“Now get out of my office. It makes me angry just looking at you.”
Baptiste sat back, arms crossed, eyes fixed on Lee, daring a riposte, but Lee didn’t, perhaps couldn’t, even look at him; he rose unsteadily to his feet, turned and went out of the door, closing it gently behind himself. As he walked along the corridor outside, the shame of his departure stung him fiercely. Back there in Baptiste’s room, his mind had gone utterly blank. He had needed to escape from Baptiste’s withering stare. But now his mind was awash with anger and humiliation as he tried to come to terms with all that his boss had said. He saw Diane, one of the secretaries, approaching along the corridor. Lee was too devastated for any kind of contact with his colleagues yet. He stopped abruptly in the corridor, intense
