Monday morning. Danielle's talked with Patti over the weekend, and she knows more or less what to expect. As soon as she sets her bag down, I turn to her with a soft voice.

In the back of the office, a glass-enclosed room overlooks the Hudson. It's quiet, out of the way of people traffic.

I've had all weekend to think of what I'll say. I came up with the "comfortable" line as a way of setting the tone, not so much for her sake as to ease me into the apology.


We sit down, she faces me, and actually makes eye-contact, but her expression is blank. I start off by saying that I don't know where to start. I want to lose my habitual forcefulness, do it on her terms, her vocabulary.

"We're clearly very different people," I say. "The last few days have been eye-opening for me," I say. "I had no idea it had ever gone so far."

Patti says that when Danielle told her what I said in the meeting, she was surprised.


"I'm not all that bad," I say. "You mostly got to see the ugly side. I was surprised by my meeting on Wednesday, but I have to say you handled everything with greater generosity than anyone would have expected." I point out that she specifically asked Danielle not to fire me.

    "I thought my quips, my sarcasm, bounced off you, that you didn't care. Now I realize what effect my words had, and I want to undo as much of the damage as I can. I never intended for you to feel wounded. For that, I'm sincerely sorry."

She says, "Well, Nick, I'm surprised. I was sure you'd fight it, that you'd tell Danielle what a bitch I am. I was sure you intended the effect you had, that it was conscious. I didn't know there was this side to you."

Not only am I happy to hear that, but a strange thing happens:



I feel a tremendous relief, after several days of intense anxiety, and I feel a respect for her I'd never felt before, respect that she went ahead and did something about it. In a week's time, we've managed to clear the air and both come out better for it.

As a coda to the conversation, I mention that Fred knows about the whole thing and I'm sorry if it makes her uncomfortable. I'm leaving for a new job, after all, but they have to keep working together. She says it's all right.

We go back out to our jobs and a week later I'm gone. The staff throws a little party on Friday. Monday, Labor Day, I'll start downstairs in the new unit. Good-byes start a few minutes before five. I don't remember what Patti says, but she seems moved. She lingers, longer than is comfortable for either of us. I'm eager to change the subject. I sense she's fishing for something. She asks that I save my Camel Cash for her.


It's an awkward parting. I'm glad we've reached a common ground on the harassment issue, and I'd like to think her resentment will be short-lived. We still work in the same building, three floors apart. All the same, I don't expect to seek her out in the future.