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Natalie

N atalie looked at her phone again. It had only been two minutes since she had glanced at it, even if it felt like ten. The sun left a glare on the shiny coffee table in a high-end executive waiting room. With one more peek at her phone, she was trying to deal with the nerves. Even though she’d grown up with these people, they still held too much power over her life.

The name of the Roper Foundation hung behind the reception desk. The logo she’d known her entire life. In place of the O in Roper was a cardigan sweater her grandfather had famously worn in the children’s show he’d starred in for decades.

“Natalie, please come in,” said Mr. Jeffers, the Roper Foundation’s lawyer.

“Thank you, Mr. Jeffers.”

She stood and walked into his office with her throat in her chest. This was not what she wanted to be doing. He crossed behind his desk and greeted her with a warm smile, but it didn’t do a damn thing to calm her nerves.

“Please sit down,” he said, gesturing to the chair across from him. “I’ve been looking over the file you sent over. What an awful predicament.”

While she thought he was being sincere, losing her job and possibly her career was more than a predicament.

“How was it you were hoping we could help you?”

Natalie took a deep breath. She tucked her soft blond hair behind her ear and dug for courage.

“I was wondering if there was any way we could fight it. You can see the reason I was fired is in the file. I believe it is false, and I won’t be able to find work with that on my record. I was wondering if maybe the foundation’s lawyers would be able to help.”

“Hmmm,” Mr. Jeffers hummed as he looked over the file. “I absolutely agree. The reason you were fired is total BS. But, sadly, that’s just not what the lawyers here do.”

He set the file down on his desk, looking back at her with pity.

“I know it’s not what they usually do, but I guess I was just wondering if there was anything they could do. I’ve never asked anything before,” she said, trying to not let her anger get the best of her.

Yes, the foundation had been founded by her grandfather, a beloved children’s TV persona, to continue his dream of giving books to every child in the country. So, no, it wasn’t what they usually did, but they could.

“Have you talked to your grandfather about this?”

“No, I didn’t want to bother him with it.”

He nodded and peered at the file again. “I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this, Natalie. I’ll see what we can do. While I can’t promise you a job or anything like that, I can promise the foundation will keep it quiet.”

“Okay, well, thank you for looking into it.”

She left his office and made her way to her car, wanting to scream. And as soon as she was safely in her car with the door shut, that was just what she did. Yet that scream didn’t do much to get rid of the anger inside of her.

And, of course, the foundation would keep it quiet but offer no help... something she should’ve known. She was just mad at herself for thinking they would help. Helping her wasn’t their priority, but keeping it quiet was. They didn’t care that she was fired for hateful reasons. If no one found out about it, the foundation’s name stayed clean.

She got home and called her best friend.

“Hey, Nat, how’d it go?”

“Just like you thought it would,” she said, defeated. She flopped down on her couch and flung her toes out of her shoes.

“Fuck.”

“I don’t know why I thought it would be any different.”

“Because you still have hope in humanity... My hope in humanity died years ago.”

“Yeah, well... I wish mine did. But I’m just so mad. This is all utter bullshit!”

“Yep. Utter bullshit.”

“What am I going to do?” she asked, trying to push away the tears.

She would not cry for ignorant assholes who fired her or the foundation her family had built who refused to help her.

“Babe, why don’t you just come stay with me? New York is a world away from Alabama. You can get a fresh start here.”

That did sound promising.

She fiddled with the Afghan on the back of the couch. “I don’t know, Sydney, that’s a big ask.”

“Natalie, don’t make me come down there. Drive your ass to New York and stay in my guest room. What else do you have going on?”

“Well, when you put it that way.”

“Do you need any help getting here?”

“No. I can get there, but that’s about all of my money.”

It wasn’t like the career she’d just been fired from was lucrative, but no one went into teaching for the money.

“Don’t worry about that right now. You can find a job once you’re here. And there’s no rush. You’re going through a lot. And, hey, what are best friends for?”

“You’re a lifesaver, Syd,” she said, feeling a small glimmer of hope. “I’ll start packing.”

“My guest room is waiting.”

She hung up the phone and started packing. In the morning, she would start the trek from Alabama all the way up to Glendale, New York. Then she would figure out the next step in her life.