“Is this the only organic bakery in the area?”
“Unfortunately, no. There’s another place, all upscale and fancy.” Esty wielded a rounded knife to crumble the scone into bite-size chunks.
“What doespage at a timemean?”
“I had some vague idea that literary types would hang out at cafés like this and write, so I thought we could organize readings and stuff. But I never did anything with the idea,” Zach admitted.
“Do you have a business plan?” Orchid asked, straightening with excitement over the potential of the place. They chatted into the afternoon, her business schooling kicking into gear.
By the time Orchid packed to leave the next day, she’d typed them a PowerPoint presentation.
“Check out all these great ideas you guys have.” She angled her laptop screen for them.
“I love the name change,” said Esty of the title page forSweet Paige: Organic Café.
“It keeps your essence while broadening the appeal across day-parts,” Orchid agreed. “Your financials are solid and you have a good start on your point of difference. There are a couple of avenues you could take: either build your physical presence in neighborhoods where this kind of place will appeal, or invest in a delivered business that leverages your profitable sweet lines. And you definitely need to play up that literary angle,” Orchid summarized, paging through to the end of the document.
Zach put an arm around his niece. “You are a marketing genius,” he said.
Esty hugged Orchid,sansbaby for a change, as Quentin napped in his pack-and-play. “Sorry I can’t come to the airport. Never wake a sleeping baby!”
“Thanks for everything. You two are great together.”
“Well, we can’t wait for you to come again.”
Zach directed them to the Jaguar. The silver cat now seemed to leap with confidence, not recklessness.
On the freeway, Zach tapped the steering wheel in syncopation with a guitar ballad. Their age difference just twelve years, he was more like a cool older brother.
“I wish you weren’t going,” he said.
Orchid slumped to let the sun warm her turned face and absorb the goodbyes in the undulating palm fronds. “Yeah, me too.”
“Esty and I talked. You know, we missed all those years together. We can’t get that back but, hell, why don’t you move out here?”
“What?” Orchid sat up to stare skepticism at him. Maybe irrational ran through their genes.
“Hear me out. LA is great, you’d love it here. In the beginning, maybe it wouldn’t pay as much as Estée Lauder, but we’d love for you to start up the new line, run the marketing and strategy of the whole place. Who knows, it could be more lucrative in the long run.”
“Seriously?”
“Come work for Sweet Paige. Like you said, we could take it national. It’d be a real family business then.”
The idea of family was foreign enough, never mind family business. And now, an invitation to live in a new place, to be near family she didn’t realize she’d missed like an essential part of her.
She glanced at her bare left ring finger through teary vision. “That’s really generous of you. Guess there’s nothing I couldn’t leave behind in New York. Let me think about it.” She bent an arm to bring her phone closer, not seeing the time. “We’d better get to the airport.”
CHAPTER 41
GIRL, YOU HAVE NO FAITH IN MEDICINE
Orchid
THURSDAY MARCH 14
“Ialready network,” Orchid said to her boss, Joan, whose Botoxed forehead indicated the pressure of working in the beauty industry after the age of retirement.
“Yes, you’re networking internally. I’d like to see you build your contacts outside of Estée Lauder.” She placed one short leg over the other, and rested against her desk chair, lips stretching while nothing else moved. “Because, you need to keep this hush-hush for now, but Lauder China is planning to offer you an international assignment in Beijing.”
