He paused. "Think about it." Kevin nodded, said nothing else, went back to the kitchen. Daniel's first week in the new role started on a Monday, which felt appropriate, the kind of clean beginning that a Monday is designed for. He came home that Friday, and Amara looked at him across the dinner table with the same expression she'd used the morning after his first dinner with Victoria.
"You look like you again," she said. He looked at his daughter. "I don't look like me everyday," he said. You look like Yuyu, she said with the emphasis that only children can produce the kind that means something specific and precise that adults would need 40 words to approximate like when you fix the whole bathroom in one weekend because you said it was bothering you. He remembered that weekend he had been 38.
Amara had been six and he had replaced the tiles, the faucet, and the towel bars in two days because it had needed doing and he had the energy for it. And there was something deeply satisfying about making a broken thing work. He had not felt that way about much since recently. Yeah, he said, "I feel like me." Amara nodded and ate her dinner.
The crisis arrived on a Tuesday evening, which in Daniel's experience was the correct day for crisis, not dramatic enough to be a Monday. Not late enough in the week for you to have built up sufficient defenses. He was reviewing property reports at his kitchen table. The new job came home with him in a way the kitchen supervisor role hadn't, which was a trade-off he was still calibrating. When his phone lit up with Victoria's name, he picked up.
She didn't say hello. I need to tell you something, she said. And I need you to hear it without reacting right away. His spine straightened. Okay.
He said, I got a call today from Meridian Capital Group, she said, steady voice, professional, but underneath it something taught. They're making another acquisition offer for HHP. Third time in 4 years. This one is, she paused, this one is structured differently. They're not offering to buy me out.
They're offering a partnership that would effectively transfer operational control. They want an answer in 30 days. Daniel was quiet. How serious is it? He said serious enough that my attorney flew in today.
What do you want to do? She was quiet for a moment and then she said something he did not expect. I don't know, she said. Not the CEO voice, not the calculated, resourced, managed Victoria Hayes, who had built 11 restaurants by always knowing what the next move was. I don't know.
Three words that cost her something significant to say. I've been saying no for 4 years, she said. And every time I say no, it gets harder. The market is different. The costs are different.
And I'm She stopped. I'm tired, Daniel. I'm actually tired. He set the report down. Tell me what tired means, he said.