Business as Usual (9 page)

Reports
were passed to the end of the large Maplewood table where I collected them. Diane,
a bright but serious young woman in her late twenties had ascended the ranks of
the company quickly, her strict hard-working attitude making her a contender
for upper management. Her style of dress was as austere as her personality,
which made her well liked by everyone except her immediate peers. She spoke,
but only when she needed to, so I was surprised when she gave me her report,
and said,

“I found a company in South America that could
provide lumber for half the price listed on AmeriAsia’s budget proposal.”

“Is that in your report?”

“On page five,” Diane answered. “I made a few
other suggestions as well.”

“I’ll be sure to review and get back to you
after I go over your assessment with Ethan. AmeriAsia’s cost submittal does seem
a bit over-inflated,” I answered.

“We could cut costs by several million if we
hire non-union construction workers,” Hirsch offered.

“That’s a great idea. Of course, we’re
obligated for a number of reasons to hire union workers. But we’ll hire non-union
whenever we can as often as we can to cut back on costs. As it stands, the
current budget is so out of control, if we don’t scale back the project will go
bankrupt before we break ground. I’d much prefer to spend the bulk of our
funding on the hotel interior, where guests spend most of their time anyway. I
have a contractor bidding at half the cost that AmeriAsia and Byron Industries
is willing to pay. But again, I’ll need to run this by Ethan since he’s
overseeing the project.”

Gary,
an attorney who had come from my father’s office uninvited the second he heard
about the meeting, leaned across the table trying not to wrinkle his Armani
business suit. I hated working with my father’s staff. Especially arrogant SOBs
like Gary who believed I’d gotten my job at the Gold Dust through nepotism
because life had apparently, been handed to me on a silver platter. No one knew
how hard I worked to prove myself to my father or the fact that I would never
be as valuable to him as a son.

“You sure the changes to this proposal will go
over well with Eugene? He told you to oversee the budget, not butcher it.
Drawing up new contracts could take weeks.”

“I apologize for making your life a little
harder, but Eugene told me not to let our budget get out of control and that’s
what I’m doing. Let me worry about what my father thinks. You’re not supposed
to be here anyway,” I turned away, taking a deep frustrated breath before
addressing the rest of the room.

“Diane, I want an itemized breakdown on the
cost of supplies, including the lumber supplier in South America in two weeks.
Hirsch, you’ll give me an extensive report comparing union and non-union
contractor fees. Look into whether or not it’s feasible to work through their
buyer or supplier, I’ll also need to look at all of the bids that are coming in
from local contractors.”  

This opened a floodgate of suggestions from
Diane and Hirsch, with Gary glaring at his legal sized yellow notepad as he
listened in, scribbling notes. Then he finally looked up, focusing his razor
sharp grey eyes on the other side of the room. I had been so engrossed in the
meeting I didn’t hear Ethan when he walked in. Gary stood, shaking Ethan’s hand
as he approached the table looking over the sprawled out blueprint, a storm
raging in his eyes. I gripped Ethan’s elbow and pulled him aside.

“What are you doing here?” I asked in a hushed
voice. “I told you the meeting was for the budget committee.”

Ethan’s jaw tensed as he shirked out of my
grasp. “I’m overseeing this project therefore I have a right to be here.”

“Not today!” I snapped. “This is my meeting,
and my staff. Let me do my job.”

“And how about you let me do mine, which is
managing you! I’m in charge of this blueprint, in case you forgot, I’m the one
who designed it…”

“All you seem to care about is showing off your
your
fancy structures. We don’t have the funds for a
150,000 square feet building, unless you plan on pulling the money out of your
butt!”

“You’re in charge of finance. If we don’t have
the money, find some and get it done.”

Ethan swiped the blueprint off of the table and
rolled it back into a scroll, tying it with a band when he was done.

“We’re not in China. You don’t snap your
fingers and expect things to fall into place. We don’t construct buildings with
structural problems or roads that collapse under their own weight either. We
need a solid budget for the best materials money can buy. Help me
help
you.”

I’d seen pictures of fallen apartment
complexes, roads, and sidewalks in China on the internet. Ethan had been
educated at some of the finest schools, and I had no doubt of the quality of
his work. But the process moved slower in the States while buildings in China
were knocked down and built anew overnight.

“Exactly how much experience do you have
building hotels? Much less, designing one?”

“You read my corporate profile,” I snapped,
lips clamping together tightly.

Ethan loosened his tie as he around the table
to my side of the room.

“I think I know more about you than what’s in
your public profile, Elizabeth,” he sneered, correcting my all-too-obvious
slip. “Which is precisely, why I feel some oversight is needed… there are also
codes and licensing to consider, which you know nothing about.”

“I did my research. I know what I’m doing,” I
shot back. “My father wouldn’t have hired me for the job if I didn’t.”

“If you say so,” Ethan retorted, seating
himself at the head of the boardroom table.

I
looked around the room at the faces staring back at us. Hirsch tapped his pencil
on the table, glancing down at his notes as if wishing he were anywhere but the
conference room while Gary looked toward the window, trying to mask the smirk
plastered across his impish face.

“Your father and I reviewed the bids and have
already decided on the contractors and suppliers we prefer to use,” said Ethan,
tersely. “I want an itemized rundown of the budget next week,
Elizabeth
.
If we’re over budget, I’ll make a decision at that time as to whether changes
are warranted or if there is additional money needed for the project. Until
then, I expect an invitation to all project related meetings, any changes to
the budget requiring my explicit written approval.”

Even
Diane looked mortified, her face turning a deep shade of red. Who would dare speak
to Eugene Byron’s daughter like that? She turned her eyes away, looking down at
her lap, as if praying the whole embarrassing debacle was over. Newlyweds
weren’t supposed to act like this. Was it an affront to a man like Ethan for a
woman to hold her ground in the boardroom? I suppose I was also a bitch for
telling him the truth.

As
I sat for dinner with Hirsch later that night over burgers and a second round
of beer, absently tracing my fingers across the red and white checkered table
cloth, I wondered what Ethan was so angry about in the first place? I was just
trying to do my job. W
hy do I feel so guilty?

“You
have to understand,” Hirsch was saying, “When it comes to women, powerful young
men like Ethan have to be in control, especially in front of his peers. Imagine
how he feels… beautiful new wife telling him his designs aren’t good enough.”
Hirsch flicked ashes from his cigarette into a nearby ashtray.

“Don’t you
dare
empathize with him,” I
chided. “I told him the meeting was for the budget committee and he came
anyway. He put himself in that situation. Would Ethan have a problem with my
suggestions if I were a man? I’m never going to be one of those pathetic trophy
wives. He needs to get over it.”

I had a soft heart when it came to family, but
I was a pit-bull in the boardroom. My record as VP of Executive Finance at the
Gold Dust Hotel was unblemished and I planned to keep it that way.

“Ethan Yu and his father have been to the
office a few times. Everyone was shocked when they heard the two of you had
gotten hitched.”

“Then I suppose they won’t be as shocked when
we get a divorce. That’s usually the way it works, right?”

Hirsch coughed and choked on the cigarette
smoke billowing out of his mouth. He rubbed the butt into a nearby ashtray,
shaking his bald head emphatically.

“Divorce?
You just got married..
.”
“I’m being facetious,” I droned, waving my hand dismissively. “Why should I
apologize for doing exactly what my father would do in the same situation?
That’s why he put me in charge, right?” I bit down on my bottom lip, trying to
hide the uncertainty in my eyes.

“Exactly,” Hirsch smiled, resting his hand atop
mine. “Thought you were going soft on me for a minute there…the last thing you
need to do is apologize for doing your job. Stand your ground!”

“You’re not just buttering me up are you?” I
pouted.

Hirsch shrugged… “Well, just a little…” he
leaned in conspiratorially. “I’m trying to get in good with the boss’ daughter
so I can get that promotion I’m after. You hear that?
Pro-mo-
tion
!”

I tapped Hirsch on the arm playfully, laughing
for the first time in days. Suddenly, his eyes went cold. “Uh oh…look what the
cat dragged in…”

“What’s wrong?” I asked, turning in my chair.

Hirsch nodded toward the bar. Ethan was headed
in our direction. I drew my hand away from Hirsch as he approached, his serious
drop-dead gorgeous gaze centered on my face.  

“Can I talk to you?” he asked.

“Sure. Care to join us?”

Ethan wasn’t having it.

“You mind?” he replied, looking over at Hirsch.

I nodded, signaling that it was okay to leave.
Hirsch grabbed his plate and took it to another table, Ethan sitting in his
empty chair.

“Care to explain what happened today?” I
finally asked, folding my arms across my chest.

“We’re supposed to be a team but I feel like you’re
working against me,” Ethan complained.

“I’m not against you and we
are
a team.
I want this project to be a success,” I told him, earnestly.

What
I didn’t tell him was how utterly desperate I was to prove I could take care of
the company. How Eugene couldn’t bring himself to trust me to bear the
tradition of taking over the family business and how much that hurt.

When
I was little girl my parents argued about my future. My father had decided to
marry me off to some family before I had even hit puberty, as if getting
married was my sole purpose in life. My mother was against it. My father hated
the blue-blood families who moved in and out of our social circles, ‘inbreeds,’
he called them, who intermarried with other bluebloods with hopes of keeping
their blue blood blue and old money old. Did he think he was different because
I married a wealthy foreigner?   

“And
what about our
other
project?” Ethan asked, snapping me back to the
present.

I gave him a bewildered look. I was still
preoccupied with thoughts of Eugene and my mother.

“Our marriage?” Ethan continued, mystified,
like I was supposed to know what he was talking about.

“I’m not talking about
us
, I’m talking
about work!” I snapped, miffed that he was changing the subject again… angry
that like my father, he refused to listen to
my
ideas.

Ethan raked a hand through coal black hair.

“You know what? Forget it!”

Before
I could respond, he was already out of his chair, headed toward the door. I
rummaged through my purse for my credit card and waved the waitress over to my
table for the bill. But the old redhead took her sweet time, and when she
finally arrived, Ethan was long gone.

After
leaving the restaurant I went back to the hotel where I paced the bedroom,
waiting for Ethan to return. I waited until the sun went down, until flickering
neon lights from flashing signs painted the walls a sinister rainbow of blues,
greens, yellows and reds. I also tried his cell phone but he turned it off, so
I couldn’t get through. Simmering, I finally fell asleep just before midnight,
but not before locking the bedroom door. About two in the morning I heard the
doorknob jiggle, followed by the drunken slur of Ethan’s voice, begging me to
let him in.

“Come
out and talk,” he said.

But
I ignored him, pulling the sheet over my head as he rattled around the living
room making noise into the early hours of the morning.

After
a restless night I took an early shower then sat before my laptop dressed in
only a bath towel…one of the many perks of working away from the office. I
wrote a letter to Eugene and Mr. Yu with hopes of convincing them that building
a 150,000 sq. ft. hotel would cost too much money. I then emailed the letters
to my secretary with orders to print and ship by one day express to the two
men. My inbox was at capacity, so I went through them one by one. I answered an
email from Hirsch, who wanted to know if everything was okay. I wrote back,
assuring him that I was fine. Diane had also emailed to tell me she found a local
contractor willing to work for half the price of the larger more expensive
company my father and Ethan wanted to hire. I told her to tell Gary to draw up
a contract. After I review the details, we’ll get it signed whether Ethan liked
it or not. It had been decided. I was going to do my job.