Good for You: A Novel (7)

Seth coughed and looked past her.

“Wait a second,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “Did you watch the video?” James had told her they were already working to get it removed from YouTube.

Still not meeting her gaze, he nodded.

“Who else saw it? I thought it was supposed to be gone already. James said . . .”

“It was just me,” Seth said quickly. “Aly, he’s my dad. Of course he was going to show me. This is kind of a big deal for All Good—you know the magazine is the company’s biggest revenue-generator. And . . . well. We have to figure out how to run damage control, not to mention figure out who posted it in the first place.” Someone had anonymously forwarded the video to James mere minutes after it had been posted.

“Jeez,” she muttered. We? Seth headed up sales, not corporate communications. And damage control? All this, because she found the courage to tell her subordinates to stop undercutting her, and by default, the magazine they worked at? Now who would handle the September issue, which was the biggest revenue generator of the year? What about the Good Morning America announcement she was supposed to make about their new line of kitchen products for Target?

Meagan would end up at the helm, she realized at once. The very editor whose name James could not even remember, who had been on the verge of being unceremoniously deposed, would fill her shoes for four whole weeks.

This was not the plan.

At once, Aly realized that her previous plan was no longer in effect. She needed to come up with a new one that would turn this debacle into a victory. And like the Macy’s balloons she watched get filled before the parade each Thanksgiving, she felt her spirits slowly begin to rise.

“I’m going to fix this, Seth. If there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s fix things. I’ll call another team meeting, clear the air. We’ll start anew.”

“Um. That’s going to be hard to do when you’re not allowed back in the building, no?”

She hadn’t thought of that. “I’ll do it remotely, then.”

“Without your laptop?”

Her cheeks burned as she recalled Linda taking her keycard, badge, and computer, watching her retrieve her personal belongings from her office like she was a white-collar criminal. (Aly’d half expected Linda to escort her out of the building, but she’d been spared that humiliation.) No matter. While humiliation may have been a natural response to what had happened to her, it wouldn’t get her out of this. She needed to tap into her good old-fashioned grit—perhaps the one thing she had her parents to thank for. “Fine. I get it: no meetings. I’ll take the month to reflect and reorganize, and I’ll come back stronger than ever. I’ll come up with a plan for scaling All Good so it’s the most valuable brand in the history of magazines.” She glanced around. “Do you think I could set up a small office in the corner of the living room? Laptop or no laptop, I have business to attend to.”

“Aly,” he said flatly.

“The bedroom?” It would be a tight squeeze, but she could make it work.

“Aly.”

“What is it?” Why hadn’t he hugged her yet, or at least put an arm around her? Sure, they’d never been particularly touchy-feely, but did he have to stand there looking at her like she was a stranger?

He was going to break up with her, she realized. Which was really not the plan.

“I think we should spend some time apart,” she announced.

He was visibly startled. “What? Are you leaving me?”

Aly considered this. Yes, she supposed she was. She nodded.

“Where will you even go?” he asked.

“Somewhere other than here,” she said.

“And why would you do that?”

He seemed so surprised that she wondered if she’d misread him. Well, even if she had, she’d still just seen the crystal ball that was his body language; better to rip off the Band-Aid now and get this relationship over with. “Because it’s not good for the company for me to be with you right now,” she told him, thinking of what Meagan and Ashleigh had said at the salad place. “And I really need to focus on work.”

“Where are you going to go, Aly?” he asked again. Because “their” place was actually his. Though he’d never said as much, she was pretty sure his family had bought it outright for him; he didn’t even have a mortgage. The reason she could afford to live there was because he only asked her to split the expenses and monthly maintenance fee with him.

“Somewhere.” Under different circumstances, she would’ve called Meagan to see if she could crash at her apartment. “Maybe I’ll get a hotel room.”

“I’ll get the hotel,” he said quickly. “I’ll rent a room tonight, maybe tomorrow night, too—give you some time to come up with a plan. I know you’re . . . not in a great financial position.” He said this with the most tenderness he’d shown all night, and it was almost enough to make Aly blurt out that she hadn’t meant any of it. Then he added, “I can give you some money to tide you over.”

She shook her head vigorously. “I don’t want your charity. I want my job back.” And she would do whatever it took to get it—including but not limited to making it abundantly clear that she wasn’t using Seth to get ahead.