Rhodes leaned back, studied Marcus for a long moment. "What would a fair process look like to you?" he asked. "Start with the actual problems," Marcus said. "Tell me what's broken in your operation structure.
Let me tell you what I see and what I do about it. If my answers are the right answers, you'll know it. And then you make the offer because it's merited, not because it's owed." Rhodes glanced at the general counsel. Something passed between them.
Then he looked back at Marcus. "That's an unusual request." "I'm an unusual person," Marcus said. The board chair studied him for another long moment. Then slowly, he smiled, a small, genuine thing that had nothing managed about it.
"Yes," he said, "you are. All right, Mr. Bennett. Let's do it your way." The meeting lasted another 90 minutes.
Mark [ __ ] talked about what he'd observed in the company's operations, the inefficiencies he'd noticed from the ground level, the supply chain vulnerabilities the Harrington integration would expose, the cultural patterns in the organization that made good information slow to reach decision-makers. He talked about it the way he'd always worked, methodically, concretely, with specific examples and specific proposals. Not performing competence, just being competent, in the same plain, direct way he'd always been in rooms that had never thought to look for it in him. When he left the building at 6:15, Rhodes walked him to the elevator himself. At the door the older man extended his hand.
"I'll be honest with you, Mr. Bennett," he said. "When Patricia told me you'd declined the initial offer, my first reaction was that you were making a mistake." "And now?" Marcus said.
Rhodes shook his hand. "Now I think you might be the smartest person who's been in that room in quite some time." Um, Marcus took the elevator down, walked to the car, sat for a moment in the quiet before starting the engine. He thought about the regional director who'd asked him to sign a false report. He thought about the Friday he'd been walked out of the building.
He thought about 87 resumes, 12 callbacks, 3-second interviews, zero offers. He thought about Dale calling him with a heads-up about the rumors because Marcus deserved a heads-up. He thought about Amara asking if he liked his new job, and the only honest answer being, "I like that it lets me be your dad." He thought about a rainy parking garage and a woman with shaking hands and a quiet request that had changed everything. He started the car and drove home.
Amara was at the kitchen table doing homework when he came in. Her tongue pressed to her lower lip the way it got when she was concentrating hard on something. She looked up. How was work? Good, he said.
He sat down across from her. Really good, actually. She studied him the way she always studied him with the searchlight eyes. Looking for the truth underneath the answer. You look different, she said.