Triplets Make Five

I drew in a deep breath before I looked around the room. Eyes were wide and some were filled with admiration, but mostly they were simply full of confusion. Someone in the corner was furiously pressing buttons, so I pointed over into that corner and told them to speak.

“You. There. What’re you crunching?” I asked.

“Numbers, sir.”

“Obvious

ly. What numbers?”

“Numbers for your project, sir. I think what you’re trying to do is wonderful, so I wanna see how much money you’ll lose and if the figures are accurate.”

“When will you have those figures?” I asked.

“Give me thirty more seconds.”

I watched as a man with a child’s overgrown face quickly rattled his fingertips over the calculator’s keys. Numbers were flying up on screen while his eyes darted around a desk, and the entire time I could hear the blood rushing through my head. This was my chance to save Ella’s home. This was my chance to turn this company’s public presence around.

This was my chance to take a stand for the city my father loved.

The city I’d come to love when it embraced me and comforted me after his death.

“According to these numbers, if you don’t sell the 40 percent of the condos at retail price and only sell them at the mid-range remodeling price of the originally agreed upon forty thousand dollars, you’ll lose four thousand on each condo, which will amount to one hundred thousand dollars of lost profit. But, with the numbers currently running through my head-”

“Don’t do it in your head. Type it out and give it to me,” I said.

“With the numbers I’m currently typing out,” he said as he began to type, “if you redo the rest of the condos and sell the ones with better views for ten thousand more than you were originally intending, you would recoup double that money, so you’d actually be one hundred thousand dollars in the clear if you sold everything for an even profit.”

“But obviously, we aren’t gonna do that because we aren’t completely stupid,” I said.

“The board’s never gonna go for it,” Dave said, shaking his head. “You know how they are.”

“Then I’ll fucking pay the one hundred thousand out of my own pocket.”

“What?”

“Yeah. That’ll be my investment into my own company. One hundred thousand dollars, I’ll take a bit more personal stock in the company for my investment, and that’ll make the board members happy.”

“Mr. Dobson-”

“DeAngelo, what the fuck is the problem? Bradley over here-”

“It’s actually Anthony, sir.”

“Anthony over here gives me proof that we’ll actually be more than fine, you tell me it’s shit, so I offer to pay the fucking difference and you still tell me it’s shit. So, you’ve got one shot. Give me the best reason you’ve got for shitting on both of those ideas. If your reasoning isn’t good enough, you’re fired.”

I stood there and watched him sweat while he flipped through his papers. His brow was beginning to shine and I watched him while he shuffled from foot to foot. I was done with him. I wasn’t sure what the hell was happening, but it didn’t smell good to me.

Not anymore.

“You’re fired, Dave,” I said. “Anthony, you want a job?”

“I already have a job, sir.”

“It comes with a raise. And benefits. And a 401(k). I’m sure you’ve got student loans. You got student loans?” I asked.

“Yes, sir. Tons of them.”

“Paid off if you wanna be my project manager,” I said.