Fire Me! Read online

  Fire Me

  A novel

  by Libby Malin

  ABOUT THIS COPY OF FIRE ME

  Dear Readers:

  This is an updated and revised version of the original book by the same title released in 2009 by Sourcebooks. I hope you have fun reading this fresh Fire Me! If you enjoy it, consider leaving a review at Amazon, at the updated Fire Me Amazon page https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Me-Libby-Malin-ebook/dp/B07C54NC9V

  Even a simple “I liked it” helps independent authors such as myself gain attention for works, and I’d love for new readers to discover this funny but heartfelt story.

  This novel’s film rights were purchased last March by a major movie studio—check out my website and blog for information as it becomes available. A squib on the project is here: http://www.tracking-board.com/exclusive-ben-stiller-and-red-hour-set-for-comedy-fire-me-at-fox/

  THANKS SO MUCH FOR READING!

  Libby Malin

  Copyright © 2018 by Libby Malin Sternberg

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are not real, or, if real, used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Cover art by Sweet ’N Spicy Designs.

  Again, to Leslie

  With much love and gratitude

  CHAPTER ONE

  From Mitch Burnham’s book Use It or Lose It:

  Your employees are like your children. You might let them sit behind the wheel, but you’d never give them the keys to the Maserati. You can let them pretend, but there’s only one driver and it’s not one of the kids. You’re the boss. Don’t ever forget it.

  Monday, 7:02 a.m.

  Sometimes Anne Wyatt wished she could feed parts of her life into a shredder.

  She stood staring out at the crystal blue sky from her seventh-floor, Crystal City, Virginia, apartment, fingers warming around a Burnham Group mug, thoughts jammed in first gear as they outstripped her ability to process them all. Her shoulder-length reddish hair was still damp from the shower and she wore one navy pump but couldn’t find the other.

  Should I call my brother to apologize for getting angry with him last night? Should I give up on Lean Cuisine and start eating regular frozen meals? Should I have handed in my resignation earlier when I first got word I’d landed the California job? Should I start drinking decaf or will I get a headache? Am I spending too much time with Rob when I know the relationship’s not going anywhere? Should I forget about finding the other shoe and just change my outfit entirely?

  Her thoughts danced and fluttered like the blossoms outside her window, eventually landing gently on the argument with her brother. Her brother was in the military and headed out for deployment overseas.

  Her cat meowed gently from the short hall to the bedroom.

  “Maisie, don’t you think I should be able to suppress minor irritations at a time like this?” she asked without turning to look at her. She took the cat’s silence as a yes.

  But no, no, she had to jump in with verbal fists flying and rhetorical arrows zinging. She came from a family of fighters, after all. Her father had been a full-bird colonel and his father a general. Her mother had been an Army nurse.

  Anne had not followed their path but had spent most of her young adulthood carving out a road that led in the opposite direction, away from rigidity and structure toward freedom and flexibility. She’d pursued a degree in the arts.

  But she was Corporate Girl now, having forsaken flowing skirts, velvety jackets, and dangly earrings. Sometimes she wondered if her previous life had been a dream, or if she’d really wanted that life, or merely wanted to rebel or… or what?

  It didn’t matter anyway. She might be a responsible contributor to society now, but in her brother’s eyes she would always be… Irresponsible Anne. She wished she were.

  I should call Jack and smooth things over, but that’s tantamount to surrender. Surely he’ll lose what little respect he has for me if he senses I’m waving the white flag.

  Noticing a smudge on the flat pane of glass, she quickly retrieved a bottle of window cleaner and square of paper towel. Here, at least, was a problem she could quickly solve. She’d become fastidious about her apartment lately, since she was going to need to sublet it. As she rubbed the glass, she appreciated the lush green landscape of spring, the earth so thick with new growth it looked like you could scoop it up with a spoon. She stepped back to admire her work just as a flash of deep blue broke away from the paler blue sky.

  Bluebird of happiness—an omen! She smiled. What message do you have for me?

  Bump! Splat! Bluebird of happiness ran into transparently clean window.

  Ohmygod. She dropped the window cleaner as if it were a smoking gun.

  Get out of here, Anne, before you slay any more harbingers of spring. She hustled to her bedroom, searching for that other shoe and rehearsing her speech.

  “I’m resigning, Mr. Burnham, because…”

  ***

  Kenneth Wright Montgomery III growled to himself as he threw drawings and pencils into a large leather portfolio. Late again. That’s what he got for staying up until two working. Working on his own stuff, not Burnham Group material. He had a strict my-time-is-my-own rule. Otherwise he’d never pull enough pieces together for his own showing.

  As he closed the portfolio, a corner of heavy paper stopped him. He tugged out a sketch to right it, but spent a few seconds gazing at the beginnings of a pencil drawing of his coworker, Anne Wyatt. If he could just find the time, he’d capture those big eyes perfectly…

  He shook his head, repositioning the drawing before zipping up the bag.

  He’d be lucky if he had time to think, let alone sketch at the office today. The workload was preposterously heavy, and his boss was a mercurial maniac who changed his mind about graphic designs as often as Ken presented him with new ideas. But it paid extremely well and that was all he was interested in right now.

  Ken was all about the “right now” right now.

  He stepped forward, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror by the door. His thick dark hair dampened his blue oxford shirt. It wouldn’t take so long to dry, of course, if he’d cut it. Not likely. Then he’d really look like his father. He straightened his blue and gold tie and reached for the doorknob. And stopped cold, remembering.

  Dammit.

  Today was “Pizzazz Day” at the Burnham Group. Another stupid team-building exercise. Staff members had been exhorted to wear something unique, crazy, fun, even weird. A blue blazer, tan Dockers, and varsity-striped tie didn’t exactly shout: “Here stands a creative man.”

  It bothered him that he, an artist, had so many pieces of conventional clothing, nothing exciting, colorful, or crazy.

  He growled again and rushed back into his bedroom, hangers screeching on a desperate hunt for the Wild Outfit. Shirts, suits, blazers, neatly pressed pants—nothing outrageous enough.

  Finally, his gaze lit on a bright, lime-green tie with a Santa design. Okay, that would have to do, something that said “fun,” or at least “ironic.” He yanked off the old and threw on the new.

  As he hurried to the foyer of his Silver Spring, Maryland, one bedroom, his toe caught on a stray piece of parquet tile. Blast it! He’d have to call the landlord to get that fixed. Damned if he’d lose his security deposit. Every extra bit of cash he made now was going toward “The Escape Plan.” Escape the corporate world. Escape his father’s clutches. Escape… oh hell, other stuff he couldn’t think of now.

  He’d come to the conclusion, after working for his father’s financial services business in Baltimore for two years, then for an arts consortium in DC for another five, and now for the Burnham Group for a scant six months, that he had to approach life the same way he approac
hed painting and drawing. He couldn’t just stare at the canvas waiting and imagining. He had to make the first stroke and let it both limit and free him at the same time. He had to make choices.

  Okay, here was a choice—he’d call the landlord later.

  He grabbed his portfolio, opened the door, and raced to the elevator, stepping on just before the doors glided closed. A business-suited woman nodded a quick hello.

  “Morning,” he said, leaning his portfolio against the wall while he finished knotting his tie. Triggered by the motion, the tie burst into cheerful electronic song. They zoomed to the lobby to the tune of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  From Anne Wyatt’s ghostwritten foreword to Mitch Burnham’s book The Action Alternative:

  How do we know when to jump on an opportunity and when to let it pass by? There are no easy choices. There are only choices. Choose.

  7:25 a.m.

  At the Burnham Group’s K Street office in DC, Anne threw her purse into her lower-right drawer, booted up her computer, and craned her head over the top of her cubicle to see if Mitch’s office door was open yet. Nope. Closed tight as a vault. So much for coming in at the crack of dawn to talk to him. He was usually in early, but maybe killing that bluebird of happiness at her apartment had given Anne bad karma.

  She blew out a sigh of frustration. She’d awakened gloriously joyful, about to embark on a major new step, one that would kick-start her drifting life into purposeful gear. “Mr. Burnham, I’m leaving because…” She mouthed the words to herself, smoothing the hem of her lime green shell. Hmm… was it “pizzazzy” enough?

  They’d had dress-down days and dress-up days. They’d had company-color days (gold and teal) and they’d had “against the grain” days where they were told to dress against type. (Lenny in accounting had been so convincing as a female hooker that he had been propositioned twice on the metro on the way in and nearly arrested on the way home.) And they’d had what Mitch called “business blah” days where they dressed in neutral colors and bland clothes, the purpose of which was to demonstrate how demoralizing such a monochromatic palette can be on the psyche.

  It had disturbed Anne that she’d had so many outfits to choose from for that particular exercise.

  Mitch Burnham was many things, but he would never be described as bland. Famous for his theories on quality-improvement techniques, he walked the talk, using his “team” as guinea pigs. At a recent consulting gig for a Cincinnati theater company, Mitch had been impressed with how “vibrantly” the troupe dressed and acted. He thought it helped them stay in touch with their inner muse, their creative energy. Thus, Pizzazz Day was born.

  He’d even written an article about “putting the pizzazz back in the team” for the Burnham Report, the pricey, twice-a-month subscription newsletter Anne edited. “Forget casual Fridays,” he wrote—or rather, Anne had written for him—“tan Dockers and high-end blue jeans have just become another business uniform. If you want your workers to feel and act extraordinary, you have to encourage them to look that way, to think creatively from the moment they wake up and wonder what they’ll wear to the office.”

  Anne had had a lot of meetings with Mitch drafting that article, fun meetings where he let her push back while he challenged her assumptions. Won’t this seem kind of juvenile to some folks? she’d asked. And he’d stared at her through his eyelashes, those long, sexy eyelashes that shaded his hypnotic eyes.

  Damn but it’s unfair for him to have eyelashes like that when all I’ve got are short, stubby ones that require a mascara hair weave before they even show up.

  “Doesn’t matter if it seems juvenile, Anne,” he’d said in that smooth, low voice that always held mirth when his ideas were being questioned. “It’s not what they think when they’re given the order. It’s what they feel when they’re carrying it out.”

  Mitch was proving his point about Pizzazz Day. The employees at the Burnham Group would be the first to try it out.

  Poor Lenny. When he first saw the memo, he thought it said “Pizza Day.”

  The soft whoosh of the elevator around the corner had Anne peering over the edge of the cubicle again. A strong male voice cut through the near-silent hum of the office ventilation system. At its sound, her heart started to flutter and her palms tingled. Her eyelash-challenged eyes opened wide. Mitch did that to her. From the first moment she’d met him, when his rugged face crinkled into a wide smile that seemed to communicate it was his lucky day now that he’d found her, she’d been under his spell.

  “—but what did they say two months ago, Lenny?”

  Shooting completely upright, Anne moistened her lips and smoothed her hair. Nerves pinpricked her fingers so she shook them while taking a deep breath. She could do this.

  And so, Mitch, I couldn’t turn down this offer, and I’ll be submitting my letter of resignation immediately. Dead bluebirds or not.

  No, not “will be submitting.” Too weak. “Am submitting.” No—“will submit.” No, no, no. I submit my resignation. And don’t forget to say “Mr. Burnham.” It’s always Mr. Burnham in the office, never “Mitch.”

  This was nuts. She tried to blow out her nerves by taking a deep, cleansing breath—just as they’d done in the Yoga Business Dynamics class Mitch had forced them all to take. Poor Lenny hadn’t fared too well in that one either, come to think of it. He’d sprained his right wrist.

  Anne stepped forward to catch Mitch’s attention as he entered the area, but he was deep in conversation on his cell phone. When he was focused on something, he willed the rest of the world away. Oddly enough, Anne found this attribute more charming than irritating. It made his focus on her so damned exhilarating.

  “But what about the quarterlies? I saw those reports myself, dammit. The subscriptions are up by nearly twenty percent if you count the bonus numbers…” He noticed her. His big, angular head nodded in her direction and the faintest smile played at his lips.

  He might be in his fifties, but Mitch had the muscular, well-toned body of a man twenty years his junior. His graying hair was a wavy cascade from his high forehead to his shirt collar. And with his usual panache, he’d chosen a vintage blue-and-tan paisley Nehru jacket for his “pizzazz” outfit. Paired with faded jeans, it looked more hot than cool. Anne was struck, as always, by how easily he managed to hit just the right note.

  And she got that nervous girl-crush sensation she always seemed to feel around him, where the most important thing in her world at that moment became making him like her, respect her, yes, even want her.

  She opened her mouth to speak—Mr. Burnham, she heard herself say as she followed him, but it came out in a thin, little-girl voice that made her sound like she was about to ask for money for the ice-cream man. He looked at her outfit and raised his eyebrows. Not enough pizzazz. Rats.

  “I…”

  He shook his head and pointed to the phone, then dashed into his office, shutting the door with a soft kick of his heel.

  A long exhale escaped her. Biting her lip, she stood alone outside his door. No pizzazz here. And she had been looking forward to this little tête-à-tête. Maybe that’s why she was so damn nervous about it. She had all these expectations of how it would go, of how he’d beg her to stay, tell her how valuable she was. And now she couldn’t even get his attention enough to set the stage, let alone begin the performance.

  Disappointed in herself and him, she returned to her desk, giving herself a pep talk along the way. So what if Mitch was a sexy—and now single—hunk with gazillions in his bank account? So what if he regularly lunched with Forbes 500 CEOs, golfed with the president, appeared on CNBC’s business shows, and could melt the faint-hearted with his penetrating glare? She was Anne Wyatt, Daughter of Warriors. You’d think I was just hired, for crying out loud, when I’ve been working here for four—okay, three and a half—freaking years.

  It’s not Mitch that rattled her, she consoled herself. No, not any longer. It was spring. When she was
a kid, spring always made her feel like her skin didn’t fit. Like something amazing was about to happen, just out of sight or around the corner.

  Nothing is coming, Anne Wyatt, she lectured herself, unless you talk to Mitch before he walls himself up for the day in meetings, on phone calls, and in do-not-disturb-me work that will occupy him until the next millennium. If she was going to hand in her resignation face-to-face, she’d have to scoot in before the cone of silence descended.

  “I resign,” she said into the quiet office, pleased with the simple, active-voice construction. “No, I quit.” Much better. The staccato of those one-syllable words conveyed strength, forcefulness. Mitch would like that. Action, Mitch preached, is almost always better than inaction. A mistake made while doing something can turn out better than a mistake made by hesitating and taking no action. That gem of wisdom had appeared in his book The Action Alternative: Why Doing Something Is Better Than Doing Nothing. Anne had helped write the foreword to the second edition.

  Over the past twenty years Mitch had written a dozen bestselling books about how to make businesses operate smarter, leaner, faster, better, and more profitably. With titles like Use It or Lose It, The Twelve-minute Management Plan, The Team Theory of Business Success, and The Mitch Principles, they skyrocketed to mega sales when various CEO buddies of his touted them on talk shows and in magazine interviews.

  The Burnham Group was the physical manifestation of all his advice—it now did international consulting, produced quarterly reports on business productivity, published a twice-monthly, twenty-four page newsletter (Anne’s main project), scheduled lectures for Mitch around the world, and coordinated the latest program, the Burnham Business Adventure Series, a selection of outdoor survival–type camps for management teams that needed to work on “trust” issues.