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The foot in the door technique. Oldest trick in the book. Someday I thought I should really get around to reading “the book,” or any book, for that matter.
4
ELIZABETH
It had been almost two hours since my run-in with Travis from upstairs. The man was the most obnoxiously persistent, shameless, and strangely persuasive man I thought I’d ever met. In the last two years, I’d stared down CEOs and executives without flinching. More impressive still? I’d stared down my mother a time or two and lived to tell the tale. The woman was every bit as impressive as Mrs. Glass herself. Mother was seventy-eight, a former CEO turned board member and stakeholder in half a dozen of the world’s most powerful companies, and she still found time to be the president of her neighborhood HOA, along with seemingly hundreds of other important tasks.
Normal people tried their whole lives to achieve a dream. Own their own business, climb the corporate ladder, sell a company for seven figures, master their golf swing, and so on. My mother treated other people’s lifelong dreams like hobbies to cross off her list over the weekend. The woman was unstoppable. Unreasonable and unbearable, too, if you asked my father. The two of them divorced when I was six, and of course, mother managed to take primary care of me so she could try to shape me into her image.
Since I was in pigtails, I’d been doing my best to live up to her expectations. And before now, nobody I met had ever cracked through my hard-won self-control. I was the rock in a stream—the solid object around which everything else passed.
Except Travis from upstairs was like a cruise-liner with soft, floppy hair and distracting muscles barreling down my peaceful little stream.
I put my fingertips to my neck and counted my pulse. Still elevated. I knew my blood pressure was likely elevated, too. With a shake of my head, I downed another dose of pain reliever even though it was a few hours too early. There was no time for caution in climbing the business ladder. Only the dedicated survived. That, or those who were willing to bend the rules.
I finished up my day with a scattering of calls, spent an hour looking over the next draft of the company magazine, and then put out a few fires via email. The majority of things I spent my time on weren’t strictly my responsibility, but the best way to distinguish yourself was to demonstrate how obsolete your competitors within the company were. It was a big part of how I’d quickly climbed past many co-workers who had been with the company for decades to be Mrs. Glass’ current favorite candidate to take over the business.
My mother called while I was finishing up an email. I took a deep breath and waited for the phone to ring several times. Never appear too desperate or as if you have the spare time. Answer on the last possible ring to let others know you’re squeezing them in. The successful woman is the busy woman.
The words came to me as many of my mother’s lessons did while I waited, listening to the ring. She had hammered so much into me that the line between my own thoughts and hers often blurred.
I picked up the phone. “Yes?” I asked.
“I’ll be in town tomorrow. You will meet me for lunch at noon. There’s something we need to discuss.”
As usual, her words came clipped and business-like. I was a promising partner. An employee she favored. Never quite a daughter, though. Being “me” had never been good enough to win her attention. I had to be better than that. I had to set aside “me” for some distant, maybe unreachable point in the future when I could rest.
“That won’t work,” I said. “I have something planned.”
“You can reschedule. I’ll only be in town tomorrow.”
I looked up at the ceiling, as if I’d find the magic words to get out of this written there. “I can’t reschedule it. The person I have plans with... he’s very persistent. It’s something I need to get over with.”
“Fine. I’ll join you two. He can discuss whatever he needs, then I’ll take some of your time. I’ll have Sandra send you the details.”
“Mother, I can’t—”
She had already hung up. A successful woman wastes no time with goodbyes.
I blew out a long breath. I could make this work. My stomach gurgled so I checked the time. It was late enough that my favorite takeout places were closed, so I went to the pantry and smeared some peanut butter on rice cakes. It was hardly nutritious, but I didn’t have much of an appetite, anyway.
I was exhausted, but I still strapped into my rowing machine before I got ready for bed. One of mother’s mottos was a strong body promotes a strong mind.
