The same word Susan Greer used. She was starting to understand it was the word people used when something landed exactly where it should. She passed the Georgia Trades Program framework to the board on Friday. She spent Thursday night writing it properly, not in the language of investor relations, but in plain language, the language of what it actually was and who it was actually for. She wrote about the knowledge that lives in people's hands.
She wrote about the specific and irreplaceable value of a person who can walk up to a broken thing and fix it. She wrote in the framework section about return on investment because that was the language the board needed but she wrote it second. She wrote the human part first. Diane Louu called her Saturday morning. I read the whole thing last night.
She said, "Gerald's going to have questions about the timeline, but Victoria, the opening section. I know it's unconventional. " Victoria said, "It's the best thing you've written since your founders's letter. " Diane said, "What happened to you? " Victoria looked at the cast iron pan on the stove, which she'd used again this morning, and to bat the business card propped against the backsplash, splack pests where she could see it. While I went for a drive, she said. She drove to Mil Haven the following Saturday. She told Marcus she was coming.
She'd called Wednesday and said she wanted to come back that weekend if it was okay. He'd said it was okay. She'd said she'd be there Saturday morning. He'd said he knew a place that did better biscuits than the Birchwoods waffles. And she'd said that was a bold claim.
And he'd said he was prepared to defend it. She left Atlanta at 5:30 a.m. She drove the 5 hours without rushing. She crossed the county line at 10:23 and felt something happen in her chest that she'd been feeling every time she crossed it in her mind for the past 2 weeks. He was waiting outside the shop, not performing the weight just there, drinking coffee from a travel mug because he'd been working since 7 and had taken a break at the right moment.
She parked and got out of the car. The Honda, the same one. He looked at the car, looked at her. Working fine, he said. Perfect condition, she said.
Look at that, he said. Nothing broken. Nothing broken, she agreed. They stood there for a moment in the October morning. Two people who had covered 5 hours of highway and 10 years of living in 3 weeks of phone calls, and neither of them performed anything.
That was the best part. Biscuits, she said. Come on, he said. The place was 12 minutes from the shop, a diner that looked like it had been there since before either of them were born. Run by a woman named Kora who called Marcus baby and did not ask who Victoria was.
Just brought two coffees and said biscuits this morning and Marcus said yes. And Kora went away and came back with something that was Victoria had to admit worth the 5-hour drive on its own. You win, she said. I wasn't competing, he said. You absolutely were competing.