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“No bother. I’m sure we’ll hear about it when Lucy is ready for us to hear about it.”

“Okay.”

“Have you started packing? You’re not, like, living out of boxes and suitcases, right?”

Megan laughed.

“No, not yet. I packed some things I’m going to leave at my parents’ house, but that’s it.”

“Good,” Sophia said. “I hope Lucy doesn’t wait too long to get the ball rolling on this. I got a friend on Wall Street and she tells me that because of how hard New York was hit with Covid, corporate real estate in the city now is cheap! We can get office space for a song. Well, a song if you’re a billionaire like Lucy writing the checks.”

Megan laughed. Lucy Whitaker was one of her personal heroes, a woman who had started her own software company and was turning it into a behemoth, even earning a place on the cover of Time. Lucy was proving that in the male-dominated world of I.T., women were no longer willing to just sit on the sidelines and settle for male CEOs to grant them high-level executive positions just to meet some diversity quotas. And it was Lucy who had personally recruited Megan to join BeachSoft.

“Anyway, young lady,” Sophia continued, “stay ready. I’m your mentor for this and so be prepared to meet with me a lot over the next few weeks because we have a lot to discuss.”

“Got it,” Megan said.

“It’s too bad we can’t switch places, though,” Sophia said.

Megan blinked.

“Did you want to move to New York?”

“Sure, one day. I’m from the Bronx, did you know that?” Sophia answered.

Megan didn’t, though she’d always picked up on Sophia’s New York accent.

“I came out here for college and ended up staying, raising a family. I’ve always wanted to go back, though. California is wonderful but I think I’m a New York girl at heart. But the main reason I’d go back now is because my parents live in Connecticut and they’re getting pretty old. It would be nice to have a position back east again so I can keep an eye on them and help take care of them.”

“You can’t convince them to move out here to live with you?” Megan asked.

Sophia started chuckling.

“You have no idea how unbelievably stubborn those old fools are, Megan. My dad even fell on the ice last winter, broke his hip and still insists he loves winter. Anyway, my husband and I are both kinda over California, all this sunshine gets depressing after a while. I miss the culture and excitement back in the New York area, and he misses going to Yankees games. We figure we’ll retire there, eventually. Find a nice brownstone in hipster Brooklyn to putter away in. Anyway, the main reason I called you is to talk about Trevor.”

Megan managed to not make a face because her boss could see her. Instead, she plastered on what she hoped was a believable smile and said, “What about him?”

“How do you think he’s doing?”

Megan knew Sophia expected honesty. This wasn’t a time for diplomacy.

“It’s been a struggle, Soph. Sometimes it’s like I’m dealing with a child because he needs so much hand-holding.”

Megan then spent some time recounting examples from the past few weeks

Sophia nodded contemplatively.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ve heard a lot of grumbles myself from others and so I think it’s time we cut our losses with him.”

Megan’s heart thumped, the implications of the conversation hitting her. It was very likely, after all, that she had just had a hand in someone losing his job. During a pandemic.

Fuck!

But then Sophia dropped an atomic bomb.

“Give him a call and tell him he’s fired,” she stated simply.

“Wait…what?”