“By giving you the company,” she said.
“Have you ever known your father to be overt in anything he did?” I asked.
“Holy fuck, it was so frustrating having to decipher him,” she said. “Remember that damn scavenger hunt for my 12th birthday?”
“I came stumbling down the stairs around lunchtime, and you were fuming on the couch,” I said, chuckling.
“I was so pissed off because I couldn’t figure out why he was making me work so hard on my birthday. I didn’t understand the riddles, and all I wanted to do was find my present and then go play with it.”
“Or all those times he gave that cryptic advice?” I asked. “I remember I asked him for girl advice one time. I wanted to ask out Christie, this girl at our school.”
“Misty Christie? The one that cried every single day for a year?” she asked.
“Yep. That girl had a rack on her, even for high school,” I said.
“Ew. Gross. And you asked Dad for advice?” she asked.
“Yep. You want to know what he told me? After I said I wanted to take her out and get to know her?” I asked.
“What?”
“He said, ‘To do two things at once is to do neither.’”
“He fucking said what?” she asked, giggling.
“Why the hell couldn’t he just tell me that focusing too much on a date meant I couldn't focus enough on her? Why was that so hard for him?” I asked, laughing.
“Holy shit, that man was insufferable with his cryptic wisdom,” she said.
“So, why would we think he’s doing anything less here?” I asked.
That question silenced the laughter peeling from Stella’s lips. I watched her contemplate what I asked while she sipped her coffee, and I took the time to make myself a mug while she mulled it over. The two of us had been put in an impossible position — one that would shake the foundation of even the strongest relationships. But Stella and me? We had a terrible foundational relationship.
It was going to take a lot of work to get this ship out to sea, but I was willing to do it if she was.
“What is my father doing here?” she asked.
“I honestly don’t know, but if you take a job with the company, we could figure it out,” I said.
“And what role do you see me filling, Christian?” she asked.
“How does senior VP sound?”
“You want me to be the Vice President of Harte To Heart? The company has never had a VP,” she said.
“It does now, if you accept,” I said.
“What the hell would I be doing?” she asked.
“Running the company with me. I could run the front end — patient treatment, customer acquisition, finances, and future projections and plans. You could run the back end — product, creative ideas, management of all the warehouses that make our product, possible shipping nationally and internationally if we implement some of my ideas. It could work. We could splice the work your father was doing by himself, focus the company a bit more, and continue to help the community.”
“How so?” she asked.
“More money for the company means more money for the charities your father donated to. If we could garner a patent as well as retain the licensing for one or two of his incredible projects he already had in the works, we could sell them right here out of the store. No one could find them anywhere else but here. That would put us on the books nationally, possibly internationally, and it would bring in more money for the company,” I said.
“And more money means more good works in his honor,” she said.
“Yes. You could honor your father the way you wanted, and I could focus on drawing in new clientele, negotiating new contracts, and modernizing the way the company is seen in the community.”