CHAPTER THIRTY
Milan put a thirty-eight-page expansion plan on my desk at eight Monday morning and said, “Do not read it like my father.” I looked at the cover. MERCER ROW STUDIO: DESIGN SERVICES, BALTIMORE MARKET ENTRY, AND LEADERSHIP STRUCTURE.
“How should I read it?”
“Like the owner of a company with competent employees.”
“That sounds like how I read everything.”
“No. You read everything like the building will collapse if you do not personally touch the beam.”
She sat across from me without being invited.
That part came from Jacinda. I opened the plan.
The first section proposed making our design department its own operating division under Milan.
The second laid out staffing, insurance, software, and a twelve-month pilot serving Philadelphia and Baltimore.
The third showed the work we had already turned away because clients wanted design before committing to construction.
The numbers were careful. The risk section was more careful. I read twelve pages before speaking.
“You are assuming two hires before the first independent contract.”
“I am preventing the first independent contract from becoming three people doing six jobs.”
“The Baltimore office cost is premature.”
“It is a shared studio, not an office. Six-month lease with an exit clause.”
“The senior architect candidate has only four years of management.”
“She has eleven years of design experience and manages seven people now.”
“You spoke to her?”
“Yes.”
“Without approval.”
“I had coffee. I did not give her the company.”
I turned another page. Milan folded her arms. “You asked me last year what I wanted Mercer Row to become. Every time I answer, you convert the answer into something you can supervise.”
“That is not what I am doing.”
“What are you doing?”
“Reviewing a proposal.”
“You corrected the candidate’s management experience before you reached the page with her references.”
I closed the binder. She watched me.
“Nadine may take a job in Washington,” I said.
Milan’s face changed. “What does that have to do with my proposal?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why did you say it?”
Because the two things had arrived four days apart and both asked whether I believed a structure could remain strong when I was not standing in the center of it. I did not say that.
“She has an interview Friday,” I said.
“Does she want it?”
“Yes.”
“You sound mad.”
“I am not.”
“You sound like you are checking a wall for moisture.”
“That is not a sound.”
“It is on you.”
She got up and took the binder from my desk.
“I am not done.”
“You stopped reading.”
“I was thinking.”
“Think after page thirty-eight.”
She left with the plan under her arm. I should have called her back.
Instead, I looked at the empty space where the binder had been and admitted that she was right about one thing.
I had stopped reading. The night Nadine told me about Washington, I had slept beside her without sleeping much.
She did not ask whether I was awake. I did not ask whether she was.
At two seventeen, she moved closer and put her hand on my ribs.
At four thirty, she got up for water. At six, she left for work with a kiss that lasted long enough to say we were not fighting and not long enough to answer anything else.
I wanted her to take the interview. I also wanted the job to be in Philadelphia, the salary to be larger, the office to be ten minutes from her house, and every train between us to run on a schedule I controlled.
Only one of those wants belonged in a conversation.
At ten, Cedric came into my office carrying a site report and a breakfast sandwich.
He handed me the report and kept the sandwich.
“The Broad Street masonry crew is two days ahead,” he said. “The museum job has a window issue. Supplier says next month. I say they are lying.”
“What does the contract say?”
“Eight weeks from approval. Friday makes ten.”
“Send the notice. Copy counsel. Give them forty-eight hours to confirm shipment or we source the alternate.”
“Already did.”
“Then why are you here?”
He took a bite. “Milan said you are acting strange.”
“Milan discusses too much.”
“She is your child. That is the arrangement.”
I opened the site report. Cedric stayed standing.
“What?” I asked.
“Washington.”
“I am not discussing Nadine’s career with the company.”
“You discuss your blood pressure with me every time a supplier misses a date.”
“I do not have blood pressure problems.”
“You will.”
I looked back at the report. Cedric leaned against the doorframe. “My wife went to nursing school when our boys were six and nine. Night classes. Clinicals on Saturdays. I hated that schedule.” I waited.
“She took it anyway,” he said.
“That sounds supportive.”
“I was supportive. I was also irritated, tired, jealous of a pharmacology book, and tired again.”
“You told her?”
“Not at first. I walked around being noble until she asked why I was slamming cabinets.”
“I do not slam cabinets.”
“You buy soft-close.”
I almost smiled. Cedric finished the sandwich.
“Tell the woman you want her here,” he said. “Then tell her you are not asking her to make her life smaller. Both can be true. Grown people survive two true things.”
“That sounded rehearsed.”
“My wife told me that after I ruined a Tuesday.”
He left the site report and walked out. I called Milan back. She returned without the binder.
“Where is the plan?” I asked.
“My office.”
“Bring it.”
“You can come get it.”
I looked at her. She looked back. I went downstairs.
For the next two hours, she walked me through the proposal.
I asked questions. She answered most. When she did not know, she said so without trying to invent confidence.
The pilot had risk. It also had work behind it, clients asking for it, and people prepared to carry it.
“What do you need from me?” I asked.
Milan leaned back in her chair. “Approval to negotiate the shared studio lease, hire the senior architect if references clear, and lead the Baltimore proposal. I want budget authority up to the amount on page twenty-seven without bringing you every chair and software license.”
“That is a large amount.”
“It is less than you authorized yourself when you started Mercer Row with a pickup and a cousin-shaped foreman.”
“Cedric is not my cousin.”
“He has been here twenty-three years. The distinction is paperwork.”
I approved the pilot with monthly financial review and a hiring threshold that required our controller’s second signature, not mine. Milan read the authorization twice.
“You are not going to add a note?” she asked.
“I added two.”
She turned the page. One note required a client-deposit policy. The other required a written succession plan if the division exceeded its first-year target.
“That is reasonable,” she said reluctantly.
“I am often reasonable.”
“You are occasionally well documented.”
That evening, I went to Nadine’s townhouse. I used the key because she had texted that she was upstairs and the front door was open to me. I still knocked before turning it.
“Come in,” she called.
She sat at the dining table surrounded by printed pages, a yellow legal pad, and three different versions of her résumé. Her hair was wrapped. Her glasses rested low on her nose. A bowl of popcorn sat beside a glass of wine.
“This looks serious,” I said.
“It has become fonts.”
“That is serious.”
I sat across from her. She looked at me over the glasses. “You took four days.”
“I told you I needed a minute.”
“A minute in Warren time is apparently a fiscal quarter.”
“I wanted to say the right thing.”
“That is usually where people go wrong.”
“I want you here.”
The humor left her face. I continued before caution took over.
“I like waking up with you. I like knowing I can see you on Wednesday without buying a ticket. I like your daughter walking into a room and assuming I will be there. I do not want a relationship that only happens on weekends.”
Nadine closed the résumé file.
“And?” she asked.
“And I want you to take the interview.”
Her eyes stayed on mine.
“I do not want you to choose a smaller life so I can feel secure inside mine,” I said. “That does not mean I will enjoy every part if you get it.”
“There you are.”
“What?”
“The part that wants something.”
“I have always wanted things.”
“You usually turn them into plans before anybody can see them.”
I accepted that. She pushed the popcorn toward me. “I do not know whether I would move.”
“Do not decide that before the interview.”
“I might need a place there.”
“Yes.”
“You hate trains.”
“I hate delays.”
“Same thing in a suit.”
“I can learn the schedule.”
“I did not ask you to.”
“I know.”
The old answer almost sounded wrong because we had used it too often. I corrected myself.
“You did not ask,” I said. “I am telling you what I am willing to learn.”
Nadine reached across the table and took my hand.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For not making support sound like you do not care where I sleep.”
I turned her hand over and pressed my thumb into her palm.
“I care,” I said. “That is why this is difficult.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“I can work with difficult. I cannot work with invisible.”
She reopened the résumé. I stayed while she changed the font back to the one she started with.