34. Cassian
CASSIAN
Idrive back to the inn at noon. I do not, on the way, stop at the bakery for a second coffee.
I do, on the way, put the soft cotton t-shirt with the small faded pocket back in the dresser drawer of the room and zip the canvas bag without putting anything else in it.
I sit on the small cane chair by the window.
I look at the small braided rug. I open my laptop.
I write a memo.
The memo is to Sebastian. I write it sitting on the cane chair at the small painted desk in the room of the inn with the small braided rug.
I write it without, in fact, calibrating it.
I am,currently, not calibrating anything I write for the next eight weeks, which is the timeline I have, on the drive back from the lower spa wing, given myself.
I write the memo. I read it once. I send it.
Sebastian — Effective immediately. Three items. One: I am, in writing, removing from the firm's negotiation playbook the use of personal status or family of principals — mine or any others — as leverage in any deal structuring, present or future.
The phase mapping deck used for the Vance pitch is to be destroyed.
Becca will be told, in writing, that the phase mapping document is no longer authorized for use by this firm in any conversation with her firm or any other.
Two: I am decentralizing the principal-only decision authority for any expenditure under one million, effective immediately.
Davies at the resort is authorized as primary signatory for the property.
You are authorized as primary signatory for the firm.
Both of you have, on my desk, by Friday, a written list of every decision I have, in the last twelve months, taken unilaterally that you, in your judgment, should have taken instead.
We will, on Friday at five, review the list and amend the org chart accordingly.
Three: I want, on my desk Monday morning, a full review of the staffing protections in the Vance phase three contract.
I want every clause that touches the possibility of staff displacement read out loud at me in this office at nine a.m. by you, while I sit at the desk and listen, after which we will, together, draft the side letter that,removes any path by which any clause in the executed agreement could, in any four-quarter window of the next eight years, be used to reduce the existing headcount at the property.
Becca will not like the side letter. I am instructing you to send it anyway. — C.
He writes back in nine minutes.
Yes, sir. One question. Are you, on Friday at five, in this office, or am I, on Friday at five, in this conference room.
I am, Sebastian, in this office. I will be at the property until Saturday. After Saturday, I will be in the city office. After the city office, I will be wherever the next correct thing is.
Yes, sir.
Sebastian.
Sir.
Don't, in this memo, call me sir.
All right, Cassian.
I close the laptop. I lie down on the small inn bed. I don’t sleep. I lie on my back with my forearm over my eyes long enough to think through what I have, in nineteen minutes, just done, and then I get up. I put on a clean shirt. I drive back to the resort.
The board call is at four. I had not, in fact, scheduled a board call.
I schedule it from the small car park behind the upper lobby at three twenty by phoning each of the four other board members myself, on my own phone, without Sebastian's intermediation, which is — as one of them, an older woman named Renata who has, in fact, never liked me — a small, useful tell.
"Cassian, you do not, generally, call me from your own phone."
"No, Renata."
"This is going to be unpleasant."
“It’s actually the opposite,” Cassian says, leaning one hand on the conference table as though bracing himself.
“I’m asking you—and the rest of the four—to be on a four o’clock call.
All of you. I’ll be proposing a restructuring, and if any one of you is going to give me a no, I want the no in the room while I’m still on the line. ”
“Cassian.” Renata’s voice softens, the way it does when she’s trying to read the edges of him.
“Renata.”
“Are you all right?”
He exhales, a slow, deliberate thing, like he’s choosing each word before he lets it out.
“There’s something I’m going to say on that call.
Something you’ve been telling me to do for three years.
” He meets her eyes, steady. “When I say it, I need you not to comment. Not to react. Just register that I finally said it—and vote yes. Can you do that.”
"What is the thing, Cassian?"
"You will know it when I say it."
"All right, Cassian. I will not, in fact, comment."
The call goes long. The call goes long because the four-point proposal — three of the four points are,the memo I sent Sebastian at noon, and the fourth point is an item I had not, in fact, written into the memo, which is that I am, in the next six months, hiring a chief operating officer at the firm level, and that the search for the COO is, in fact, going to be run by Renata — is the kind of proposal that, in nine years, I have not, in any board meeting, made.
Renata, when I say the fourth point, does not, in fact, comment.
She votes yes.
The other three vote yes. Two of them ask the standard board questions. One of them — Aldous, a man in his early seventies who has, in nine years, never once disagreed with me at a meeting — clears his throat at the end and says, "Cassian. May I ask a thing."
"Yes, Aldous."
"Is this about a woman?"
The line, currently, is quiet.
"Yes, Aldous."
"I see."
"Aldous."
"Mm."
"Vote yes."
"I have voted yes, Cassian. I have voted yes because the proposal is sound.
I have voted yes because I have, in nine years, also been waiting for you to make it.
I have voted yes because I have, in nine years, never asked you a thing about your personal life, and you have not asked me a thing about mine, and I think we are both, today, the better for it.
But the thing I will say to you, before I hang up, is — Cassian.
If a woman has induced you, in two weeks, to do what your board has,in nine years, asked you to — then I hope you do, in fact, get her back. "
"Aldous."
"I am hanging up the phone."
"Aldous, thank you."
"Hm."
He hangs up. The call ends. Sebastian comes through the door of the office on the property, where I have, for the last hour, been on the call. He sets a folder on my desk.
I open it. It is the staffing-protection clauses he has, in the last three hours, since the noon memo, pulled.
I sit at the desk. I read the clauses out loud to myself.
I do this because I cannot, currently, ask Sebastian to do it on a Tuesday afternoon when he has, in fact, in nine years, never once been asked to read me a contract out loud.
Sebastian, in the chair across from me, listens to me read aloud for forty minutes.
He does not, at any point, interrupt. At the end I look at him.
"Sebastian."
"Cassian."
"The staffing trigger. The fourteen-percent margin clause."
"Yes."
"Side letter. Tomorrow morning. To Becca."
"What does the side letter say?"
"It says that the trigger is, on our side of the agreement, void.
That regardless of the margin, no decision over twenty thousand dollars touching a staff position at this property will be made by Vance's office.
Ever. That if margins fall, the principal — me — will eat the spread out of my own equity in the building, in any year of the next eight, rather than reduce headcount by a single person. "
"Cassian."
"What."
"That is — Cassian. That is very expensive."
"It is."
"It is also the entire reason Roland gave us four points off the original number."
"I know."
"He will be angry."
"He will be angry, Sebastian. He will be angry for, I think, four days.
Then he will file the side letter, and on Tuesday in Becca's office she will recognize the side letter for what it is, and on Tuesday in Becca's office Becca will decide whether to keep the relationship with our firm.
She will, I think, keep it. She will keep it because she has, in fact, since the pier on Saturday morning, been deciding to.
The side letter is what closes the question for her. "
"Cassian."
"What."
"Are you going to give this to Maren?"
I look at him.
"No, Sebastian."
"No?"
“No. I’m not handing it to her. I’m not doing that because, right now, she isn’t going to take a piece of paper from me as a gift.
She’s learned, in eight days, exactly what pieces of paper from my hand have done to her.
I’m not, in any year of my life, putting another document in her hand and asking her to read it.
The side letter will be filed. The org chart will be filed.
The COO search will be filed. The phase-mapping deck will be destroyed.
And in six weeks—at the earliest—I’ll walk down the lower service road of the property where she works, and I’ll be the man who has actually done the things, not the man who showed up with a list.”
“Cassian.” Sebastian’s voice comes from the doorway, quiet but anchored.
Cassian doesn’t look up from the papers. “What, Sebastian.”
“That will take more than six weeks,” Sebastian says, stepping farther into the room, the folder tucked neatly under his arm.
“I’m aware.”
“You’re going to wait.”
“I’m going to wait.”
Sebastian studies him for a beat, then nods once. “All right.”
Cassian lifts an eyebrow. “All right?”
“Yes,” Sebastian says, more firmly this time. “I’ll be at this desk on Friday at five. With the list.”
He rises then—smooth, practiced—and gathers the folder properly under his arm. He walks to the door, pauses at the threshold, and turns back.
“Cassian.”
Cassian meets his eyes. “Sebastian.”
“It’s the right one.”