“I’m used to it at this point,” she replied.
It was true, too. Southern Roastery had been expanding rapidly, with no plans of stopping. Part of her job included managing the team that handled the locations and company growth, and in the past three months, she’d had to hire two new people just to manage all of it. It meant she was busier than she’d ever been, but she liked being busy. That was especially true now that she didn’t have a girlfriend to occupy her time.
Even when things hadn’t been great between her and Finley in the past, they had still maintained a connection because they both knew they’d get back together eventually. It had always gone the same way between them. One of them would end things, usually during a fight about something insignificant, and they’d go their separate ways. A few days or weeks later, they would meet up, and before she knew it, they were in bed, having passionate make-up sex and promising each other that this was the last time they would be apart. She had just assumed that the same thing would happen again, up until she found out about Finley and Molly dating, and now, she had no one to go home to, fight with, get back together with, and have hot make-up sex with. So, work would have to fill the void, and Southern seemed intent on giving her just that.
“With the new employee café being built in the lobby, that’s taking the space we needed for the additional plans,”her boss continued. “Our founder wants a day care center for employees and a gym.”
“She does?” India asked, pulling out her notebook that she preferred to jot items down in during these meetings because it was faster than typing them out on her computer.
“Yes. She’s wanted both for a while, but since we’re requiring people to come back to the office at least a few days a week, when most of them still want to work remotely and don’t want to go to an office, she wants these additional benefits to help with recruiting and retention. The day care would be free for full-time employees with an in-office schedule to incentivize them to come in, and the gym would be free for everyone.”
“That’s great. Do you want me to get on finding the space?”
“There isn’t any,” he replied with a shrug. “We’d need to expand. The building is only so tall, and we’ve got all the floors now, so the next step is to expand. We can either have a second building somewhere else, which no one wants becausethisis the main office, so the day care and gym should all be here, or we can leave this building altogether and get a bigger one somewhere in the Business District. That would mean saying goodbye to this place, though, which is where the company got its start, and she doesn’t want to do that. She’s hell-bent on making this work, and as soon as possible, since she knows we’re losing some good candidates for roles because they don’t want to work in an office. Many of them have children, too. The good news is that we have another easy option.”
“Okay.”
“The bookshop.”
“The one next door?” India asked.
“Yes. I did some research, and the owner owns the shop and the land.”
“I know. It’s one of the oldest bookstores in the country. It’s been continuously operated by the same family since the seventeenth century.”
“You know more than me, I guess.”
“I shop there sometimes. Not often, but I’ve bought a few books there.”
“Well, we can make an offer, and then we’d be able to build up from there. Gym and day care on the bottom floor, or expand our lobby and add them to the second floor. It’s not an immediate solution, but we can get the deal done and use one of the big storage rooms as a temporary gym, if she wants it now. The day care could technically fit in one of the new training rooms they’re building, since we have three of those now. It’s not perfect, but it gets us what we need in the shortandlong term.”
“You want me to tear down one of the oldest bookstores in the country?” she asked, looking around the room in utter confusion. “That place is historic.”
“It’s not, though. I checked. It’s old, yes, but it’s just a bookstore; no status that prevents us from buying the land and tearing it down.”
“Maybe not, but it’s part of New Orleans history,” she argued. “It’s on some tours.”
“It is? It’s just a bookstore.”
“We have bars on tours in this city. You think that’s any better?” India shook her head. “We can’t be the corporation that tears down a local bookstore that’s known to the entire community. It’s on nationwide top-ten lists.”
“I walk past it all the time, and I hardly ever see anyone in there,” her boss pointed out.
“They’re probably not as busy as they used to be, but it’s important. It would be bad PR, and I’m sure the owner isn’t going to just sell the family’s history and legacy. They’d put up a fight. We’d be in the news for all the wrong reasons.”
“We’d be bringing jobs to the city,” he argued.
“That would be overshadowed by the bad press. And besides, those jobs won’t be coming here for at least a year or more because we’d have to build. It’s a bad idea.”
“Do you plan on telling our CEO that? I’m not sureIwant to. She’s the one who wants us to expand and doesn’t want to leave this building.”
“We can put the temporary solution into place while we figure something else out. I’m not going to tear downChapter & Verse. If you want to go talk to the owner, you can, and if that means I’m in trouble or worse, so be it, but part of why people love New Orleans is that it has so much rich history to offer. Just walk in there, and you’ll smell the old books, as well as the new ones. You’ll feel like you’re transported back in time. You know?” She paused. “Thereisanother option,” she added, thinking of it and saying the words at the same time.
“What?”
“The parking garage.”
“The parking garage?”
