As she was leaving, Constance said, "Margot. The Group Account Director decision. I know it's on your mind. It's going to be made after the Halloran renewal in January, and it's going to be made on your record. I want you to hear that from me."
"Is that something you're required to say?"
"No. That one's just me."
* * *
The Group Account Director job was the reason Margot had stayed at Farrow & Lisle for six years when bigger shops had called. It would put her over every account in the building. It would mean she could finally fix the things she'd been quietly fixing anyway, starting with the way nobody ever wrote anything down. She had wanted it for a long time with the steady, unglamorous wanting of a person who believes she'd be good at something.
And the decision was Mr. Farrow's.
He passed her in the hallway that afternoon and said, "Margot," in the same tone he used for weather, and kept walking. He was a tall, stooped man in his sixties who wore cardigans under his suit jackets. He had built the agency out of the wreck of Lisle Brothers in the late nineties and kept it alive through two recessions by never once, as far as anyone knew, making a decision out of feeling. He played the piano at every holiday party and spoke to no one while he did it.
She told herself the coolness was nothing. Farrow was always cool.
She went back to her office and worked on the Halloran renewal deck until the windows went dark and the snowflakes reappeared on the glass.
* * *
Wes knocked on her door frame at six-fifty on Tuesday. Not Monday. She noted that. He had, at least, given her a day.
"Daylight's over," she said, without looking up. "You missed it."
"I know. I'm sorry. I had a speech and it was terrible, so I wrote another one, and that one was worse." He stood in the doorway with his hands in his pockets. No suit today; a dark sweater, the sleeves pushed up, the silver watch. "Can I come in? You can say no."
She looked at him then. He looked like a man who had not slept well since Friday. She was ungenerous enough to be glad.
"Close the door," she said. "Not for privacy. Because the accounting team has been watering that plant every forty minutes since yesterday and it's going to drown."
He closed the door. He did not sit.
"You said Monday," he said. "I'm a day late. That's on brand."
"Don't," said Margot. "Don't be charming. If you're going to say something, say it straight."