She took the card. She looked at it. She looked at him. Mr. Hail, she said.
He waited. "You've been calling the bank," she said. "Talking to commercial customers, letting it be known that this shop is coming available. She kept her voice completely level. That's not business.
That's pressure. " Hail's expression didn't change, but something behind it did. I don't know what you've heard, he started. I've heard specific things from specific people, she said. Names I could give you. I won't because they told me in confidence.
But I want you to understand that what you're describing as a fair offer is arriving in the context of a campaign that is designed to make Darius Coleman feel like selling is the only option. She paused. It's not the only option. Hail looked at her for a long moment. You're very direct, he said.
Yes, she said. Is there anything else? Another long moment. You're loyal to him. Hail said not with contempt with something that was almost she would think about this later almost respect.
I'm loyal to what this shop is, she said, which is not the same thing as what you could turn it into. Hail looked at her one more time. Then he nodded a single clean nod and left. She closed the door. She stood in the empty shop and let her breath out slowly.
Then she called Darius. He picked up on the second ring. Robert Hail just came by. She said a beat in person. In person.
He left a card. He has a message. She told him exactly what Hail had said in the same order with the same words because she had been paying close attention and that was what he needed. When she finished, Darius was quiet for a moment. What did you say to him?
She told him that too. The silence that followed was different from the silence after the news. It was longer, warmer, the silence of a man sitting with something and being moved by it. "Avery," he said. "Yes. " "Thank you. " She sat down on the stool near the counter.
"You're welcome," she said. She could hear in the background of the call the sound of Lily's voice asking something the way children ask things immediate and without preamble and Darius saying, "Hold on a second, baby. Hold on. " And something in that sound, the ordinary domesticity of it. A father and his daughter in a house at 6:30 in the evening hit her in a place she hadn't been prepared to feel anything. Go, she said.
I'll lock up. I'll see you tomorrow. He said tomorrow. She said. She hung up.
She sat in the shop alone for a moment. Then she got up, checked the bays, turned off the lights one by one, and locked the front door behind her. The following week, Darius did something that surprised everyone, including himself. He called Robert Hail back, not to accept the offer, not to negotiate, but to say directly without aggression, "I know what you've been doing with the bank and with my customers. I want it to stop.
Not because I'm threatening you, because I'm telling you directly that this shop is not available. It will not be available. And continuing to operate as though it will be is a waste of both our time. Hail had been quiet on the other end. Then he said, "That's a more direct conversation than most people give me. " I learned recently, Darius said, that direct is better.
He did not elaborate. Hail said he understood. The bank calls stopped within the week. Whether it would hold, no one knew. But for now, it stopped.
Darius told Terrence. Terrence nodded once and went back to work, which was his version of relief. He told Avery standing in Bay 1 on a Friday morning between the car and the workbench, and she listened to the whole thing and then said, "Good, just that. Good. " He looked at her. "I had a good example," he said.
She looked at the charger to avoid looking at him and said to the engine, "The Brakem cylinder is going to be the next big challenge. I've ordered the parts, but the bore size is non-standard for the year. " "Avery, the parts supplier in Chattanooga has one in stock," she said, "but it's going to take 2 weeks to ship. " "Avery," she stopped. She looked at him. The shop was running at full volume around them. Terrence had the radio up.
Deshawn was doing a break job in bay 42. Customers were waiting in the front area and the phone was ringing in the office and in the middle of all of it. Darius Coleman looked at her with the face of a man who has been managing a feeling for 9 weeks and has run out of management. I want to have dinner with you, he said. Not a question, not a hint hint or a suggestion wrapped in professional language.
A statement clear, direct, simple. She looked at him. You're my employer, she said. I know that. That's complicated.
I know that, too. I've been very careful, she said to not. I've been trying to keep this. I know what you've been trying to do, he said quietly. I've been trying to do the same thing.
He paused. It's not working. She looked at the charger, at the shop, at nine weeks of work and difficult conversations and the Gary situation and Robert Hail and the insurance policy and the flexplate and all the ways she had told herself this was only professional and meant only professionally. If this doesn't work out, she said slowly. I need to know that my position here isn't.
Your position here, he said, has never once been dependent on anything except your work. I need you to hear that. She looked at him. I hear it, she said. Dinner, he said.
Saturday, somewhere that isn't here. She held his gaze for a long moment. Saturday, she said. He nodded. He went back to the office.
She turned to the charger and stood very still for a moment, and she was almost certain, almost entirely certain, that if Terrence had turned around at that exact moment, he would have caught her smiling at a 60-year-old engine block. Terrence did not turn around. He was, however, smiling at his own bay. Saturday came and the dinner was not what either of them expected, which was to say it was better. It was a small restaurant in Inman Park, the kind of place that had been there for 20 years and hadn't tried to update itself because it didn't need to.