I end the call and put the phone down on my desk, and then hear Mia say, "I'm going to order some lead weights for your new office chair. We'll be too high up in the building and you might just float away."
"I was going to bring you something nice from the market, but if this is the attitude I get..." I tease, grabbing my coat from the hook by the office door where I have a full view of Mia's desk.
She props her elbows on the desk and rests her chin on her hands, fluttering her eyelashes.
"Without my attitude, you'd be just another Mark Forbes, and no one wants to be Mark Forbes. I keep things real around here."
I laugh. "So, you want a poppyseed pretzel?"
"You know me so well."
When I get to the elevator, I decide to make a last-minute stop at my father's office. Despite all the new changes, I haven't been up there for months.
Stepping into the CEO office is the last remaining wall for me. Once that wall is knocked down there is no way back. I take a deep breath as I step out of the elevator. Nora, my father's personal assistant, comes from around her desk to give me a momma bear hug.
"God, I missed your hugs, Nora."
"You wouldn't if you came up more often."
"I know, I know. But every time I come here, I feel like I'm five-years-old again and hiding under your desk eating candy."
She puts her hands to her face. "Oh my, that feels like it was only yesterday, and look, my own girls have all moved out and have their own lives."
She sighs.
"How are you preparing for your retirement? What are you going to do with all that free time?"
"Besides driving my husband insane? I have no clue. My eldest is pregnant, so I'll probably end up taking a new job as a helicopter granny until she ships me off to an old folk's home."
I shake my head. "Oh, Nora, I'm going to miss you. Is Dad in?"
"Go on in, he's pretending to do some kind of important work. Don't let him fool you into thinking you're interrupting."
I plant a kiss on her cheek and head over to my father's office.
"Knock, knock," I say from the door.
"Oh hi, son. What brings you here?"
"Ah, you know, measuring your coffin...I mean, my office."
He laughs and sits back. "Don't knock it. You get the best views from here, although the coffee machine is as bad as the ones in the rest of the building."
I sit on the chair in front of his desk.
"Why don't we have better machines?" This is something that has always confounded me. We have all the money we need and a lot to spare. Even if we were to buy new coffee machines for the whole building from our own personal accounts, it would barely make a dent.
"Son, you taught me a lesson with the whole Jessop thing. Now let me teach you one of my own," he says. "Think of publishing as though it's an engine with all the cogs and things that make it run. I'd be more specific, but you know, I have no clue about mechanics. Anyway, coffee is the fuel that makes the publishing engine work, but people and their creativity are the engine itself. If everyone sits at their desk all day and their fuel is only a few steps away, we lose that magic you get from talking through stuff while waiting in line to get your coffee. We also need fresh air and other people around us. People that don't live and breathe books like we do."
What my dad says makes so much sense. I never thought of it in that way before.
"Have you found your productivity has increased since you've been going out to the market to see Ash?"
I nod.
"And I bet it's not just because you're seeing him, it's the atmosphere around the market, the smells, the textures."
I look out his wall-to-wall window, and from here I can see the market, including Ash's stall. I can't see him, but it doesn't matter. I know he's there, under the cover and hopefully near a heater.
