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“Anyway, I came to talk to you about Mom’s birthday present. Thought we could send her away to a spa for the weekend. She deserves some pampering.”
“Are you sure she’d like that?” She’d hate it. As sure as every programmer says the previous guy’s code was shit, she’d hate it. “Wouldn’t a new greenhouse or a gift certificate to the garden center or a lifetime supply of muck boots be more up her alley?”
Why do I always phrase these things to Max as a question when I know I’m right? Why can’t I just tell him he’s wrong like I do with anyone else? It’s not like we’re still kids and I’m the dweeby youngest and he’s the bossy oldest. Well, actually, he is still the bossy oldest.
“It’ll do her good to pamper herself. I’ll get Charlotte to research the best spas near Blythewell and set it up. Then let you all know how much to chip in.”
“But I really don’t think she’d?—”
“Maybe it’s actually you who needs a weekend retreat.” He leans forward and examines my face. “Those are some seriously dark eye bags.”
I give up the fight over the birthday present idea and turn away from his scrutiny. “It’s a race against the clock to get ready for the First Byte launch, that’s all.”
“You’ve been doing way more than your fair share of everything since Owen shacked up with Summer.” Max shoves aside a pile of mail on the sofa and sits down. “I’ve heard you talk about taking on stuff from the San Francisco office. And I bet it’s even worse now that he’s all distracted with the wedding and honeymoon plans.”
“Yeah, and there’s other stress too,” I confess. “Yesterday, the guys downstairs realized there’s a bug in the smart archiving of our Redberry Two product.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
“Well, so?—”
“Oh no.” Max thrusts his palm at me. “Every time you start a sentence with ‘Well, so…’ it’s followed by ten minutes of words I don’t understand. And have no desire to.”
He leans back and stretches out his legs. “But at least you have Super Gran to take a bunch of the organizational crap off your plate.”
“Not any more I don’t. At least not before the launch. She’s broken some bones and won’t be back for weeks.”
“Shit. What are you going to do?”
I rest my chin on my clasped hands and stare at Max. “She’ll be touched you asked. It was one wrist and one ankle. A rappelling accident. She was in pain, but she’s doing better now and just needs to get home and heal. I’ll tell her you were concerned and send your best wishes.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He shakes his head at my sarcasm. “But seriously. You can’t get this whole thing ready by yourself in two weeks. And you can’t get someone else up to speed to do it for you in that time. It’s not even local. It’s in Idaho, for fuck’s sake.”
“Indiana.”
“Wherever.” He gets to his feet and wanders over to the window that looks out over the East River.
“Well, I have to get it ready on time,” I tell him. “It’s either that or we lose Netto. And whoever thought we’d be lucky enough to get them in the first place? Not to mention all our publicity is out there for the launch date, so if this doesn’t happen, it will be a giant embarrassment for the company. And it’d let down the kids who’re all excited about it.”
“Imagine if you’d had a place to go to like that,” Max says, plucking my handwritten wood label out of the aloe vera plant on the credenza.
“That’s the whole point. Some kids aren’t even lucky enough to have a few junky old cast-off computers at school to learn on like I did.”
Silence hangs in the air as Max examines the plant’s preferences for light, temperature, and moisture levels.
Then he stabs the label back in the pot and spins around to face me. “You know what? I just might have exactly the person you need.”
2
CHARLOTTE
Itake a sip from my hot matcha and scroll through the spreadsheets and contract for the small but growing sports therapy equipment company Max is about to buy.
Joyntz is a fabulous little business. The products all have super innovative designs and look more like gadgets the cool kids at school would have rather than something your granddad might use on his bad knees. The figures suggest it’s about to take off and become a fantastic and much bigger business—at least it will once Max has bought it. Spotting potential is Max’s genius.
And by now he should be using my potential to run one of these companies for him. I’ve been asking for a year to be moved into a more business-oriented, project manager-type role—the perfect first step toward my dream of becoming a Harvest Enterprises executive. I’ve proved myself time and time again as his executive assistant these last three years, and I’m ready for more responsibility.
Max used my idea for a rebrand of an online-only makeup company which was a roaring success. He listened to me talk the owner of a bike rental start-up off the ledge when he got cold feet and almost pulled out of selling to us at the last minute. That company is now a real feather in Max’s portfolio. And I saved his ass when I noticed something off with the numbers for a co-working space company he was about to invest in—even the CFO had missed that one.
