Where it was covered versus where it's been opened. Always can, Marcus said. Old work versus new. You learn to read the layers. She set the laptop bag down on a clean part of the tarp he had laid out.
She looked at it like she'd set it down without fully deciding to. I have a board meeting in 3 weeks, she said. There are two members who want to vote to bring in an outside management firm, which would effectively mean they'd be managing me. Marcus kept working, not rudely, but because stopping completely and facing her seemed like it would make her stop talking. What's their stated reason that my decisions have been too aggressive?
That I'm expanding archets before we have infrastruct. They're not entirely wrong. He glanced at her. Then what's the disagreement? The disagreement is that being right about the problem doesn't give them the right to take it out of my hands.
I built this company. My father built this company. I can fix my own mistakes. Can you fix them in 3 weeks? A silence.
That's the question, she said. Marcus looked at the new framing beside the old. You know what this is? He said, gesturing with the tool in his hand. She looked.
Structural repair. Yeah, but more specifically, this is what happens when someone fixes a problem right instead of fast. That patch job 15 years ago, whoever did that was solving the same problem. The leak, the damage, the thing that needed to be dealt with. They just dealt with it in the way that made it invisible rather than the way that made it gone.
He turned to look at her. Your board members might be right about the problem. That doesn't mean their solution is right. Their solution is a patch. It makes the hiss invisible.
It doesn't address what's underneath. Olivia looked at him for a long moment. You're doing it again, she said. Doing what? Giving philosophical answers to practical questions.
Those were the same question, Marcus said. She was quiet. Then quietly, how do you know the difference between a patch that holds and a fix that lasts? Marcus thought about it. A patch holds until pressure finds it.
A fix holds under pressure. The difference is whether you went deep enough. Olivia sat down on an overturned equipment crate. Which surprised him. She didn't seem like a woman who sat on equipment crates in work zones.
"My father thinks I should trust people more." She said, "Let people in more. He thinks my problem with the company is actually a problem with she stopped. He says, "I run the company like I run my life, which he says is from behind glass. Is he wrong?" The armor flickered. "Just for a second." "No," she said.