Page 47 of Coffee Shop Girl
Bethany’s jaw tightened. “Not in the slightest.”
Atta girl.
“You can’t be here to beg for more grace. There is no more grace, Bethany. It’s time. Time to accept the inevitable. The Frolicking Moose is dying. Kill it. Sell it. Let it go. Whatever you can do to restore some of your credit before it takes you to the grave as well. Pardon my pun.”
My fingers twitched with a sudden, undeniable surge of annoyance. Who made a miserable death joke like that less than a year after someone lost their father? I could handle this guy in three sentences.
Maybe sitting on this side of things wouldn’t be as easy as I thought. Although I had a feeling I was too emotionally invested in this one. It wouldn’t be like this going forward. I made a mental note to forward a rule list to my VA.
Accept no clients I can’t stop looking at.
Accept no clients whose smell makes me want to stay in their business outside normal hours.
Accept no clients that look like Bethany in yoga pants.
Bethany spoke up while I detailed in my head exactly what I’d say.
“I have a plan.” Her tone rang with confidence. “A good one. I came to tell you about it as a show of faith. I know that our line of credit is out. That the mortgage has three back payments due, and that you know about the credit card.”
He lifted his brow in acknowledgment. Bethany reached into her purse, pulled out a stack of papers, and slammed them onto Steven’s desk with a dramatic flourish.
“I came to talk.”
* * *
Never in myArmy years or while scaling the corporate ladder had I felt so proud of someone.
Thirty minutes later, Bethany stood next to Steven behind his desk, a strategic display of papers in front of him. The graphs, spreadsheets, and calculations were all familiar to me by now. Steven regarded them like a man of money.
Likemaybeshe had a breath of hope.
Bethany had warmed into the back-and-forth. I sat back, slightly bored. Maybe she didn’t need me at all.
“I know this is going to work.” She tapped a finger on the paper that detailed my projected profit-and-loss for four months from now. “How could it not?”
Well, a thousand ways, but no need to interject them. He would see them as well as I could. Steven looked at me with shrewd intent as he peered over the top of his thin, black-rimmed glasses. For several seconds, we said nothing.
“It’s something.” Steven leaned back in his chair, waving a hand toward the paperwork. “It’s lovely what you’ve done. Really. But that plan could take months. Your father promised me the same thing. Bethany, it’s notyouthat’s failing. It’s the shop. The store. The property is bloody cursed. Not even the strongest plan could work there. Nothing ever has.”
Her lips tightened. “With all due respect,” she murmured, “no one has ever beenme, either.”
The struggle to keep from clapping was real.
Steven stared at her, then burst out laughing. “Fair confidence, dear Bethany. I love seeing that in a woman. But confidence doesn’t pay over three hundred thousand dollars of debt, if you include the mortgage.”
NowIwas ready to get involved.
Bethany spoke before I could open my mouth. “What if I could cover the overdue payments on the mortgage and guarantee to leave the line of credit alone?”
I tried not to stare at her and give him reason for suspicion, but my brain immediately flipped.
Wait, what?
Such a sassy remark could only mean she had an undisclosed asset, and I didn’t like that at all. Unexpected assets in a negotiation meant she hadn’t been fully transparent with me. Did that bother me because I was her consultant, or because it was Bethany?
Steven steepled his hands in front of him like a mad scientist. “Go on,” he murmured.
“Let’s say I could front ... ten thousand. That would cover the last three months and this month’s mortgage payment. At the very least, square us up.”
