Chapter Eight
Downsized
After fleeing Roth’s apartment Gail wondered if he would call her or text her the next day to ask why she had run away, or to reproach her for being disobedient. But he didn’t. Nor did he contact her the next day or the day after. After a week she knew that he wouldn’t call, that it was all over between them. And she was glad. He had gone too far. She felt a sense of relief. She began to feel she had got the whole punishment thing out of her system. She was no longer oppressed by her fantasies. Now she could go back to concentrating on her work, on her career.
Yet by now it was difficult to gain back the ground already lost. Her annual review was coming up. She approached it with dread. Omnicon had a system of rating employees on a scale of one to four, four bein
