Chapter 19 #3
Vivian shifted in her chair as she set down the water.
“I know you’re going to argue with me on that distinction, and I want to say in advance that you may be right.
I’ve considered where the line between curating and lying is for several months, and I’m not certain I’ve always stayed on the right side of it.
For that, I’ll accept whatever the board, SEC, and courts decide.
What I want you to know is that I wasn’t trying to betray you or the company.
I only wanted to create the conditions for everyone to be honest about what it is and what it could be with the right leadership.
“You’re a brilliant steward, Alexandra. I’ve watched you for nine years protect this company through every shock that has come at it, and I’ve been in awe of how well you do it.
You hold the institution together, and no one else alive could have stewarded Vaughn Industries through the last twelve years better than you have.
But you are a limited visionary, and that limitation is your mother.
Dorothy built this company and you’ve protected it, and it needed both.
But what it needs now is someone willing to evolve it past what Dorothy would have done.
And I don’t believe you can’t. That’s not a criticism of you as much as it is an observation.
I’ve watched as every strategic decision that comes through your office is weighted against what your mother would have wanted, and Vaughn Industries can’t afford that anymore.
And I came to believe, slowly and against my own personal preference at the time, that the only thing that would force an evolution was pressure from the outside that would make it unavoidable.
Rousseau Global was the pressure, but I was what made that visible to the people who needed to see it the most.”
Vivian stopped talking and withdrew her hands from the table, placing them in her lap. Her shoulders lowered a fraction of an inch, and Alexandra saw her chest fall with a deep exhale.
The most damning part of Vivian’s explanation was that Alexandra couldn’t argue with it.
Some part of it—a third, perhaps even half—was accurate.
Vivian had said aloud what Alexandra had refused to acknowledge for the better part of a decade.
Alexandra had carried the fear that she was limited by, and to, her mother’s vision into every board meeting, every annual report, every late night when she sat in her mother’s study.
She wasn’t going to deny or run away from it now.
“I’m going to grant you something,” Alexandra said. “Some of what you’ve just said I’m going to be thinking about for a long time, and I won’t argue that some of what you said is accurate.”
Vivian didn’t respond, though her face settled, as if she hadn’t expected a concession. To be fair, Alexandra didn’t expect to make one either.
“What I won’t grant you, though,” Alexandra continued, “is your method. You called what you did ‘curation.’ You’ve been careful about your wording, so I want to be careful in return.”
She paused, chewing over her words.
“A company—a board—can’t function properly unless the people responsible for its decisions are receiving the same information through the same channels.
You, unilaterally, decided what material the board would get.
Instead of bringing that to me or Meg or to the board itself in a way your view could be debated openly, you routed your alternate version to a subset of the directors through a system that wasn’t designed for that.
And not only did you do it without telling anyone, you did it multiple times over nearly a year.
You believed you were right, and you decided that being right was enough to justify taking shortcuts to win.
“That isn’t curation, Vivian. A museum curates with permission, in service of an institution that has authorized the curation.
You substituted your judgments for the institution’s, in private, while continuing to show up at meetings where everyone around you trusted that you were operating in good faith.
Let’s be very clear: that’s manipulation.
And you did it to me, to the board members who deserved to make their decisions on real ground, and to a company you say you love. ”
She maintained eye contact with Vivian, her eyes narrowing. Vivian was still sitting ramrod straight in her chair, the portfolio she had brought into the conference room still unopened on the table in front of her.
Finally, Vivian spoke up. “I won’t refute any of that.”
“I didn’t expect you to.”
“I want you to know—and you can take this however you want—that I knew the cost of doing this to you specifically. I have respected you for nine years, Alexandra. I’ve respected you in a way that’s not separable from the affection I still feel for you, even now.
I knew what doing this to you would mean, and I did it anyway because I believed I had to.
The way I went about it, though, I’ll be questioning that for a long time. ”
It was the closest thing to an apology Vivian was capable of, Alexandra realized. Yet it wasn’t even a real apology.
“Ruth will walk you through what happens next with the legal and SEC processes,” Alexandra said.
“I’d like you to listen to her and take this seriously.
After the two of you finish, you’ll be escorted to your office where you’ll collect your personal effects under supervision, and then you’ll leave the building.
You will not be returning. Is that understood? ”
“Yes.”
She closed the folder and stood. Vivian stood as well and extended her manicured hand. Alexandra looked at it but didn’t take it. After a few awkward seconds, Vivian withdrew it without so much as a flicker of expression and let it fall to her side.
“Goodbye, Alexandra.”
Alexandra gave a curt nod then walked out of the conference room and back to her office. Now, she just had to figure out how to tell Meg.