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layoffs started, it would take her as long as twenty minutes while she stopped to chat with her direct reports along the way. As it was, the few who remained avoided making eye contact with her, fearful they'd earn a spot on the list.
    The dreaded list. Everyone knew it existed. What they didn't know was that she had no control over whose name landed on it or where the name would be placed. Location was everything. If your name was on the first page, it meant you were as good as gone. If your name was on the second page, it meant you would be gone, just not for a couple of weeks. If your name was on the last page, it meant that you would be offered an early retirement package, like it or not. If your name wasn't on any of those pages, you had the dubious honor of being able to keep your job. For now.
    The fear had been palpable for weeks. Members of her own team, many of whom she had known for years, avoided her like she was waving a blow torch in a fireworks factory.
    Claire could hardly blame them. They knew the drill.
    She would arrive unannounced in the cubicle of an unsuspecting employee—a person who trusted her, someone with a family and a future to worry about—and ask the person to join her. And the employee would follow, nervous and silent, into a small windowless conference room. Waiting for them both, a member of the Human Resources department would be sitting there, calmly thumbing through the stack of papers ostentatiously stamped with Employee Exit Packet in bold red ink.
    She checked her calendar and was relieved to find that she'd only be letting one person go today. Then she saw the name. Lorraine Davis. Rumor had it, the administrative assistant was the last one to let go of her beloved Smith Corona. On seeing that she was two months shy of retirement eligibility, Claire hung her head.
    Bastards.
    She picked up the phone and called Kristy Watson in Human Resources. When it went directly to her voice mail, Claire headed down to the fifth floor. After all, this particular conversation deserved a face-to-face.
    Kristy, a thirty-something woman whose sense of style aimed for successful businesswoman but landed closer to sorority pledge, was chatting with a middle-aged man who made no effort to direct his gaze at anything but his colleague's cleavage.
    Claire approached, asking, "Kristy, do you have a second?"
    Annoyed at the interruption, the woman glanced at Claire. "What's up?"
    With a pointed look, she replied, "Not here."
    Unfazed, Kristy asked, "Is this about Lorraine? Because if it is, there's nothing you can do. The decision's been made."
    "Really. By whom? There's got to be something in the company she can do. You can't just rob her of her retirement."
    "It's done. This is a privately held company, Claire. They don't have to play by the rules if they don't want to." She turned her attention back to the eye-contact challenged man.
    Claire huffed out a sigh. "Isn't this the Human Resources department?"
    Kristy dragged her attention back to Claire, pursed her lacquered lips together, and frowned.
    With a roll of her eyes, Claire pressed her fingertips to her forehead. "Sorry. It's just that—all these layoffs. It's been rough."
    Somewhere between a grimace and a smile, Kristy purred, "Oh, don't worry. You're done after today."
    Claire brightened. "Oh, I hope so."
    Tightening her smile, Kristy replied, "I know so."
     
    *   *   *
     
    "Dear Plate Spinner—I need your help."
    After reading the plea out loud, Mattie Ross, the Chicago Gazette 's reluctant advice columnist and marathon-runner-in-training, cringed.
    Another letter from a frazzled working mother, seeking direction and hope—commodities she herself was in dire need of ever since her coach walked out on her, taking her heart with him.
    Nick.
    Her heart squeezed in her chest and she closed her eyes. After hiding behind the same I'm married with kids lie she perpetuated with her publisher and readers for the eight months he had spent training