She had a board response to draft, three executive emails sitting open, a call scheduled with her COO in 40 minutes. I don't actually have a reason, she said. A pause. Okay. I just was going to draft a document and I picked up the phone instead.
That's not something I do. Call people without a reason. Call anyone without a reason. Another pause softer. Ava's at Mrs.
Chen's tonight. I'm heating up leftover rice and watching something terrible on TV. What kind of terrible? The kind where someone renovates a house in 30 minutes and everyone cries at the reveal. She looked at her reflection in the dark window.
That sounds genuinely awful. It really is. You want to join via speakerphone? I can provide live commentary. She laughed.
It came out before she could shape [ __ ] into anything appropriate. I have a call in 40 minutes. Okay. Call me after. She opened her mouth to say something professional and reasonable about boundaries and schedules.
"Okay," she said. She called him after. The board call ran long. 40 minutes became 70. Because the board of a 4 billion company had a specific genius for extending conversations past the point of their own utility.
And when she finally hung up, it was past 9 and she almost didn't call. She called. He answered on the first ring. House got revealed. There were tears.
Who's the couple? The contractor. Two of the neighbors who had no business being emotionally invested. Were you? I had dust in my eye.
Both eyes. It's a dusty television. She sat down on the floor of her office, back against the desk. Coat still on, shoes still on. Because she'd been standing for 11 hours, and the floor was the closest thing to stopping.
She looked at the ceiling. I got a proposal, she said. The house renovation commentary stopped. Yeah, from my board. A new division, West Coast, 18 months minimum in San Francisco, possibly longer.