"I wasn't asking your permission but thanks anyway," Patrick muttered. "Can we talk about the North End situation? Where are we with the permits?" He glanced between his fiancée and his brother. "Either one of you, please."
"Permits cleared, cranes scheduled for this week," Riley said.
"We're shutting down Charter Street between Salem and Unity so we have to get this right the first time," Andy said. "If everything goes as planned, we have a forty percent chance of getting it right."
"That's horseshit," Riley replied. "At best, we have a twenty-five percent chance of getting it right. The HVAC unit we're trying to air-drop into this brownstone will be the cause of major traffic disturbances for the day. Worst-case scenario, our crane operator uses that unit like a wrecking ball and we knock down the property we're restoring."
Patrick turned a baleful glance in my direction. "You'll be on site if this falls apart and we need to play nice with Boston Police?"
I added a note on my calendar. "I'm on it."
"I'll join you," Sam said. "This sounds like history in the making."
"We're making something," Riley replied. "History, irreparable damage, what's the difference?"
"I appreciate you supervising, Tom," Patrick said with a sigh. "What else do you have on deck this week?"
I toggled to my cash flow and credit line spreadsheets. "Just moving money and contractors around to cover all the projects Matt has teed up. We're close to maxing out our tradespeople if we continue scheduling at this pace."
I didn't fetch paint samples or collect broken bricks anymore. Now I managed restoration logistics for dozens of ongoing projects, hundreds of general contractors and building tradespeople, and more city and national historic register permits than reasonable. In the process, I moved millions of dollars around each week to keep the work flowing.
With Shannon out of the office until spring, her responsibilities fell to me. I didn't mind overseeing the paralegals but supervising Patrick's assistants Dylan and Lissa—the ones he hadn't fired yet—was not my preferred use of time. Thus far, we'd worked through issues of pens Patrick found "too inky," unilaterally silencing all mobile phones as notification chimes annoyed him as of late, and relocating a printer with an unfortunate jamming tendency to a different corner of the office.
Dylan, Lissa, and I agreed the jam was the result of user error. Patrick didn't need to know that.
"Since we won't continue scheduling at this pace," Patrick said with a pointed look at Matt, "it should be fine."
"Why not? This is working for me," Matt replied.
Sam reached for Matt's coffee, gave the cup a shake. "It's worth noting you're on your third coffee of the day and it's not even seven thirty."
Matt blinked at him. "Your point being?"
"We'd love it if you lived long enough to see your child born rather than running yourself into the ground and dying from the caffeine shivers," Andy said.
"I'm doing this because of the baby," Matt argued, his arms stretched wide. "I want my schedule clear come July and August so I don't have to worry about the baby arriving in the middle of a punch list. It makes perfect sense."
"It might make sense but we're going to max out our contractors and trades if we're not careful," I replied. "I've tried to add more capacity but we're already utilizing the best people in the city."
Sam pushed Matt's coffee out of his reach. "You're going about this all wrong. You need to be more selective. Don't say yes to every client who comes your way. Don't take on every property Shannon buys. More selective."
Sam was on the opposite end of that spectrum. He had a baby, a little boy, and now he preferred projects thatspoke to him. At the moment, he had one property in progress. By comparison, Matt had twenty-one.
"Thanks for the advice," Matt said. "Really. I appreciate it. I really need you telling me how to structure my restoration agenda."
Sam pursed his lips as he adjusted his cufflinks. "I'm only trying to help."
Patrick pointed a pen at Matt, one of the not-too-inky variety, saying, "If you overextend our resources and prevent me from getting the good hardwood refinishers on my properties or Gigi for my roof gardens, it will not end well for you. You can work yourself to death but do not fuck with my schedule. Understood?"
Matt jerked his shoulders up. "Fully."
"Next," Patrick snapped, stabbing at his keyboard.
"I thinkweare next, Patrick," Andy said.
He blinked up at her and the agitation in his eyes softened. "Oh, right. Yeah." He glanced at everyone else, saying, "We set a date."
Our Monday morning meetings served as the singular, sacred time in each week when everyone gathered to share updates on projects and plans for upcoming work. Without fail, the last quarter of the meeting shifted from the family business to the business of family.
