Tabitha

Tabitha is a former associate of Hardin’s at Vance Publishing who reappears after transferring to its Seattle office, where she is among the coworkers giving Tessa a hard time. Her confrontation with Hardin also brings an older workplace scandal into the open: the dismissal of Samantha, a part-time copy girl whose relationship with Hardin had consequences he would rather keep separate from Tessa’s new life.

Identity and Introduction

Hardin recognizes Tabitha’s face when she addresses him in a break room, but only realizes who she is after another woman joins her. The recognition reframes Tessa’s complaints about two office bullies: Tabitha is one of the people making Tessa’s adjustment to a new city harder. Hardin says he would have identified her immediately if he had known she had transferred to the Seattle office.

Tabitha is not new to Hardin. He recalls that she was known for bullying back when he worked for Vance Publishing, and assumes she has not changed. In the present encounter, she is accompanied by another woman whom Hardin regards as her follower, establishing the pair as the source of the trouble Tessa has described.

Confrontation Over Tessa

Hardin dispenses with polite preliminaries and directly accuses Tabitha of giving Tessa a hard time. She feigns innocence, but his warning is explicit: she and her companion are not to make Tessa’s adjustment to Seattle worse. Tabitha responds that she will stop, while sarcastically suggesting that Hardin might report her to Christian Vance and get her fired.

Her answer turns a confrontation over Tessa into a contest over Hardin’s credibility and influence at work. He tells Tabitha that she does not know the full story and warns her to leave Tessa alone if she wants to keep her job. Tabitha’s promise is therefore accompanied by a pointed reminder that she sees Hardin as someone capable of affecting employees’ prospects.

Samantha and the Earlier Firing

Tabitha invokes Samantha, saying that she was mysteriously dismissed in the same week her boyfriend learned what Hardin and another person had been doing. Hardin denies that the firing was his fault, but his recollection complicates that denial. He remembers that Samantha was a freshman working part-time as a copy girl, that he became interested after learning who her boyfriend was, and that he lost interest after sleeping with her.

Hardin admits to himself that he may have had something to do with Christian Vance’s decision to let Samantha go. He also recalls that the relationship brought him trouble and drama, and that Samantha’s presence at work was causing problems. The exchange does not establish the full circumstances of her dismissal, but it exposes the gap between Hardin’s defensive denial and his private acknowledgment of possible responsibility. His immediate concern is that Tessa not be drawn into the old workplace mess.