Not with advice, not with strategy, with how are you today and what do you need right now? And I'm here regardless of which answer you give. It cost him sleep. He did it anyway. On the 31st day, one day past the deadline Meridian had set, which Victoria had extended by filing a formal counterproposal that her attorney described as aggressive, and Daniel described as exactly right.
The call came through at 4:17 in the afternoon. His phone lit up with her name deafening while he was in the middle of a walkthrough at the Milwaukee property reviewing prep station layouts with their kitchen supervisor a woman named Dana who reminded him of himself 3 years ago competent overworked and not yet fully aware of her own value. He excused himself. He stepped into the corridor and answered, "Victoria, we won." Her voice was flat.
Not flat because it was empty. Flat because she was holding something enormous still so it didn't spill. They withdrew the offer. They're moving to another acquisition target. He leaned against the corridor wall.
You sure? He said, "My attorney just called. It's done." A pause, "Daniel, it's done." And then something happened that he had never heard in 6 months of knowing her.
Victoria Hayes, who had held herself together through hostile investors and industry crisis, and the specific loneliness of a woman who had built an empire and found herself standing alone in the middle of it. Victoria Hayes made a small involuntary sound that was not a cry exactly, but was the sound that comes just before one. "Hey," he said immediately. "Hey, you did it. We drafted the counter three times," she said.
Her voice was unsteady in a way he'd never heard. Three times and each time I almost just I almost just said yes, let them take it because I was so tired. But you didn't. But I didn't, she breathed. Because someone told me it was okay to want what I wanted.
He was quiet for a moment. Go home, he said. Not to the office. Home. Eat something real.
I have three calls this afternoon, Victoria, she stopped. Go home, he said again quietly. Okay, she said. I'll be back in Chicago by 7:00, he said. I'll call you when I'm on the train.
You don't have to. I know I don't have to, he said. That's the point. She was quiet. Okay, she said finally softer this time.
Okay. He hung up, went back into the kitchen, finished the walkthrough with Dana, gave her three specific observations about the prep's station layout that he watched register on her face the same way his own had registered on his the small surprised recognition that someone was actually paying attention to the work. He told her to document the changes. He told her the documentation mattered. He told her that what she did informally was worth formalizing and that she should start keeping a record.