“Apparently I was misinformed. We would be very happy to reactualize Libner.”

“Landen.”

“Right.”

“What’s the catch?” I asked suspiciously.

“No catch,” replied Jack, picking up his desk nameplate and depositing it in the box along with the calendar. “We just want you to forgive us and like us.”

“Like you?”

“Yes. Or pretend to anyway. Not so very hard, now, is it? Just sign this Standard Forgiveness Release Form at the bottom here, and we’ll reactualize your hubby. Simple, isn’t it?”

I was still suspicious.

“I don’t believe you have any intention of getting Landen back.”

“All right, then,” said Jack, taking some files out of the filing cabinet and dumping them in his cardboard box, “don’t sign and you’ll never know. As you say, Miss Next—we got rid of him, so we can get him back.”

“You stiffed me once before, Jack. How do I know you won’t do it again?”

Jack paused in his packing and looked slightly apprehensive.

“Are you going to sign?”

“No.”

Jack sighed and started to take things back out of the cardboard box and return them to their places.

“Well,” he muttered, “there goes my promotion. But listen, whether you sign or not, you walk out of here a free woman. New Goliath has no argument with you any longer. Besides, what do you have to lose?”

“All I want,” I replied, “is to get my husband back. I’m not signing anything.”

Jack took his nameplate out of the cardboard box and put it back on his desk.

The phone rang again.

“Yes, sir. . . . No, she won’t, sir. . . . I tried that, sir. . . . Very well, sir.”

He put the phone down and picked up his nameplate again and hovered it over his box.

“That was the CEO. He wants to apologize to you personally. Will you go?”

I paused. Seeing the head honcho of Goliath was an almost unprecedented event for a non-Goliath official. If anyone could get Landen back, it was him. “Okay.”

Jack smiled, dropped the nameplate in his box and then hurriedly threw everything else back in.

“Well,” he said, “must dash—I’ve just been promoted up three laddernumbers. Go to the main reception desk, and someone will meet you. Don’t forget your Standard Forgiveness Release Form, and if you could mention my name, I’d be really grateful.”

He handed me my unsigned forms as the door opened and another Goliath operative walked in, also holding a cardboard box full of possessions.

“What if I don’t get him back, Mr. Schitt?”

“Well,” he said, looking at his watch, “if you have any grievances about the quality of our contrition, you had better take it up with your appointed Goliath apologist. I don’t work here anymore.”

And he smiled a supercilious smile, put on his hat and was gone.

“Well!” said the new apologist as he walked around the desk and started to arrange his possessions in the new office. “Is there anything you’d like us to apologize for?”