Previously…
– Tori became concerned after noticing a bruise on her new coworker, Lucy.
– Trevor realized that Gia and Finn were trying to oust Molly from Objection Designs and alerted Molly.
– Molly raced to the emergency board meeting but was frustrated when she couldn’t get Katherine Fitch on the phone. She arrived just as the board was voting about her future with the company.

The tension in the conference room at Objection Designs is so palpable that the air is vibrating, at a frequency that seems like it might shatter the glass walls. Molly Taylor stands at the entrance to the room, facing a gathering of board members – both in-person and displayed on the large video-conferencing screen – who cannot conceal their surprise at her arrival.

“I’m pretty sure I know what the vote is for,” Molly declares, “and I’d like to go on record as voting against the permanent installation of Gia Vincent as CCO of Objection.”

Gia is stationed near the head of the table; she was anxiously observing as board chairman Tony Godwin collected votes from the board members.

“All right, that’s a nay vote,” Gia says hurriedly. “Now we can move on.”

“Not so fast,” Molly says. “We have someone else joining us in a moment.” Quickly she takes out her iPhone and dashes off a message; seconds later, the boxes on the video-conference display shift around as another person joins the meeting virtually.

“Who is that?” Gia asks no one in particular.

“Hello, everyone,” Andy Fitch announces. “I apologize for arriving late. I wasn’t aware that there was a board meeting until a few minutes ago.”

Tony Godwin addresses the screen. “Mr. Fitch, last I checked, you personally don’t hold a seat on Objection’s board–”

“No, but I have my mother’s proxy,” Andy says. “She’s in the hospital recovering from surgery.”

Gia shoots a nervous look across the conference room at her assistant, who has positioned himself in the doorway after failing to stop Molly from entering the meeting. 

“Is Katherine all right?” Godwin asks.

“She should be,” Andy replies. “But I’m handling her affairs while she recovers.”

“We can’t just take someone’s word that they have a board member’s proxy,” Gia says to Godwin.

“I’ve just e-mailed the documentation,” Andy says. 

The portly chairman scrambles to take out his phone and quickly confirms that the required documents are in his inbox. The room sits in rapt silence. Finn watches the man on the screen carefully; he had the opportunity to meet Katherine Fitch in person and has spoken with her briefly on the phone a handful of times, but seeing her son on video triggers something within him. If his life had gone differently, if he hadn’t been denied the opportunity to know his biological parents, then Andy would have been his stepbrother for a time, when Katherine was married to Nick Moriani.

“It does look like everything is in order,” Godwin says.

“Very well,” Andy says, “and thank you. With my mother’s proxy, I vote nay on the measure on the table. Molly Taylor is the only person fit to carry on the legacy of this company’s founder, and she has been instrumental to Objection for two decades. The fact that she was victimized and had to take a leave of absence hardly invalidates her abilities or her contributions.”

She isn’t the only one, Finn thinks bitterly.

“Thank you,” Godwin says, clearly frazzled at this turn of events. “Donna, how do you vote?”

“Nay also,” the next board member answers. “Mr. Fitch makes some excellent points.”

“Nay for me, too,” the person seated next to Donna says.

Molly, who has been doing her best not to interfere in the proceedings, feels her heart swell – first at the votes of confidence, and then at the panicked expression overtaking Gia’s face.

“Very well,” Godwin says. “It’s decided. Molly Taylor will remain Chief Creative Officer of Objection Designs.”

“No,” Gia says, shaking her head. Her bountiful blonde hair bobs from side to side as she does. “This can’t be.”

“It looks like it can be, and is,” Molly responds across the room.

Behind her, Finn goes pale and brings a hand up to his slack-jawed face. He feels as if he is going to be sick.

How could we have lost? he thinks, his mind spinning.

Tori Gray stands on tired feet in front of the wall of lockers in the back room of Bill’s on the Pier. After what feels like an eternity, her shift in the kitchen has concluded, and she is all too ready to go home, take a hot shower, and turn off her mind for the rest of the night. When she hears the door opening, she glances over and sees her older cousin entering. His white chef’s coat is stained with the smears of sauces and grease that come from a busy evening in the kitchen.

“Hey,” Travis says. “You done for the night?”

Tori nods as she slings her purse over her shoulder. “Yeah. Are you here ‘til close?”

“Yep. I have a minute free and wanted to check and see how Rosie is doing.” He opens up one of the lockers on the top row and pulls out his phone to peruse his notifications.

“Anything?”

“Nah. Probably a good thing. Her brother is in town, too, so I hope that’s keeping her busy.”

“That’s great.” Tori offers a wan smile. “How are you guys doing? I mean, I can guess, but…”

“It’s tough. I don’t know how else to put it. It feels like there’s this huge void in my life – in our lives – without Gabrielle.”

“I wish there were something I could say that would actually help. When I lost Chiyo, nothing helped. Except time, maybe.”

“That’s what I’m hoping. I can’t help but wonder if we gave up too soon, but it also felt so inevitable. Maybe I wanted to get the pain over with. I don’t know.”

“You can’t think like that,” she tells him. “You made the choice that you thought was best for Gabrielle. She’s the most important factor in this whole thing. Dragging out the stress and making her go back and forth for visits for however much longer – that wouldn’t have been good for anyone.”

“I know that,” he says, pursing his lips in a way that belies his words. “But it beyond sucks. At least when I’m working, I’m distracted.”

“You have to give yourself time to grieve, too. Because that’s what this is: you’re grieving.”

He bobs his head up and down in agreement, but Tori can tell that he is becoming choked up. She shuts her locker and moves forward to wrap him in an embrace.

“It will get easier,” she says. “I promise. And in the meantime, you and Rosie both have a lot of people in your corner. Okay?”

“Okay,” Travis says as he hugs her back, and she can feel his uneasiness in his touch.

—–

Once the voting at Objection has concluded, Tony Godwin says a few words in closing, and then the video conference is ended and board members begin to file out of the conference room. A few pause to congratulate or reassure Molly as they go. But when she notices Gia making her way to the door, Molly quickly excuses herself.

“Thank you for your support, Donna,” she says, hardly even waiting for a response before she goes to the door to catch up with Gia.

“In a rush?” Molly asks as the two land face-to-face in the hallway.

“What do you want, Molly?”

“To have a conversation.”

“There are no hard feelings. I promise.” An artificial smile stretches over Gia’s face. “You can go back to your job, and I’ll go back to my old V.P. position, and–-”

“That’s the thing,” Molly says, as she notices Finn lingering several feet away. She reminds herself not to make a scene. Tony and a few other board members are still in the conference room, absorbed in their own chatter, although Molly knows they likely have one eye on this encounter, too.

“I have some concerns,” Molly continues. “You called this meeting to stage a coup, didn’t you?”

“I wouldn’t call it a coup, per se.”

“Then what was it?”

“I’ve been concerned about the company, Molly. I am concerned about the company. You have to admit that your leadership has been… inconsistent for several years now.”

“So you waged a months-long campaign to turn the board against me in order to take my job permanently.”

“Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“I have it on pretty good authority that you were courting Katherine Fitch’s vote for a year,” Molly says. “Andy was very open about that once he realized what this meeting was about. And it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what you were up to when I saw you leaving my family’s restaurant with Jasper Zinzival.”

Gia draws a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Molly. I don’t think we’ll see eye-to-eye on this. My actions were not malicious. They came out of concern for the company.”

“You’re right about one thing: we aren’t going to see eye-to-eye on this. I can’t have a V.P. of Design who I can’t trust. So, Gia, I’m letting you go, effective immediately.”

“What?! You can’t do that!”

“I can, and I am. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same thing if you were in my position. You just tried to overthrow me. I can’t trust you, Gia.”

Gia flares her nostrils and widens her eyes, but instead of responding, she simply lets out a loud huff and turns on her heels. Knowing that others are watching, Molly holds back the grin that she so badly wants to let loose. In an attempt to appear as casual as possible, she takes out her phone and checks her notifications. 

When she looks up, she sees that Finn is gone, too. 

—–

Tori exits through the restaurant’s back door and walks the short distance up Pier 22 to the parking lot. Despite her winter coat, the cold air still stings her cheeks, nose, and ears, so she quickens her pace and digs for her keys in her purse as she walks. As she looks up to remember where exactly she parked her car before her shift, she sees her coworker from the kitchen, Lucy, standing there. Lucy wears a purple coat but has her arms folded to brace against the cold.

“Hey, Lucy,” Tori says. “Do you need a ride?”

“Oh, no,” Lucy says. “My ride’s coming.”

“You should wait inside! It’s freezing.”

Lucy shifts her weight uncomfortably. “It’s okay. He’ll be here any minute.”

Tori surveys the sous chef, who is slightly older than her and has strawberry blonde hair, currently pulled back in a messy ponytail. 

“You’re welcome to sit in my car with me while it heats up,” she offers.

Lucy opens her mouth to respond, but then hesitates. Just as she seems ready to agree, a pair of headlights cut through the night, briefly casting their brilliant glow over the two women as the vehicle moves. Tori sees a red pickup truck coming closer to them.

“Speaking of, there’s my ride,” Lucy says. “I appreciate your offer, though.”

“Yeah, no problem.” Tori tries to get a look at the driver of the truck without seeming too obvious. Before her eyes can focus through the headlights, though, the truck’s horn honks.

“I should go,” Lucy tells her. “Are you working tomorrow?”

“I’m off tomorrow. I’ll be in the day after, though.”

“Me, too. I’ll see you then.”

“Luce, come on!” a male voice shouts, and Tori sees a bearded man in his late 20s or early 30s sticking his head out the driver’s side window.

“Coming,” Lucy says meekly. She scurries toward the truck without another look at Tori.

Tori lifts her hand in a wave, but neither Lucy nor the man returns the gesture. As soon as Lucy closes the passenger-side door, the truck turns around, its taillights growing smaller as they pull out onto the main road and drive down it. A different type of chill, one that has nothing to do with the weather, goes through Tori as she makes her way to her own car and gets in. 

She starts the engine and turns up the heat, unable to shake the eerie feeling she got from the short encounter. And then her mind flickers back to the bruise that she noticed on Lucy’s arm earlier. She cannot untangle the knot of worry that has formed in her stomach as she thinks about her new coworker and the unsettling signs that she has noticed about Lucy’s life.

—–

When the board members have departed and the office is deathly quiet, Molly strolls through the empty bullpen area that she knows so well. It has been many months since she was even in this space, and it feels strange to tread over these paths that were part of her daily life for so long. It almost seems surreal that she will once again be back at work, running this company that has defined her professionally for two decades.

She steps into the anteroom at the front of her office suite. The two assistant desks are exactly as she remembers them, at least in terms of placement and the furniture itself. The details are all different: photos of people and events she doesn’t recognize, knick-knacks she has never seen before. Finn’s desk looks so different from the way Tori’s used to be. It is sharper, cleaner, almost reveling in an upscale minimalist concept, down to the designer candle that Molly suspects cost far too much for an executive assistant to be spending on a single candle. 

She is about to go into her former and once-again-current office when she hears footsteps behind her. Turning, she sees Finn standing there.

“You’re still here?” she asks, a little uneasy.

With a nod, he takes another step forward. “Yeah. Everyone else is gone, I’m pretty sure.”

A shiver of nervousness rattles through Molly’s body. There is something intense about his demeanor and his gaze that unnerves her.

“I should be going, too,” she says. “I have a toddler at home–”

“Wait. I need to talk to you.”

Molly’s eyes narrow as she asks, “About what?”

“You could say,” Finn replies, “that I have a proposition for you.”

END OF EPISODE 1212

What is Finn about to spring upon Molly?
Did you enjoy Andy’s surprise return?
Should Tori express her concern to Lucy?
Discuss all of it in the comments below!

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