“‘Kay,” Frankie says, grabbing one of the rolling baskets and skipping away, eager to completely ignore me and show off her skill and aptitude as an independent five-year-old shopper to her school administrator and new best friend.
“What is it, Greg?”
“I’ve been going through the financials, and we’ve got a bit of a cash flow issue coming up. GreenTech just informed us that their payment on the order is going to be delayed by at least thirty days due to their internal financial restructuring. We’ve got payroll coming up next week, and we have enough in reserves to cover it, but if the delay goes beyond that, we’re going to face a liquidity crunch. How do you want to handle this?”
I scrub my face, now supremely annoyed. “How much do they owe us?”
Lina’s body turns slightly towards me.
“Five hundred grand,” says Greg.
“Unacceptable. We’re not waiting thirty days for five hundred grand,” I press.
Lina is now frozen, looking at me with both eyebrows raised. I turn around and walk a few feet away, making sure to keep Frankie in my line of sight.
“Did we invoice them on time?” I ask.
"Yes, the invoice went out on time, but they said they’re restructuring some of their financing and cash flow processes. It’s corporate bureaucracy, really. They assured us they’ll pay, but we’ve got no solid date yet. Normally, we’d have enough cushion, but we’ve got an unusually high amount of inventory purchases lined up this month as well."
Sighing, I watch Frankie attempt to manipulate Lina into grabbing a box of cereal with negative levels of nutritional value. Lina sees right past her ruse and shakes her head, pointing at Frankie’s list. Lina reaches up and grabs something else, but I don’t notice what it is, because her shirt rises up the front and shows the rounded flesh of her stomach and my mind blanks. It looks unbelievably soft, which probably means it’s really fucking soft in actuality and would feel insane if I rubbed my face into it.
“Hello?” Greg’s fucking voice interrupts my daydream.
“Okay,” I say to Greg. “Two things. First, reach out to GreenTech’s finance department directly and see if we can negotiate partial payment upfront. Emphasize that we have operational commitments tied to that payment. If they can't do that, ask them for a firm date, something we can plan around.”
“Got it.”
“In the meantime, look into opening a line of credit with the bank. We should have enough leverage with our assets and receivables to get favorable terms. But I don’t want to jump into that unless absolutely necessary.” I think of other potential options. I have more than enough capital allocated for other projects, but I prefer not to touch it. That will be the last resort. “Let me know how GreenTech responds. Anything else I need to know about?”
“That covers it for now. I’ll keep you posted as soon as I hear back from their finance team.”
“Make sure payroll is the top priority, Greg. And I’ll handle any conversations with GreenTech’s leadership if we don’t get a response soon.”
I hang up the phone and walk back to Frankie and her school administrator. “Sorry about that, Frankie,” I tell her. “Work. Did you manage to finish your list?”
“Just need milk,” she says, walking down the aisle.
We follow.
“What is it exactly that you do?” Lina side-eyes me suspiciously.
I shrug, not wanting to get into the complications of being a serial entrepreneur. Saying that I create businesses and scale them up or build entire empires across industries or turn ideas into multimillion-dollar companies all sound like really douche-y things to say. “I’m a… business operator.”
Her eyes narrow even further, but she’s looking at Frankie, not me. “Fascinating,” she whispers, as if she’s watching the mating rituals of birds in a nature documentary. “Would you say that’s a… safe line of work for your five-year-old daughter?”
Huh?I frown. “I have a very flexible schedule, since I’m in charge. It lets me spend more time with Frankie.” It’s probably not safe that I’m fucking exhausted all the time, but at least I’m not driving our car anywhere.
“Hmm…” She doesn’t clarify.
Frankie hefts a gallon of milk the size of her torso into the rolling basket. “All done, Daddy.”
I peek into the basket, double checking her work. “Thanks, Frankie. Let’s check out.” I turn to Lina, who is currently loading some cheese into hers. “We’re going to head out, Lina. AP Sanchez.” She stands and looks me directly in the eye, and I’m smacked in the face by the force of her gaze. I realize her eyes are light brown or something, the color of melted caramel, but there’s a stripe of dark brown in the left one, making the entire effect look extraordinarily beautiful.
In fact, it seems like her entire person is painted in brighter colors than the rest of the world, so bright that I am forced to look away.
She looks at Frankie. “It was really nice to meet you, little lady. I’ll see you in a few weeks, okay?”
Frankie smiles at the ground, doing the weird, suddenly-shy thing that little kids sometimes do, as if she weren’t just telling Lina about the giant canker sore she had a few months ago.
