I checked my Fitbit. I hadn't gotten in that many steps today. Determined to do some walking, I put on my coat and wrapped my scarf around my neck. I told myself I wasn't exercising because Jack made a mean comment about my weight, I was doing it for my own health.
The women in my family tended to hold onto the pounds, except for my mother, who had been an opioid addict. In her final days, she had been as thin as a rail. My grandmother had raised me, and when she found out my older cousin, who she had raised and who was like a brother to me, was also an addict, it broke her heart. He proceeded to steal from both of us, and when I reported it to the police against my oma's protest, I think the grief killed her, though it could have been all the baked goods.
That thought spurred me to up my pace in the chilly night air.
10
Jack
After shopping for ingredients, I received a call from Liam.
"Where are you? Gunnar said filming was done for the day."
I looked at the bags of ingredients beside me in the car.
"I was caught up looking for restaurant tenants," I lied.
"Did you forget about the meeting?" Liam asked.
Shoot. I had forgotten that the marketing director and his team wanted to meet with Liam and me. I had the car turn to head towards the Platinum Provisions tower.
Unlike Frost Tower, this one was in a great location and had a well-reviewed Japanese restaurant, a café, and a high-end retail store at street level. It was also completely occupied. Of course, my company was the one and only office tenant, but still, Platinum Provisions tower was a success.
I walked in, glad that the ingredients were in a nondescript brown bag without logos. Liam was waiting for me in my large office.
"I know this meeting is a bit late in the day," he said, "but with your filming schedule…"
"It's fine," I told him.
"What's that?" he asked, pointing at the bag.
"Just samples from potential tenants," I lied.
"Look at you, selling your retail space like a boss," he said as he reached for the bag, "Anything good?"
"No," I said, snatching the bag away.
"Okay." My friend and business partner gave me a weird look. "I heard about your outburst during filming, I guess you're going to be a weirdo today. Whatever. As long as your craziness makes us money."
"I'm not crazy," I said as I followed him to the elevator.
"Sure," he drawled as the elevator dinged. I wondered if I should refrigerate the butter, but maybe it would be fine. The meeting wasn’t going to be that long, was it?
When I walked into the board room, the marketing team looked as if they were settling in for the long haul. We spent the next few hours going over the projections and ideas. I was more of the product and operations guy, whereas Liam had more of the creative interpersonal flair. We made a good team and had built a successful company.
The first part of the meeting was fairly straightforward. The sales of our medical equipment were growing, and I told the marketing team about some of the new types of surgical equipment we were working on patenting, and they took notes on the benefits. We also discussed the company's push into taking a greater share of the specialized drill bit market.
"Now on to something more fun," the director said. "Christmas baking."
Liam chuckled at my expression.
"The sales of our baking equipment have been growing steadily, as everyone is aware, but after Thanksgiving we saw a spike in sales. Sometimes these spikes happen, but this one seems to have legs. We haven't been doing any big marketing campaigns. At first, I thought maybe our competition was buying our product for some reason, but then we traced it all back to this girl."
He pulled up Chloe's Instagram feed. There were pictures of her smiling broadly, wearing cute clothes, or displaying elegant baked goods.
"Every third picture practically is her either with our Platinum Provisions cooking product line or her showing off something she made using our products. We're not paying her anything, yet she's driving a lot of traffic to us," the marketing director said.
"She has some of the best social media engagement I've ever seen," said another young woman on the marketing team.
