Chapter 6 - THE WORKERS WHO COULDN’T AFFORD TO REMEMBER.
Gaby didn’t speak for several seconds.
Robert could hear Denise breathing through the phone.
“How would he have my texts?” Gaby finally asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Did you give them your phone?”
“No.”
“Did you screenshot anything?”
“Not to Trent.”
“HR?”
“No.”
Robert held up one finger.
Gaby understood.
“Denise, don’t guess.”
“I’m not guessing.”
“I mean don’t tell me what you think happened. Tell me exactly what you saw.”
Denise took a breath.
“A printed page on his desk. Your name at the top. Pieces of messages. I recognized one because I sent it.”
“What did it say?”
“‘We were still stacking chairs at twelve forty.’”
Gaby looked at the photo.
“Anything else?”
“I couldn’t read it.”
“Did he say where he got it?”
“No.”
“What did he ask you?”
“Whether I took pictures.”
“And?”
“I said sometimes.”
“What happened?”
“He asked if you told me to.”
“Did I?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“He said Caldwell has policies about sharing workplace images.”
Gaby frowned.
“There’s nothing confidential in those pictures.”
“I know.”
“Did he discipline you?”
“No.”
“Threaten you?”
Denise hesitated.
Robert caught it.
So did Gaby.
“Denise.”
“He reminded me that September is slow.”
That was all.
Nobody in the room needed an explanation.
Slow season meant fewer shifts.
Fewer shifts meant less rent money.
Less grocery money.
Less everything.
“Did he say he’d cut your schedule?” Gaby asked.
“No.”
“Then don’t say he did.”
Denise went quiet.
“You sound like your dad.”
Gaby looked at Robert.
“Apparently that’s contagious.”
Robert almost objected.
He wisely didn’t.
Denise gave a nervous laugh.
Then said, “I gotta go.”
“Wait. Do you still have your pictures?”
“Yes.”
“Keep them.”
“You think I should send them to you?”
Gaby looked at Robert.
Robert said nothing.
Good.
This decision belonged to her.
“Not yet,” Gaby said. “Just don’t delete anything.”
The call ended.
Gaby sat.
“I hate this.”
“What part?” Robert asked.
“That she’s scared because she talked to me.”
“She’s scared because her income depends on them.”
“That’s worse.”
Robert nodded.
He understood that sentence better than she knew.
When his business was small, employees told him everything.
Bad equipment.
Bad supervisors.
Bad customers.
Then the company grew.
People stopped walking into his office.
Robert had told himself that meant systems were working.
Maybe it meant people had more to lose by speaking.
Gaby picked up the photograph.
“We need Denise.”
“As a witness?”
“As a person.”
Robert looked at her.
“She has two kids. She can’t lose shifts because of me.”
“You didn’t cause this.”
“I asked her questions.”
“She answered because she saw something.”
“That doesn’t pay her electric bill.”
Robert couldn’t argue.
Gaby spent the morning sending documents to Evelyn Park.
Lease.
Notices.
Portal screenshots.
Caldwell payroll statement.
Photographs.
Voicemail.
Schedules.
The email mentioning retaliation.
Robert made coffee from the motel machine.
It was terrible.
He drank it anyway.
Around noon Evelyn called.
“I reviewed the housing documents first,” she said. “I want to be careful. The conflicting notices are important, but we need the court file before drawing conclusions.”
“Can you get it?” Gaby asked.
“I can request it. You can also go to the clerk’s office.”
“I’ll go.”
Robert reached for his keys.
Gaby looked at him.
“I said I’ll go.”
“I’m driving.”
“That’s different.”
“It better be.”
At the courthouse, Robert discovered that being wealthy did not improve parking.
They circled twice.
Gaby finally said, “Welcome to government.”
“I pay taxes.”
“So does everybody else circling.”
They parked three blocks away.
Inside, Gaby requested the file herself.
The clerk brought out copies.
The case showed a judgment entered after she failed to appear.
Robert watched her read that sentence.
Failure to appear.
Three words.
Administrative.
Cold.
No room for the photograph of the first notice.
No place to say she had packed Leo into a stroller that morning and gone to work because she believed the hearing was the following week.
The file included proof of service.
Robert read carefully.
The declaration stated that notice had been posted to the apartment door on August 22 and mailed.
“Did you get mail?” he asked.
“My mailbox key stopped working.”
“When?”
“Around then.”
“Did you report it?”
“Yes.”
“Proof?”
“Maintenance request.”
Robert looked at her.
“You kept that too?”
“I told you. I take pictures of everything.”
The online maintenance portal showed:
MAILBOX KEY NOT WORKING — SUBMITTED AUGUST 21.
Status:
CLOSED.
No notes.
“Did they fix it?”
“No.”
Robert felt his temper rising again.
Evelyn had warned them.
Evidence first.
Conclusions later.
He took a breath.
They copied the file.
In the hallway Gaby stopped at a vending machine.
She stared at the prices.
Robert put in two dollars.
She gave him a look.
“It’s crackers.”
“You’ll add it to my debt.”
“I’ll prepare an invoice.”
She took the crackers.
Small thing.
But Robert thought of how easily a person could become defensive about two dollars when too many people had made money feel like morality.
Back at the motel, Evelyn reviewed the court documents by email.
She called again.
“There may be grounds to ask the court to reopen the matter based on the conflicting notice and access issues, but I can’t promise that.”
Gaby nodded even though Evelyn couldn’t see.
“What about my belongings?”
“I’m sending management a letter requesting immediate inventory and access.”
“Will they answer?”
“We’ll see.”
Then Evelyn shifted to employment.
“I don’t handle wage cases directly, but our office partners with a worker-rights clinic.”
Gaby looked at Robert.
“Free?”
“Free consultation.”
“I want that.”
“They’ll want records.”
“I have records.”
“I noticed.”
Evelyn sounded almost amused.
Robert was proud.
He did not say so.
The worker-rights clinic called later that afternoon.
A paralegal named Maya took the intake.
“How many hours do you believe are missing?”
“Seventeen and a half that I can document,” Gaby said.
Robert looked at her.
Not all she suspected.
Only what she could document.
“Were there more?”
“Probably.”
“Can you verify them?”
“Not all of them.”
“Then we separate those categories.”
Gaby nodded.
Robert did too.
Facts.
Suspicion.
The difference mattered.
Maya asked about scheduling.
Gaby provided dates.
Before complaint: mostly four or five shifts weekly.
After first written complaint: three.
Then two.
Then zero.
“Did management give another explanation?”
“Reliability and business need.”
“Any documented absences?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Two after Leo was born.”
“Approved?”
“One. One was last minute because he had a fever.”
“Any write-ups?”
“One warning.”
“What did it say?”
“Attendance expectations.”
“Any client complaints?”
“Not that I know.”
Maya paused.
“That does not automatically establish why your shifts changed. But the timing is something the attorney will review.”
Robert liked her precision.
Gaby did too.
After the call, Robert went downstairs for ice.
When he returned, Gaby was sitting on the bed staring at her phone.
“What happened?”
She handed it to him.
A new message from Denise.
I CAN’T HELP YOU ANYMORE. PLEASE DON’T TEXT ME ABOUT WORK.
Robert gave the phone back.
Gaby swallowed.
“Don’t blame her.”
“I don’t.”
“She’s scared.”
“I know.”
Then another message arrived.
Not Denise.
A number Gaby did not recognize.
She opened it.
One sentence.
YOU’RE NOT THE FIRST PERSON TRENT MADE CLOCK OUT BEFORE CLEANUP.
Below it was a photograph.
Six employees stood in an empty banquet hall holding trash bags and stacked chairs.
A digital wall clock behind them read 1:16 a.m.
The timestamp on the payroll sheet attached beneath it showed five of those employees had clocked out before midnight.
Gaby stared.
Robert did too.
May you like
At the bottom of the message was another sentence.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW LONG THIS HAS BEEN HAPPENING, ASK ABOUT THE BLUE NOTEBOOK.
