It's complicated. Marcus said, you always say that about things that are actually simple, Lily said. He sat with that for a moment. Then he reached over and pulled her blanket up the way he'd done since she was 3 years old and kissed the top of her head. "Get some sleep," he said.
She was already half asleep when she murmured, "I liked her, Dad. " Marcus turned off the light. He sat in the dark living room for a long time next to a bookshelf overflowing with Lily's books under drawings in gold frames across from a window sill with a succulent named Gerald. Then he picked up his phone and dialed Sophia Whitmore's number. She picked up on the first ring. Okay, he said a silence on the other end long enough that he thought the call had dropped.
Then, "Thank you, Marcus. " Her voice was different on the phone. Quieter, stripped of the executive register, the public composure. She sounded for just a moment like someone who had been holding something very heavy for a very long time and had just been allowed to set it down. "Don't thank me yet," Marcus said. "We haven't gotten through tomorrow. " "No," she said.
"But we will. " He didn't know why he believed her. He just did. He had no idea what was coming. Neither did she. But 27 schools and 14,000 children were depending on two strangers to walk into a boardroom the next morning and convince an entire board of trustees that what existed between them was real.
The problem was by the time they got there, it might already be starting to become true. The alarm went off at 5:15. Marcus was already awake. He'd been awake since 3, staring at the ceiling, running through the same loop of thoughts that had started the moment he'd hung up the phone with Sophia Whitmore, and hadn't stopped since. He wasn't a man who second-guessed himself couldn't afford to be not in his line of work, where a wrong decision about a loadbearing wall could bring a ceiling down on somebody's head.
But this was different. This wasn't a wall. This was his life, his daughter's life. And he'd agreed to hand a piece of it to a woman he'd known for approximately 6 hours. He got up at 5:20, made coffee, and stood at the kitchen window in the dark.
At 5:45, his phone buzzed. A text from Sophia. Just an address and car will be there at 7:00. Dress clothes if you have them. Doesn't need to be a suit, he read it twice.
Then he wrote back, "I have a suit. " 3 seconds later. "Of course you do. " He almost smiled. He wore the suit navy blue bought three years ago for a community development awards ceremony where he'd been nominated and hadn't won worn once since to a funeral. He stood in front of the bathroom mirror and straightened the tie and looked at himself and thought about Clare the way she always fixed his collar before anything important standing on her toes to reach it saying there now you look like somebody. He'd always told her he looked like somebody before she fixed it.
She'd always told him he was wrong. He pressed his palm flat against the mirror for one second, then dropped it and went to wake Lily. She was already up, sitting at the kitchen table in her school uniform, eating cereal with his thermos filled and waiting beside his coffee mug. "You filled the thermos," he said. "You always forget it when you're nervous," she said without looking up from her bowl.
He sat down across from her. She kept eating. Neither of them said anything for a moment, and that was fine. They'd always been comfortable in silence, the two of them, the way people are when they know each other all the way through. Then Lily said, still not looking up.
You look like somebody, Dad. His throat tightened. Your mom used to say that, he said. I know, Lily said. That's why I said it.
He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. She flipped her hand over and squeezed his fingers the way she'd done since she was 4 years old. And learning that sometimes the world was big and you needed to hold on to something. Mrs. Patterson is going to walk you to school.
Marcus said, "I know. I'll be back by Dad. " Lily said. She finally looked up. Her eyes were steady and serious. Those eyes that were so much her mother's, it sometimes stopped his breathing.
"Go save the schools. " He nodded. He picked up the thermos and he left. The black SUV was at the curb at exactly 7:00. Sophia was already inside. She was in a charcoal blazer, a silk blouse, understated jewelry, the kind of outfit designed to signal authority without announcing it.
Her hair was up. She had a leather folio open on her lap. She looked up when the door opened and he got in. And she looked him over quickly, professionally, and said, "Good. Good morning to you, too. " Marcus said, "I'm sorry. " She closed the folio.
"Good morning. How did you sleep? " "I didn't," he said. "Neither did I. " She handed him a folder. "This is what you need to know before we walk in that door. " "Bard members, 12 of them. I'll tell you who matters and who's already decided.
Victor will have four votes locked before we sit down. We need eight. " Marcus opened the folder. Clean, organized names with short profiles, photos, notes in red pen. He scanned it. "You wrote these yourself," he said.
Not a question he could tell from the handwriting. "Last night," she said. "After we hung up. " "You sleep at all? " "I had coffee. " She paused. "A lot of coffee. " He flipped to the third page. A name circled in red.
Eleanor Marsh, 71, founding board member, skeptical of everything, decides nothing quickly. If you get Eleanor, the others follow. Below that, underlined twice. She will talk to you, not me. She doesn't trust people who haven't worked with their hands.
Marcus looked up. You think she'll talk to me because I'm a contractor. I think she'll talk to you, Sophia said carefully. Because you're a man who fixed windows in a condemned building on his own time for no pay because they needed fixing. Ellaner built her family's hardware business from nothing.
She understands that language better than anything I've ever said to her. Marcus looked at the photo. Ellaner Marsh, silver hair, sharp eyes, the expression of someone who had spent 71 years not being fooled. What do I say to her? He asked.