"Oh, dear," said Dottie, and put her glasses back on, and picked up her pen. "You'll come here and you won't ask."
* * *
Margot was not in Mr. Farrow's office on Friday. She heard about it from three people, and the three versions agreed on the important parts, which in an office is as close to the truth as anyone ever gets.
Anil went in at ten with four boards under his arm. Wes went in behind him and closed the door. Anil put the boards on the easel himself, the black-and-white photographs of the Halloran barns at dawn, Agnes Halloran's father at ninety holding a calf, the young Mexican milker who'd worked there eleven years and was now the herd manager, and under each one, the two words. And he talked for six minutes without notes about a hundred years of dairies closing, and about why the most radical thing a family business can say in this decade is that it hasn't gone anywhere.
Mr. Farrow listened with his fingers steepled. When Anil finished, he said, "It sounds like an obituary."
And Wes said, "It isn't. It's the opposite of one. And it should have led last March, and it would have, if I'd done my job. I'm not asking you to take my word on the work. I'm telling you that if you cut it again, you'll have to cut it with me standing here. And if it goes in and it dies in the room, put my name on it, not his."
Then, according to Bettina, who was outside the door pretending to replace a light bulb, there was a very long silence.
Then Farrow said, "Put it first," and Anil took his boards and left, and Wes stayed behind, and the door stayed shut for another twenty minutes.
What Wes said in those twenty minutes, Margot heard from Constance Yu, who called her in on Monday afternoon and closed her own door and did not offer a peppermint.
"Wes Delacroix came to see me on Friday," she said. "After he'd seen Mr. Farrow. He made a statement about a conversation he had with Mr. Farrow eighteen months ago, about a condition attached to his promotion. He told me he'd already told Mr. Farrow he was going to make it. I have to ask whether you were aware of that condition at the time."
"No," said Margot. "I found out last Tuesday."
Constance nodded. "I'm going to be honest with you, because I think you'd rather I was. There's no handbook policy that would have supported what Mr. Farrow said. It's a serious thing for a managing partner to put a condition like that on someone's job. It's gone to the other partners. There'll be a process. I can't tell you what the outcome will be, and I won't pretend it's going to be dramatic, because these things rarely are." She folded her hands. "What I can tell you is that Mr. Farrow will not be making the Group Account Director decision. He's recused himself. He did it on Friday afternoon, before I asked. The other two partners and I will make it, on your record, after Halloran."
Margot sat with that for a moment. "He recused himself."
"He did."
"Did Wes ask him to?"
"I don't know," said Constance. "I'd say you should ask Wes. But I'd also say you should ask Mr. Farrow, if you want to. I think he might actually answer you."
* * *