Page 84 of Some Like It Hott

Preston

“Annabel Sweet wants a face-to-face with you,” Franklin says into my ear three days later when I pick up the phone.

Dread coils in the pit of my stomach. Annabel Sweet represents PowerFun’s CEO, Julie Ambrose, as the banker on the seller’s side. She works for a different I-banking firm. An out-of-the-blue call is not a good sign.

I’ve worked fifty-six of the last seventy-two hours. Slept eleven.

It’s just as well. I don’t want to spend any time in my apartment. It’s too big and empty.

There’s a huge living room that could probably seat twenty, easily, if there were any furniture left in it besides an ugly, hard gray couch and a matching gray armchair. Kali took the rest.

The walls are white, and the decor is bachelor chic. The kind of art you buy from a decorator, that’s made to fill space and add color and maybe even provoke discussion. Kali took all the art that was really art, because she’d chosen it all to begin with. Sculptures and paintings, vivid and imaginative. What’s left is a mockery of art.

The kitchen is huge, black and white, stark lines and cold surfaces. No one has cooked in it since Kali left.

She took the pottery that her artist friends had thrown. The glass bowls they’d blown. The dish towels they’d woven and screen printed.

What’s left is open and cold and arid.

I’d rather be here, where at least Franklin gets paid to keep me company.

“Can I set up a Zoom for you and Annabel?” he asks.

“Sure,” I say.

I click into the Zoom Franklin has set up. Annabel’s in there, looking grim in a way that does nothing for my stomach.

“What’s up?” I ask her.

“My seller has cold feet.”

“Warm them up for her.”

“Preston, this isn’t a joke. You know she’s had serious reservations about culture clash all along, but the due diligence dragging on so long has given her even more time to worry about it. She’s saying it’s a little like AT&T buying Pixar.”

“AT&T didn’t buy Pixar.”

At some point in the last few days, I settled back into this version of myself. The old version. Recognizable. Cool, hard, ruthless. I like this self better; he’s got more armor. He doesn’t have time to second-guess himself or think about how much he misses Natalie. He only has the bandwidth for what’s happening here and now in this office.

“I think that’s her whole point,” Annabel says darkly. “She didn’t love the way MegaStar handled themselves during due diligence. She hasn’t liked what she’s seen during site visits. She thinks MegaStar will crush PowerFun’s soul. And every time she’s tried to approach Thompson to raise concerns, he’s said the equivalent of ‘What culture?’”

I groan. “Thompson.”

“I know,” Annabel grumbles. She doesn’t want this thing to fall apart any more than I do. She’s invested just as much for just as long in its success.

Now she sighs. “You told me when we started this process that you believe the most important thing in a good acquisition was fit.”

I fidget with a pile of folders on my desk, adjusting the corners so they line up perfectly. “I still believe that. And I still believe this is the right fit. I think Thompson, for all his faults, sees clearly what’s good in PowerFun.”

“Then he’s going to have to find some way to show that to Julie,” Annabel says. “Because otherwise she’s going to walk away from this deal.”

Annabel, having delivered that zinger, brings the meeting to a close, leaving me feeling sick to my stomach.

Franklin comes in. “Annabel wanting a meeting out of the blue can’t be good, can it?”

“Nope,” I say. “PowerFun is worried about culture match. Julie Ambrose has, in Annabel’s words, cold feet.”

“Shit,” he says.

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