Mary had this thing about women showing too much emotion in the workplace. She was from the school that taught women professionals had to be even more cutthroat than their male counterparts because of the widespread sexism that expected them to be more emotional and—by Mary’s estimation—less trustworthy. The surest way for a female staff person to get onto Mary’s blacklist was to be too emotional. And if she ever cried—forget it. Her career was over. Susan wasn’t anywhere near tears, but she was upset, and I wasn’t the only one who thought she might be stepping over Mary’s line. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Ruthie start moving forward, the riot police about to swoop in and arrest the perpetrators, but Mary held her at bay with a raised finger.
“Susan,” Mary said calmly, “the only thing I’m trying to do here is determine an appropriate course of action. In order to do that, I need to know the facts. Now, if you didn’t witness inappropriate contact between them, then I need to have either Amy or Caroline make a complaint against Wes. Would either one of them be willing to do that?”
Susan turned her eyes down towards the floor. “I don’t know,” she said bitterly. “I don’t think so. You’d have to ask them.”
While Susan’s eyes were averted, Mary turned and looked at me, asking me with just her expression what I thought about Amy or Caroline ratting out on Wes. I responded in equal silence, communicating with a shake of my head and a skeptical wrinkle in my cheek that I didn’t think so, either. Amy and Caroline didn’t like Susan—none of her staff did—and it sounded like they had had a rollicking good time making fun of her while someone with greater authority provided them cover. Unless Wes had done something actually abusive to one of them—and I wasn’t convinced he had—I couldn’t see either of them turning on Wes in a situation like this. Rather, they were likely looking forward to the next opportunity to get out of their little workstations and drink expensive wine at a fancy hotel while ridiculing their supervisor.
Mary nodded her head slightly, making it clear that she also agreed with this assessment. And that made sense. Mary, as much as anyone, understood the inequities of Amy and Caroline’s positions in the company, and how little people acted when they got a taste of the big time.
Susan looked up just as Mary turned away from me. “Mary,” she said plaintively. “Something needs to be done. I saw the look in Caroline’s eyes yesterday morning. He did something to hurt her. I don’t know what it—”
“Something will be done,” Mary said suddenly, her resolution interrupting Susan in mid-sentence. “You can be assured of that, Susan. Their conduct was extremely unprofessional. I’m especially troubled by the way they called attention to themselves. You said the entire room was aware of how much they were drinking?”
Susan looked at Mary blankly.
“Yes, you did,” Mary said, not waiting for Susan to respond. “And they treated you with great disrespect. I know you’re new to the company, but you are their supervisor. They owe you a greater courtesy.”
I saw what was happening. At the time I probably couldn’t have predicted it, but looking back on it now, I see this is why I didn’t want to jump too quickly to the sexual harassment accusation the way Susan had. I had sensed from the very beginning that Mary was going to have a different perspective on the situation. Simply stated, if you were going to accuse someone like Wes Howard of sexual harassment, you had better make sure you had him dead to rights. Susan didn’t, and Mary wasn’t going to risk a move against him without something a lot more substantial. Susan was having a hard time processing the cold reality of it all, but it was clear to me. And I suddenly knew what was coming next.
“Let’s go talk to Don,” Mary said.
+ + +
“Dragons” is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. For more information, go here.
This post first appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can follow him on Twitter @ericlanke or contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.
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