He gives me a look. “You first.”
I set one of the beers down in front of him and take a seat.
I know this place so well that I know exactly which chair I’m sitting in. It’s the one that has a tinysqueakwhen you swivel left.
“I’m really tired, Derrick.”
When I glance at him, he’s already nodding, like he knows what I mean. “I…” He drifts off, tapping on the screen of his phone. It lights up with a picture of his daughter Maggie. “I never told you this, Josie. But the day before you pitched me, Maggie had basically already convinced me to invest with you.”
I tilt my head at him. “She did?”
“Maggie was your biggest advocate. Loved the brand. Respected your ethos. Don’t get me wrong, you knocked your pitch out of the park, but I was biased in your favor coming into the room.”
I smile at the table. “Tell Maggie I said thanks.”
It’s quiet for a moment.
“Just say it, Josephine.”
The beer can between my hands starts to glisten as my vision blurs. “I don’t know if I can do this anymore,” I whisper.
In my head, Eugenia’s words repeat on a loop:We don’t give our unconditional love to the things that hurt us.
“I have loved this company with my whole heart, the whole time,” I go on. “It has saved me, and healed me, and broken me in half. I’ve given the employees and the customers all I can. And now I just don’t know if I have anything left to give.”
I’ve spent seven years in a tunnel, focused on only this. Making this. Building this.
But six years later, Revenant has legs to stand on. It can weather a storm without me.
Probably, it can weather a stormbetterwithout me.
“I know, Josie,” Derrick says.
When I look at him, his eyes are calm, unsurprised. “How?”
“Camila.” He shrugs. “I knew ifshehad burned out, you weren’t far behind.”
“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” I tell him, sighing. “I loved my CEO classes. I love the people I work with, and I love thework,too. But lately, it hasn’t been loving me, my body, my mind. I’m not showing up as my best self anymore.”
Derrick leans forward onto his elbows. “I want to make you a deal.”
I smirk. “Why does that not surprise me?”
“Because we’ve known each other a long time now,” he says. A blip of humor crosses his face, and then he’s back to business. The Derrick I know. “I hear you, Josie. And I see what you’ve been through. Not just that, but I’m starting to see what all women in executive positions have been through, dealt with, that men have never once had to entertain. I’m starting to understand. And I want to make you a deal.”
A tiny smile steals over my face. “I’m listening.”
“I take over for one year,” Derrick says. “If one year goes by, and you don’t want it back, thentogetherwe look for a new CEO.”
I cock my head sideways in disbelief. “You could do that for an entire year? What about your other investments?”
“I have plenty of money,” he says, “which means I have plenty of people who can handle the other investments.Thisis the one that means the most to Maggie.” He shifts in his seat. “Frankly,thisis the one that means the most to me. I’ll move here temporarily to make it work.”
We stare at each other for a few moments.
“What if I can’t do it?” I ask. “What if a year passes and I still don’t feel right about it?”
Derrick shrugs. “Then you become a board member. And you watch someone else pick up the torch.”
