And he doesn’t disappoint.
“Harrison Richmond has a big Western art collection. It’s not what we do.” Dad gentles his voice, as if it was tone that I would object to and not the fact he wants to stop me from building my empire.
“It would be a great opportunity for Loot to expand,” I say. I refrain from telling him myFemale Gazeshow is also a mix of cultures, with a lot of Western art represented.
“It’s not what we do. We made a strong name for ourselves here specializing in Indian art. Why change that?”
“Because we could make a name for ourselves. Bigger clients, bigger sales. Bigger profit.” I recite the lines I’ve said to him countless times before.
“Bigger failure when we can’t pull it off. And bigger damage to the business we do when people find out about the failure.”
“But we can pull it off.” I have been pulling it off, on a smaller scale.
“I’ve let you have a lot of freedom in your sales, but we can’t put that many resources into a collection we aren’t ready for, damaging our reputation in the process.”
“Just let me do this and you’ll see that Loot can do something other than Indian art, and we can do it well. And you can see the increased profits that come with it.”
Dad sighs and looks through something on his own tablet. Just when I think he’s chosen to not respond to me, he speaks. “Okay. You want this? You can try it. But if you don’t get this in the next two weeks, we move on. And you move on completely from this idea and focus on our staples. I don’t want to hear about it again.”
“I’ll take it,” I say immediately. I’ll take two weeks of Dad off my back and hope and pray that Harrison makes his mind up before then.
This has to work. Because while I love the Indian art I grew up around, I don’t want to be limited to it until Dad retires. There’s a whole wide world of art out there.
“Good.” That settled, he turns to the golden child. “How is the nineteenth-century furniture show going?”
I’m curious to see how Ajay’s going to answer that. Since all his people are emailing me about questions and progress, I’dloveto see what he knows about it.
“It’s all on track.” Ajay lies awkwardly.
How can Dad not realize how much Ajay hates the business side of this? Because he liessobadly. Maybe Dad wants Ajay to be the heir so badly he ignores it, or he has a giant blind spot where Ajay is concerned.
If I didn’t love Ajay so much, I would be mad at him for the favoritism he gets. But the little snot obviously isn’t happy having that much of Dad’s attention, which just means I feel bad for both of us.
“Have all the pieces come in?” Dad asks.
“Yee...” Ajay trails off when he sees me lightly shaking my head. “No.”
“What’s holding the pieces up?” Dad scans his phone while we’re talking. It’s scary and impressive how well the man can multitask. Even if I might have picked up some of that bad habit, I’m still not as bad as him.
Ajay looks at me, eyes beseeching me for help. I should let him suffer, because I’ve cc’d him on all the emails to and from his team, so he should already know this information.
I meaningfully look down at my iPad and do a quick search to find the email we need.
“Well, the issue is...” Ajay drags his words out while he looks at his own screen.
I forward him the email,again, and his eyes light up in relief.
“The seller made it a condition that he wanted to keep the piece as long as he could.” Ajay reads off the email. “They had to sell because of some debts, but they’re reliable, so we let them hold on to it till the last minute as a favor,” he finishes, head up in pride.
I mean, I felt pride when I negotiated the deal itself, but okay, he can feel pride for reading an email.
We both breathe a sigh of relief when Dad moves on without questioning it.
I text Ajay:You’re. Telling. Dad. Soon.
Ajay looks up at me and nods, and texts back.I love you.
The meeting ends without Dad giving Ajay any of my work, so it’s basically an unqualified success.
