He didn't think it would come back because he didn't think Fitch would make a recorded call. No, she said he didn't think Fitch would do a lot of things he did. She looked at Marcus steadily. Thank you. Procurement policy, he said.
She looked at him for a moment. Stop doing that, she said. He looked back at her. Doing what? Flattening it.
She said, "What you did in there? What you've done for the past month? Flattening it to job description. He was quiet. I used your history without telling you." She said, "You found out and you stayed anyway.
And you built a case that held up in a room full of people who were trying to make you look like the problem. That is not procurement policy." No, he said it's not. The auntie room was small. The city was visible through the window behind her. She was looking at him the way she'd looked at him on the beach before the smile had formed.
And she turned away before it finished. Except this time, she wasn't turning away. I hired you because you were the right person for the project, she said. And because I needed someone who knew Fitch's place. Both of those things are true.
But there's a third thing I haven't said. He waited. I pulled your file because I saw your name in a vendor complaint database. She said you were the person who'd reported not the contractor, not the company. You She kept looking at him and I thought whoever this is, they're either very principled or very stupid and I needed to know which.
What'd you decide? He said both. She said in proportions I found she stopped. Started again. In proportions I found difficult to stop thinking about the building's HVAC made a sound.
The city continued being the city outside the window. I made you a trip wire. She said, "I should have told you. I should have given you the choice. You should have." He said, "I know." She didn't look away.
Would you have said yes? He thought about it honestly. Thought about Lily, the insurance, the coordinator role, the 4 months of looking at a different motel ceiling. Thought about the beach, the canopy, the volleyball net, the 30 seconds with the sunscreen, and the smile she turned away before it finished. Yeah, he said.
I would have. I thought so, she said. That made it worse. It made it worse, he agreed. She looked at him for another moment.
I don't do this, she said. I don't This isn't something I do with people who work for me. I know, he said. But you're going to be in Cambria 4 days a week, she said. And I'm going to be here and there's going to be a professional distance that makes this manageable.
He said complicated, she said. Both. He said, she exhaled. Something in her shoulders released a tension he hadn't realized she'd been carrying throughout the meeting. Saturday, she said, "My daughter is at her father's this weekend.
I'd like to." She stopped, looked at him with the expression of someone doing arithmetic and deciding to trust the answer. I'd like to have dinner, not as your employer. Ass. I know what you mean, he said. Is that Saturday works?
He said, but I have pancakes in the morning. Non-negotiable, she blinked. With your daughter, chocolate chip, he said she's coming up Saturday morning. Dana drops her at 9:00. I can be in LA by 6.
Something moved across Diane Callaway's face that he hadn't seen before. Not the beach smile, not the conference room control, something quieter and more unguarded. The kind of expression that surfaces when a person realizes the life on the other side of a door is more specific than they'd let themselves imagine. "6 p.m." she said. "6 p.m." he said.
She nodded once, opened the anti- room door, went back into the conference room, and the noise of Patricia's voice and Okafur's question and gold gathering his leather portfolio resumed. Marcus sat for a moment in the small room with the city behind the window and the timer on his phone that had read 72 hours 3 days ago and now read zero. He closed the timer, opened his contacts, typed a message to Dana, picking Lily up Sunday instead of Saturday. She okay to stay one more night? Dana replied in 4 minutes.
She'll be annoyed. Marcus, tell her the cereal is waiting. Dana, she'll survive. You good? He looked at the closed conference room door.
Thought about a recorded call and four technical disqualifications and a board vote of 5 to one. Thought about 72 hours and what a person did with them when they understood the shape of the problem. Thought about a smile that had turned away before it finished on a beach in Malibu in a table in a $68 motel and a 7-year-old who'd gotten a 92 on a fractions test and called it basically a 94. He typed, "Yeah." Getting there, he meant it more than he'd mint it in a while. He picked up his laptop, straightened his jacket, and went to find Hartwell to give her the rest of his documentation.
The work wasn't done. The audit would take 2 weeks. The formal board response longer than that, and there was a Cambria permit timeline that had been sitting with the city liaison for 11 days. There was a site report due Friday. There was a general contractor bid to finalize and a mechanical system scheduled to reset.
Now that Pacific Ridge was gone, there was a lot of work. He was good at the work. He was, it turned out, still good at it. Still the person who showed up early and fixed the canopy because it needed fixing and went back to his chair when it was done and didn't make it a thing.
He'd been not making it a thing for 4 years. Somewhere in the geometry of a Malibu beach in a $68 motel and a conference room on the 32nd floor, he'd started to think that wasn't the only way to be. He had pancakes to make on Saturday morning. Everything else could follow from