Page 27 of The Parent Trap
I find a truss that’s clearly been put in well out of true, at the wrong angle, and with the entirely wrong kind of bracket—I take a photo and send it to Cal. “This, for example, is why we do site checks regularly, and why several people have to do them,” I say to Thai. “This kind of thing could be easily overlooked. Now, sure, this wouldn’t cause the ceiling to fall in or anything, but it would throw things off. Catch it now, and it’s an easy fix. Don’t catch it until the roof is going on? Much bigger issue.”
He nods. “Makes sense.” A pause. “Delia, I know you don’t really have much reason to trust me, but—”
“Nope. I don’t.” I give him an obviously fake, bright smile. “I don’t trust easily as a general rule, Thai, and the truth is, you’re in large part responsible for that. I don’t like you. I don’t want you on my jobsite. I don’t want you in my life. But like it or not, you legally own half of my company, and there’s nothing I can do about that, short of buying it from you, and to be quite frank, I simply don’t have that kind of liquid assets. So I’m stuck with you. Which really,reallychaps my ass. So, whatever you’re going to say…don’t. I promise you, I won’t buy it, and I don’t want to hear it.”
He stares me down, and I have a split-second twinge of wondering if maybe I wasn’t being entirely fair. But then I remember eighteen years of being called Dino Delia and Donuts Delia, and brought cupcakes with Miss Piggy drawn on them, and having my books stolen and ruined, and my glasses broken, and snakes and mud and bugs thrown on me…
Maybe he’s not entirely that guy anymore. But that doesn’t mean I forgive him.
He holds my gaze for a moment, and then his expression hardens. “Fair enough, I guess.” He turns on his heel and heads for the stairs down. “I have a meeting in half an hour with Boyd, so I’m going to go.”
I frown. “A meeting with Boyd? Why?”
“I found a discrepancy in your books.”
“Like, our accounting books?”
“No, Delia, your Harry Potter books.” He pauses on the third stair down. “Not sure yet if it’s just an isolated thing, or if it’s part of a larger issue. Boyd wanted to go over it with me before we brought it to you.”
“You went through our books?”
“I went through everything, Delia.”
“What do you mean, everything?”
He snorts. “Your accounting, your projected profit margins, your average materials losses, your churn rate.” He hesitates. “I know that your dad had a habit of hiring pretty young receptionists, but that it was never for any reason other than having eye candy around the office. I know the Karsten account is way,wayover budget and that at the current rate of construction it won’t be done for something like two years. I know Doug Mendes in the marketing department is completely useless, faked his credentials and references, and spends most of his day playing Warcraft when he thinks no one is looking.”
I blink, open my mouth, but he’s not done. Ugh, this again.
“I also know Boyd is on the verge of divorce because his wife has a spending problem and he’s been seeing Shannon in payroll for months. I know Constance has wine in her coffee thermos from around ten in the morning onward, but she’s totally reliable and, honestly, irreplaceable. I know your lumber supplier is about to jack up their costs by at least double, and you can’t afford that, but you’re having trouble finding a new supplier—and I may have a partial solution but I doubt you’ll go for it.” His eyes blatantly rake over me, head to toe; I have a meeting myself in a little bit, to look at a plot of land which could be our next big development project. Meaning, I’m dressed to the nines in a tight black skirt, flattering green blouse, and my best heels. “I also know you’re wearing thehellout of that skirt.”
And then he’s gone, trotting down the steps and to his truck. The engine is roaring and he’s gone—and I’m still standing with my jaw on the floor.
Did he…
Did he just…complimentme?
I actually, literally look up to the sky for flying pigs, or some sign of the impending apocalypse.
The rest of what he said is percolating in my brain, but I’m still currently stuck on the last part.
You’re wearing thehellout of that skirt.
I mean, Idolook good in this skirt. I wore it on purpose knowing I look damn good in it, because I happen to know the real estate developer I’m meeting is a bona fide member of the good ol’ boys chauvinist club, and responds best to women when they dress like he expects them to. And if wearing a tight skirt and low-cut blouse will get me a twenty-million-dollar contract? Duh.
But hearing it from Thai Bristow?
I’m still faint with shock.
* * *
Surreptitiously,I check in on everything Thai dumped on me.
Sure enough, the Karsten account is bloated and bogged down. I arrange a meeting with the Karstens for tomorrow so I can try and convince them to trim things back so we can get them into their new custom home in something less than twenty-four months and something like within budget. I monitor Doug Mendes most of the day, and sure enough, he does literally zero actual work; most of the time he was, as Thai claimed, playing a video game, and the rest of the time he was either in the break room, on the phone, or outside smoking. Easy fix: I call him into my office and dismiss him with his last paycheck in hand.
I watch Boyd exchange a quiet, intense conversation with Shannon, which does indeed smack of a side romance. Not really my business, though, as long as Boyd does his job and his thing with Shannon doesn’t affect his work performance. Same with Constance—I notice she comes out of the bathroom with minty fresh breath rather frequently, which I had noticed before but hadn’t really equated with anything in particular other than good oral hygiene; as long as her work doesn’t suffer, I don’t see that I have any reason or place to interfere on that front, and as Thai said, Constance is one of the few employees who is genuinely vital to our day-to-day operations.
The lumber supply thing is a known for me already, but I’m curious as to his possible solution he thinks I won’t go for.