There was applause, and Kaplan stepped to the microphone and brushed back her shock of gray hair. She wore a dark maroon suit and smiled quietly. "Thank you, Bob. And thanks to everyone who has worked so hard to make this division so great. I want to say particularly that I look forward to working with the outstanding division heads we have here, Mary Anne Hunter, Mark Lewyn, Don Cherry, and, of course, Tom Sanders. These talented people stand at the center of our company, and I intend to work hand in hand with them as we move into the future. As for myself, I have personal as well as professional ties here in Seattle, and I can say no more than that I am delighted, just delighted, to be here. And I look forward to a long and happy time in this wonderful city."
Back in his office, Sanders got a call from Fernandez. "I finally heard from Alan. Are you ready for this? Arthur A. Friend is on sabbatical in Nepal. Nobody goes into his office except his assistant and a couple of his most trusted students. In fact, there's only one student who has been there during the time he is away. A freshman in the chemistry department named Jonathan-"
"Kaplan," Sanders said.
"That's right. You know who he is?" Fernandez said.
"He's the boss's son. Stephanie Kaplan's just been named the new head of the division."
Fernandez was silent for a moment. "She must be a very remarkable woman," she said.
Garvin arranged a meeting with Fernandez at the Four Seasons Hotel. They sat in the small, dark bar off Fourth Avenue in the late afternoon.
"You did a hell of a job, Louise," he said. "But justice was not served, I can tell you that. An innocent woman took the fall for a clever, scheming man."
"Come on, Bob," she said. "Is that why you called me over here? To complain?"
"Honest to God, Louise, this harassment thing has gotten out of hand. Every company I know has at least a dozen of these cases now. Where will it end?"
"I'm not worried," she said. "It'll shake out."
"Eventually, maybe. But meanwhile innocent people-"
"I don't see many innocent people in my line of work," she said. "For example, it's come to my attention that DigiCom's board members were aware of Johnson's problem a year ago and did nothing to address it."
Garvin blinked. "Who told you that? It's completely untrue."
Chapter 28
She said nothing.
"And you could never have proved it."
Fernandez raised her eyebrows and said nothing.
"Who said that?" Garvin said. "I want to know."
"Look, Bob," she said. "The fact is, there's a category of behavior that no one condones anymore. The supervisor who grabs genitals, who squeezes breasts in the elevator, who invites an assistant on a business trip but books only one hotel room. All that is ancient history. If you have an employee behaving like that, whether that employee is male or female, gay or straight, you are obliged to stop it."
"Okay, fine, but sometimes it's hard to know-"
"Yes," Fernandez said. "And there's the opposite extreme. An employee doesn't like a tasteless remark and files a complaint. Somebody has to tell her it's not harassment. By then, her boss has been accused, and everybody in the company knows. He won't work with her anymore; there's suspicion, and bad feelings, and it's all a big mess at the company. I see that a lot. That's unfortunate, too. You know, my husband works in the same firm I do."
"Uh-huh."
"After we first met, he asked me out five times. At first I said no, but finally I said yes. We're happily married now. And the other day he said to me that, given the climate now, if we met today, he probably wouldn't ask me out five times. He'd just drop it."
"See? That's what I'm talking about."
"I know. But those situations will settle out eventually. In a year or two, everybody will know what the new rules are."
"Yes, but-"
"But the problem is that there's that third category, somewhere in the middle, between the two extremes," Fernandez said. "Where the behavior is gray. It's not clear what happened. It's not clear who did what to whom. That's the largest category of complaints we see. So far, society's tended to focus on the problems of the victim, not the problems of the accused. But the accused has problems, too. A harassment claim is a weapon, Bob, and there are no good defenses against it. Anybody can use the weapon-and lots of people have. It's going to continue for a while, I think."
Garvin sighed.
"It's like that virtual reality thing you have," Fernandez said. "Those environments that seem real but aren't really there. We all live every day in virtual environments, defined by our ideas. Those environments are changing. It's changed with regard to women, and it's going to start changing with regard to men. The men didn't like it when it changed before, and the women aren't going to like it changing now. And some people will take advantage. But in the final analysis, it'll all work out."
"When? When will it all end?" Garvin said, shaking his head.
"When women have fifty percent of the executive positions," she said. "That's when it will end."
"You know I favor that."
"Yes," Fernandez said, "and I gather you have just appointed an outstanding woman. Congratulations, Bob."
Mary Anne Hunter was assigned to drive Meredith Johnson to the airport, to take a plane back to Cupertino. The two women sat in silence for fifteen minutes, Meredith Johnson hunched down in her trench coat, staring out the window.
Finally, when they were driving past the Boeing plant, Johnson said, "I didn't like it here, anyway."