Page 44 of The Incredible Kindness of Paper
As Zac left, Ricky was polishing off the last crumbs of the chocolate and mulberry croissant. Chloe suddenly wanted to cry.
Which was such an overreaction for a pastry.
Still…
“That Zachary has a lot of opinions,” Bonnie said. She didn’t look up from the rose she was folding from yellow polka-dot paper.
“He means well,” Chloe said.
“I’m sure he does.” Bonnie said. “But don’t forget that you have opinions, too.”
Oliver
Oliver had been in the office for all of five minutes, and he already wanted to throw Zac out a window.
“What if I kick off the executive meeting and give the broad strokes of the new strategy,” Zac was saying to Puja, “and then Tolly takes over to talk about the hardcore numbers?”
“Absolutely not.” Oliver crossed his arms over his chest from the other side of the table. They were in one of the gleaming conference rooms, and it was only the presence of their boss (and the glass walls that everyone could see through) that kept Oliver’s temper in check. “First of all, I’d appreciate it if you called me by my actual name. And second, I should be the one giving the overview of everything that the quant program has accomplished in the past three months, because I’m the one who engineered it all.”
“Yes, but we’ve been over this before,” Zac said slowly, like he was placating an unreasonable toddler. “The CEO and CFO—and maybe even some board members—will be at this meeting. You can’t treat it like a linear algebra lecture. There’s finesse involved.”
“Then I don’t know why you’re even in the running for the speech.”
“Gentlemen,” Puja said, clacking her pen onto the table. “Let’s remember that we’re on the same team, please. And let’s also remember that I have a lot at stake here, too. If this meeting goes well, I might get to spin out the quant division into something bigger, and you two would be my deputies.”
“Of course,” Zac said, smiling. “I only want to do what’s best for the company.”
Puja looked over at Oliver. He nodded, but when she glanced back down at her notepad, he shot Zac a glare.
“I do want you to divide up making the slide deck,” she said. “Zac on the introduction—where we were last year, where we’ve already made stridesthis year, and where we are heading. Oliver will work on all the evidentiary slides—examples of your new models, what they’re based on, anything with data, graphs, et cetera.”
Zac started to smirk.
“However,” Puja said, “you will lead the executive meeting jointly.”
Zac’s smug smile faded.
“I tappedbothof you because you’re the best,” Puja said. “The CEO and CFO should walk out of our meeting wondering why they aren’t giving our division evenmoreresources and money. Show them how tech and quant intersect and why we are Hawthorne Drake’s future.”
“Understood,” Oliver said, although he had no idea how he and Zac would work together without it devolving into a brawl. Maybe Oliver could put Zac into a jiu jitsu hold with one arm and then do the work the way Oliver wanted with the other hand.
“Let’s see. It’s Tuesday now… I’d like the slide deck by next Monday at noon,” Puja said. “That’ll give us time to fine-tune before the meeting at the end of next week.”
“No problem,” Zac said, as he rose from his seat. “Tolly—Oliver—I’ll email you if we need to coordinate anything. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a call with the Winston family.”
Of course he had to get in that last dig to remind Oliver of the account he stole.
“Knock ’em dead,” Puja said.
Once Zac had gone, she turned to Oliver. “Is the Monday deadline doable? I know your part of the slides will take a lot more time, and half of the weekend is shot with the gala—”
“It’ll be fine,” he said. “I’m not going to the gala.” Work parties were anathema to Oliver. Why spend an entire evening making excruciating small talk with the same people you made small talk with every day in the break room and the hallways and the elevators, except in a suffocating tuxedo? Besides, this party was some sort of fundraiser for an arts foundation, and Oliver didn’t like art. It was, in his opinion, the converse of logic.
Puja looked at him like she was trying to figure out whether Oliver was messing with her. But then she quickly recalled how antisocial he was.“Hawthorne Drake is the main sponsor of the gala. Everyone with a title of ‘director’ and above goes. It’s important PR for the company.”
“I hate to agree with Zac, but maybe I’m not the best at public relations.”
Puja arched a brow. “It’s not optional.”
