How? I talk to him before Wednesday. Not about the vote, not about the merger. I ask him for 15 minutes to explain my own position.
Man-to-man. No agenda except that he deserves to hear the actual version before he votes on someone else's version. That could make it worse. It could.
Or it could be the thing that makes Wednesday different. He leaned forward slightly. Victoria, the people in that rooms on Saturday, the ones who were wavering, they didn't waver because Grant gave them a good argument. They wavered because they'd never been given a reason not to.
They had a narrative and nothing to replace it with. He looked at her directly. I can replace it, not with a counternarrative, with the truth, but only if I'm willing to stand up in a room and say it. The truth being that I've watched you for 3 years.
That I know what the work actually looks like. That the photograph shows exactly what it should show two people who respect each other standing in the same room. And that the entire case against you is built on the absence of a witness willing to say that out loud. She was quiet for a long time.
Outside her office, the floor was empty now, the lights in the common areas dimming to their after hours level. The building settling into the quiet that accumulated after everyone with somewhere to be had gone there. You'd be putting yourself in front of the board, she said as the subject of an active HR review. Yes, it could read as self-interested, like you're protecting yourself.
It could. Hargrove will use it against both of us probably. Adrien, I know the risk. I've assessed it.
He said the last sentence with deliberate exactness and watched her wreck thou words she'd said to him in the copper oak 3 weeks ago. I'm not someone who avoids risk when the potential outcome is worth it. A silence. She looked at him for a long moment with the evaluating look, the one he'd learned to read as her version of genuine attention.
But there was something else in it now. Something he recognized because he'd felt it himself. The night in the bar when he'd taken the resignation letter out of his pocket and held it and made a decision. The feeling of a thing becoming clear.
Wednesday is at 9:00 a.m. She said, "I'll be there. There are 11 board members. You'll need to address all of them, but Callaway and Foresight are the ones who will actually listen. Brennan will vote with the majority but can be moved before the vote.
Hargrove will push back hard. I know. I've processed enough of his communications to understand his style. His style is to make the person speaking feel like the problem.
I know he's very good at it. So am I. Adrien said at making people feel like they've been heard. It's a different kind of good, but in a boardroom it's more useful. She looked at him.
You know, she said quietly when I walked into that bar on Friday evening. I had three people in mind. Three people I'd considered approaching. Professionals, people with established reputations and social capital and nothing to lose.
What happened to them? I looked at all three of them and thought about what they wanted from me. And then I looked across the bar and saw you and I thought, "He wants nothing." And then I sat down.
She looked at the desk. I didn't plan it. It was 3 seconds of instinct. Good instinct.
Best decision I've made in a long time. She said it simply without sentimentality. The way she said things that were simply true. Don't let Hargrove make you feel like that's something to be ashamed of.
He won't. He'll try. I know. He stood.
I'll contact Callaway tonight. Personal email. I have it from the infrastructure report acknowledgement list. I'll ask for 20 minutes tomorrow, he may not respond.
He responded to the methodology discussion. He'll respond to this. She looked up at him. Adrien, he waited.
Whatever happens Wednesday, whatever the board decides. I want you to know that the last 3 weeks have been, she paused. And he had the sense of watching someone choose words with unusual care. Someone for whom precision was habitual.
But this particular precision cost something. I haven't had someone in my corner in a very long time. Actually, in my corner, not managing me, not performing loyalty. Just in it.
He stood with that for a moment. You've been in yours alone for too long, he said. That changes. She held his gaze.
Wednesday, she said. Wednesday, he said. He walked out of her office, through the empty floor, into the elevator, and down through the quiet lobby into the evening. He called his mother-in-law from the sidewalk.
Maya had eaten dinner, apparently a substantial amount of it, and had opinions about the episode of her current favorite show that Eleanor described as detailed and strongly held. " She's asleep," Eleanor said. " She's fine. Go home," Adrien.
He went home. He sat at the kitchen table, the same table where he'd written the resignation letter where he'd eaten breakfast alone for 3 years 4 months and however many days. And he opened his laptop and found Richard Callaway's email l address in the acknowledgement index of a 2019 infrastructure report. And he wrote a message that was four sentences long.
He said who he was. He said he understood Callaway's time was valuable. He said he had information that was relevant to Wednesday's board session that he believed Callaway deserved to hear directly rather than through other channels. He said he was asking for 20 minutes and would come to wherever was convenient.