"I don't know what I am," Lindsay said. "That's the problem. I always thought I knew."
At 4:15 Douglas's assistant called to ask if she had a few minutes.
Douglas's office was on the north corner one floor up and had been his father's and his grandfather's. On the credenza were photographs of Brandt men with governors and senators and one president, and a model of a sailboat Douglas had never, as far as anyone knew, sailed. He came around the desk and took her hand in both of his, which he had never done before, and she knew at once that it was over.
"Lindsay," he said. "Sit, sit. What a day. What a day for all of us."
He talked about the deal. He talked about how good the future was going to be, and how Nathaniel — he was already calling him Nathaniel — was a remarkable man, a visionary, and how lucky they all were. He used the words "optics" and "climate." Then he slid a folder across the desk.
"Nobody wants this," he said. "I want you to know that. Twenty-two years. You're family. But you understand the position. New ownership, and a thing like this the very first morning — it's going to be a story, kiddo, inside and out. Nathaniel will have to make a statement, and frankly I'd rather spare him that. I'd rather it came from us. Shows good faith."
Inside was a resignation letter with her name typed at the bottom, to pursue other opportunities, and a separation agreement: eight months' salary, health coverage through the summer, mutual non-disparagement, and a reference already drafted on Douglas's letterhead calling her "one of the finest client relationship professionals I have worked with in four decades."
She read all of it. It was generous. It was very well written. Someone in legal must have started on it before lunch.
"Has Mr. Turner asked for this?" she said.
Douglas spread his hands. "Nathaniel and I haven't discussed specifics. But I know how these things go."
And she saw it then, the way you see the frame of a house in winter when the trees are bare. Douglas, who had sold his grandfather's firm out from under the people in it and told no one until the morning after. Douglas, who would be "transitioned" on a date he did not control. Douglas, holding her head out on a plate to the new man before the new man had asked for it, so that the first thing Nathaniel Turner learned about Douglas Brandt was how useful he could be. It wasn't about her at all. Or it was about her the way a coin is about a vending machine.