Grand Rabbit

“Rocking the Patagucci, eh Jamie?” Sandeep jeered, as James approached the table.

“You know it bro,” he replied, and caressed the Patagonia label on his $200 fleece zip-up sweater. He shook his $24 salad with his other hand, while eyeing the sandwiches the rest of the group had in front of them. “Carbo-loading today, fellas?”

“Oh, please. We aren’t all trying to be in a calorie deficit like you,” said Melissa. She had opened her sandwich and was picking out all the red onions, placing them on a napkin. “Although I could go for a salad, rather than this mess. Those idiots at Rye’s keep fucking up my order. I’m actually going to cuss them out if they do this again.”

“Someone’s on her period,” Ken said with an eyeroll - then a grimace, as Melissa kicked his shin.

“Bitch,” he muttered.

“Prick.”

Laughing, James took off his sweater, sat down beside Melissa, then dumped her pile of rejected onions onto his salad. This sort of event was typical, twice per day during lunch and dinner in the office, with the exception of Fridays. On Fridays, this occurred once per day at lunch. They would leave the office at 5:30, then continue working from home remotely. While James, Sandeep and Ken lived together in a 6-bedroom penthouse (3 bedrooms, 3 offices of course), Melissa lived alone (which was, arguably, even more of a luxury in this city). So they would video-call on Fridays for dinner, where Melissa could not physically respond to Ken’s offenses.

The four of them were analysts at a large investment bank in the city. Their office was on the 77th floor, and they worked for the retail division, conducting research, building financial models, and doing whatever the associates and vice presidents asked of them. On a rare occasion, they were permitted to speak during client meetings. Sandeep typically threw up from anxiety both before and after these occasions, especially when a managing director, or MD, was present.

It was an unspoken rule that you didn’t leave the office until your boss left. And your boss didn’t leave until their boss left. And so on, so forth. So, most nights, they usually headed home close to 1AM to shower, sleep, and come right back the next morning.

As miserable of a situation as this seemed, all four of them loved it. Not because of the work, but because of the money. They easily were making double or triple the salary of other people their age, and that was just the base pay. Annual bonuses pushed them into an even higher tax bracket - a bracket where 23 year olds were very, very uncommon. On top of the money, there was the prestige. Since starting at the bank, their alma mater was constantly inviting them to be on panels, speak at events, and be featured as “career success stories” to market new student recruitment.

Their egos were inflated, and they knew it, and they did not care because their bank accounts had ballooned just as much.

“Greece over the holidays? Or maybe Ibiza?” Ken said while chewing, mouth open.

“You’re disgusting,” said Melissa, “And, no can’t. It’s my sister's wedding in Italy.”

“Damn, she’s really marrying that dweeb. Do you think she’d still be down to smas-” Ken was cut off by his own high-pitched squeal. Melissa had aimed for the balls this time.

“Shut up, Samson coming through.”

Samson was the MD for all retail teams, which meant he was their boss’s boss’s boss. It was typical to wave hello and make small talk with Samson, and he would sometimes grace the boys with a longer conversation to discuss golf, even though Melissa went semi-pro when she was 20.

But today, the large goateed man was stalking towards them, and visibly fuming.

James stood up the fastest, extending a hand.

“Hello, si-”

“All of you, my office, right the fuck now.”

They piled in, obediently. There weren’t enough seats, so Sandeep stood behind Ken, anxiously tapping his finger on the back of the chair. He looked like he was about to vomit. Ken leaned away from him.

“You’re all fired.”

For a moment, no one said a word. Then they all began to protest, speaking over one another.

“But-”

“How-”

“Wh-”

“Shut up,” Samson said, loud and decisively. “If you’re not out of the building in 5 minutes, security is going to escort you out. I never want to see any of you in this office again. If I do, I can personally guarantee that you will never work at any company of any prestige in this city, ever. You can make sandwiches at Rye’s for all I care. Just not the one downstairs, because as I said, none of you are allowed to set foot in this building again. Now fuck off.”

A half hour later, they were all at the penthouse. No one had said a word since they left Samson’s office and walked right to the elevator, where Sandeep keeled over in a corner and dry heaved as they descended all 77 floors.

They were all sitting on the cold kitchen floor tiles, not bothering to take a few more steps to the living room.

“Fuck.” James finally said. No one replied, or acknowledged him. They were all still processing the shock.

“My Patagonia sweater,” he continued. “I left it in the lunch room. Do you think I can ask Cheryl to grab it for me?” Cheryl worked in HR at the office, and flirted with James every so often.

“Fuck your sweater.” Sandeep whispered. Then louder, “And fuck Cheryl and fuck, what the fuck is going on? What just happened?"

All of their phones buzzed, simultaneously. The boys all whipped out their phones, immediately opening their email to see what was sent. Melissa ignored hers, choosing to lie down and stare at the ceiling instead.

“It’s going to be HR,” she said. “Termination papers.”

She was right. Again, silence filled the room as James, Ken and Sandeep began scrolling through the email, which was actually sent by Cheryl herself. James suddenly stood up, and walked right out of the penthouse.

Melissa gave Ken a puzzled look. He shrugged, and continued to scroll on this phone, making his way through the contents of the email.

Sandeep gasped.

“What is it?” Ken asked, as he leaned towards Sandeep. He grabbed his phone, and looked at the screen where Sandeep had scrolled a bit further. There were 3 grainy pictures that appeared to be from a security camera in a department store. The floor was a bright, iconic red that they were all too familiar with.

This wasn’t any department store - this was Grand Rabbit, a national chain of luxury department stores who was their biggest client. And this specific location, with the iconic red flooring, was at their flagship store, located 10 blocks from their office. Corporate headquarters was on the top floor, and they had visited HQ a few times since starting working for them. The current deal was one of the biggest in the last decade, to advise Grand Rabbit on a multi-billion dollar expansion effort.

Melissa grabbed the phone now, and slid into the space between Ken and Sandeep. She held the phone so they could all see, then began clicking the photos, one by one.

The first photo was of Ken and James. James was wearing a baseball cap that was partially covering his face, and he was holding a Grand Rabbit shopping bag that looked mostly empty. Ken’s face was clearly visible. He was wearing a pair of red shorts that matched the floor, so the grainy camera quality made it look as though his waist to his knees had disappeared. Their backs were turned on each other. James was leaning over a table displaying expensive t-shirts, and Ken was 2 aisles away from him, looking at suit jackets.

The second photo was only of James, now in the shoe department. This one was zoomed in, making everything appear granier and pixelated. Despite the distortion, it was still obvious that James was slicing a security tag off of a designer shoebox, using what looked to be a boxcutter or a small razor.

The final photo was of James again, from the back this time. He was walking out the front doors of the store, holding the same Grand Rabbit bag that was visibly stuffed now.

Before Ken or Sandeep could say anything, Melissa slapped Ken across the face, then tackled him to the floor.

“You knew?!”

“No, I didn’t!”

“You obviousl-”

“Stop it.” Sandeep cut in, quickly grabbing Melissa’s arms and pulling them behind her back. She was on top of Ken, and was crying, red-faced, panting. “Calm down and stop it.”

Melissa pulled away from Sandeep, scrambled off of Ken and curled up into a ball. Blood and skin were under one set of her fingernails - she had scratched Ken’s forearm. She used the other hand to wipe the snot and tears from her face.

“Tell us what happened,” Sandeep asked, looking at Ken with zero sympathy. Ken’s forearm was now dripping blood, but he didn’t seem to register it.

“I told you, I don’t know!” he said frantically. “I only went shopping at Grand Rabbit once in the past year, and I didn’t go with James. I wasn’t with him, I didn’t do it, I didn’t do anything!”

“Liar,” Melissa mumbled.

“No I’m fucking not!” he yelled. “I promise, I didn-”

“I believe you,” Sandeep said. “Okay? Shut up, I believe you. It looks like you didn't even know he was there - and shoplifting, my god. Melissa?”

She didn’t reply. But she did get up and walk to the other end of the kitchen, where Sandeep’s phone had been thrown, likely when she attacked Ken.

She sat down between them again, and tilted the phone to Sandeep to unlock. Then, she opened his email and continued reading, aloud this time.

“Grand Rabbit’s internal investigation has identified James Lee and Kenneth Holmes to have partaken in shoplifting, as identified by security footage and validated by employees of both Grand Rabbit’s corporate finance team and the retained bank...”

“We are choosing to extend this termination to both Melissa Chase and Sandeep Agarwal given their extensive ties to the accused and general mistrust of the client with the retail analyst team...”

She eventually stopped reading when the language became a slew of legal jargon, and whipped the phone across the kitchen again.

“This doesn’t make any fucking sense,” she said. She was calm now, not crying anymore but her skin still had red patches across her face and neck.

“Can we sue?” Kyle asked. “There must be something we can do, there isn’t enough proof - or any proof really, beyond James - and they just can’t be doing this to us. We’re good at our jobs!”

“You think Samson will give a shit about that?” Sandeep replied. “His mind is made up, you saw him today. He’s pissed, and Grand Rabbit is probably considering dropping the bank if they haven’t already. That’s millions for Samson, that James personally erased.”

“Even if we prove our innocence, they don’t give a shit,” he continued. “And if we get lawyers involved? They’ll drain us, we have nothing to fight back with.”

Despite their income, none of them had much money saved up. Rent, nights out, expensive meals and luxury shopping had left all of them with little cash on hand. They all lived and spent with the assumption that they were only going to make more and more money from this point on in their early careers.

Ken sighed, and got up to rinse his bleeding forearm in the kitchen sink.

“I’m sorry,” Melissa apologized, looking up at him from the floor.

“It’s fine,” he replied.

“I’m going to call our landlord to break the lease,” Sandeep said, and he walked to grab his phone, went into his bedroom and closed the door.

“Hey,” Melissa said to Ken. “When’s the last time you were in James’s room?”

“A few months, at least,” he replied, and he followed Melissa’s gaze to James's door at the far end of the hall.

15 minutes later, Sandeep exited his bedroom, relieved that their landlord was willing to let them end their contract earlier than anticipated. She was actually happy about this - the housing market had gotten more competitive since they had moved in. She could have new tenants agree to an even more absurd rent by next month. At least someone was winning in this situation.

He looked around for Ken to let him know to start packing, and instead found James’s door ajar. And heard him and Melissa... giggling?

“Come see this! This is insane!” Melissa called to him, from inside the room.

He walked in to find his friends hollering with laughter, as they pulled designer shoes, hats, coats, and shirts out of the closet. Some of it was women’s clothing, and most of the items were obviously not even James’s size. Price tags were still on every item, displaying painfully large sums, and of course, no security tags were present.

“Let’s look under the bed too!” Ken said, as he dove onto his knees to shove his arms and head under the frame. He came up a few seconds later with handfuls of jewelry.

“Whoa,” Sandeep said, finally taking in the situation and taking a seat on the bed in front of Ken. Melissa joined him, and placed a Gucci bucket hat on his head while he continued speaking. “When did he do this? And why? Should we return it?”

Melissa and Ken looked at each other, then at Sandeep.

“You said it yourself,” said Melissa. “We aren’t getting our jobs back. I don’t even want to go back, honestly - they fired us without any proof. They could have just fired James, or at least held an investigation, but they got rid of all of us just to make Grand Rabbit happy.”

“Fuck Grand Rabbit and fuck Samson,” Ken added, with a smile. “This is our emergency fund now. I think we deserve it.” He dropped one of the handfuls of jewelry on Sandeep’s lap.

They never saw James again - he didn’t come back to the penthouse. He left with his wallet and his phone, and never spoke to his 3 closest friends ever again.

The only information they ever learned about James was from Cheryl, 3 years later. Cheryl had landed a new role in HR where Melissa now worked - a boutique finance firm - and they had gone to lunch on her first day.

“James? No I haven’t heard from him since the... you know. He did ask me to grab his Patagonia jacket actually, from the lunch room. I gave it to him that afternoon, around the block from the office. Then I never heard from him again.”