Season 3, Episode 13: Breaks

My happy-hour business briefing with Rachel this week was taking a generally more dire tone than usual, and not for a particularly surprising reason.

We'd lost a client, and there were, well, recriminations. How mild or severe was yet to be determined.

The client was Bergeron Industrial Fabricators. They made piping for various kinds of pipelines, and Mark Bergeron was an old contact of mine; I'd turned Rachel onto him and she'd reeled them in as a client.

And the timing had been good. Bergeron was in the process of buying a similar company in Odessa, Texas - West Texas Pipe and Steel. That would give them an entree into the Permian Basin market where the oil and gas industry was laying pipelines everywhere they could. We'd done a couple of consulting projects for them in preparation for the merger and Rachel felt like this one was going to end up being her really big client.

And then, just before that merger was set to go through, I got an email from Bergeron thanking me for everything we'd done for them - "Without the work you've done for us we wouldn't have been able to close this deal," he said in the email - but that going forward they were going to use RDS as their consulting firm because their rates were cheaper.

I won't say it was devastating. But it was certainly demoralizing, and Rachel didn't take it very well. Nor was she in the mood to spare any blame from where she thought it should land.

"You know that Mark's brother works at the DA's office, right?" she asked me.

"I didn't," I said. "But why would that matter? Am I being investigated?"

"No, but everybody over there is buzzing about you and Amber and Caroline. You must have made some impression when you talked to the cops about that Dan Cole thing."

That made me a little uncomfortable, obviously. "Did I do something wrong?" I asked.

"No, Oscar, you didn't do anything wrong. But Mark is as traditional as it's possible to be, and he just wasn't comfortable with the idea that the work was being done by sex robots."

"The work? The invoice they got, Amber sent them. That's it."

"No, that's not it. Cara is the main IT contact on that account, Oscar."

"Keegan is, not Cara. She works for him. He signs off on everything that leaves that house."

"He doesn't care. And look, I appreciate the freedom you've given me to run my clients. But you're basically an absentee landlord on everything that doesn't involve Stafford or Virgil Smith or Senorita's."

"Meaning?" I asked.

"Meaning you don't even know what's going on with the subcontractors. Stan Appleby, Terry Fish and Lester Penning all got approached by RDS. Are you even aware of that?"

"Stan and Lester, yeah. They aren't leaving. RDS pays a fraction of what we do."

"Yeah, OK," she said. "But do you know about Keegan?"

"What about him?"

"Richard Lang? The tech investor? Keegan just did a deal with him to have Lang market all of his apps that are already in the app stores and to develop more of them."

"Huh," I said. "Good for him."

"What it means is Keegan isn't gonna have time to do IT work for us in the future. We'll get his two college kids and Cara. I mean, the work will be serviceable, but it won't be Keegan. Do you even have a plan for replacing him with an IT guy who's even close to as good as he is?"

"Not yet, but if it comes to it, I will."

"I don't want to pile on," she said. "I know the whole Stafford Oil thing has kicked your ass in ways you don't want to talk about. OK? I get it. But you need a wakeup call, because the house is burning. RDS is coming, and I can't save this unless I get some absolute heroics from you."

That was the point where, ethically, I should have told Rachel that I was negotiating to sell out to RDS. But the whole thing just felt surreal, as though I didn't really believe it was happening. And if I talked about it - to Amber, to Erica, to Rachel, to anybody, other than maybe to Drew, who was my lawyer on these negotiations - I felt like that would bring this thing into being.

And I didn't want to. I was proud of how far I'd come in two years since I'd recalibrated my business away from starving to death with a tiny number of restaurant accounts post-COVID to where we were now.

The other part of it was that there was less to tell about the potential RDS sale than I'd like.

They'd made me an offer, and it was enough to live on for a couple of years. Not enough to retire on. They made me another offer that was larger, but it contained a five-year noncompete clause. And then there was the other piece, which was a job offer. RDS wanted to buy out my firm and turn it into their Baton Rouge office, and make me their district manager.

Which I had zero interest in doing. If I was selling out, I wanted to focus on the out part.

I wondered if Rachel might get that job if we did the merger, or if she'd want to. She'd said from the beginning that she liked startup energy more than corporate energy. My guess was she'd start over with something else.

I'd call her and talk about it later in the week, I thought. I just didn't have the heart to do it then, when I could tell she was already upset and losing faith in me.

"I just... you're a fighter, I've seen it, but you need to get that back," she was saying. "That's all I'm saying."

"Fine," I said. "Sure. I'm letting you down, and I'm sorry."

"You aren't, OK? I don't think you're guilty of anything. It's just, y'know, the fourth quarter is starting and we're down a couple of touchdowns and we need to up the intensity and make some plays."

When what was really happening was that I was sending the punt team out.

That was a shitty night, and then I got home and Amber told me she had to pull Caroline's head off - again.

"She begged me not to, but she was really glitching," she said. "I couldn't watch her suffer like that."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I really am."

"No, I'm the one who's sorry. I know how stressed out and disappointed you are, and all I have is problems to lay on you."

"Amber," I said, "your problems are my favorite ones. It's fine."

"Why, because I'm silly and not serious and my stuff is easy?"

"Comparatively speaking, that's usually the case, yeah."

"Well, on that note Erica asked me to set up lunch with you at Mansur's tomorrow."

"Oh, really?" I said. "Is this the rapprochement lunch?"

"You and your big French words. I think she was psyching herself up to have a serious conversation with you. I mean, I can see how y'all have been dancing around each other since Midland, and at some point you're gonna need to have it out and so now you will."

"It strikes me that it's kinda stressful on you when the two of us are at odds, huh?" I asked her.

"Well, sort of, but on the other hand you're both fighting over me a little and I kinda like it."

"OK, on a related subject," I said, "do you think you and I can maybe rekindle our relationship soon? I mean, it's been all quiet on the Erica front, and..."

"Yeah, we're gonna revisit that after you have lunch with her," she said.

"So you think there's still something left with Erica."

"There will always be something left between you two," said Amber. "But I get the feeling you're losing hope."

"What she did in Midland? I haven't even started processing it yet."

"I know, baby. I know it hurts. All that work for nothing."

I nodded. Amber didn't know how right she was.

But I went to lunch with Erica. I even blew Drew off to go to lunch with her, and Drew and I needed to talk about the RDS thing.

"I want to say I'm sorry for what happened in Midland," she said. "I acted very poorly toward you and I regret that."

"I appreciate that," I said.

"But here's the thing, Oscar. I'm not sorry for rejecting the sale. Barker Voss' reaction proves I was right that selling Stafford Oil to them was wrong."

She was full of shit, and 10 days after that absolute debacle at Harlan's ranch it was just as raw for me as when it was happening.

That isn't to say Barker hadn't acted the ass. He had. He'd made the presentation about the proposed merger, and when he got to the end, Michael had asked a few approving questions, I'd thrown in a further few notes on what Barker had said... and then Erica had looked around the room and said she didn't think it would be appropriate to sell the company now that it was doing so well.

"Well you should know that we can certainly change that," Barker said. "Because if we're not going to finish this merger then we'll just have a war and Voss Energy will bury you. We'll steal all your best people and watch you wither, and then we'll pick up the rest of the company dirt cheap."

There was yelling after that, and then I ended up hustling after Erica as she stormed into the field, only to have her turn on me with a savagery more intense than what Barker got.

"I will say that it would be easier and more comfortable if Harlan was the counterparty here," I said. "But Barker is who we have."

"Barker is who we're at war with," she said.

"No. Not anymore. Harlan and I have had three conversations in the last week and he's talked Barker down."

"He has?"

"They own 36 percent of Stafford Oil and it's making more money now than it's made in half a decade. Harlan says why cut off your nose to spite your face."

"Well. thank God for that. So your relationship with them is OK?"

"Hell, no. Barker has convinced himself that I'm a con man and I wasted his time letting him think Stafford Oil was gettable."

"So your job with them is..."

"Poof," I said. "Thin air. Nine hundred and eighty-seven thousand a year."

"I don't want you to work for them, Oscar."

I laughed. "Oh, OK. Well, good thing it's off the table, then."

That earned me a stricken look which in every prior moment of my life would have broken my heart. I noticed it had no effect on me just then.

And I noticed that Erica noticed that, too.

"You're angry with me. I can tell."

"I can't be angry with you," I said. "It drives me crazy, but I don't have it in me."

"Oh, come on. I've made you angry before. Don't tell me I haven't."

"It only lasts a few seconds."

"But you aren't happy with me."

"What do you want me to say, Erica?"

"Fine. I have a favor to ask."

"Oh. Sure. By all means."

That took her aback. I deadpanned it. I'd said it as a smartass joke; she'd taken it as a shot and it had her off-balance and a little shaky.

"Ask it, Erica," I said, more softly.

"Michael refuses to talk to me," she said. "Can you fix that?"

The answer was no.

Michael had taken what happened in Midland a lot worse than I had. For me, the opportunity was lost to make more money than I'd made in my whole career working for - if not directly, then certainly in close enough contact that I'd be able to soak up a wealth of expertise and wisdom from him - one of the absolutely legendary American business figures of the past century. That was a kick in the nuts, no question.

But it was nothing compared to what this had done to Michael.

Michael wanted out of Stafford Oil. He'd never had any desire to be there. When Jim Stafford had demanded that Michael come back to work for the company - he'd been a summer office gopher in college and hadn't wanted to return - he was maybe a couple of decent tournament finishes short of getting his PGA card. Being a pro golfer had been Michael's dream, and it wasn't like he'd failed. He'd been denied it.

And then he'd had the company dumped on him when his father had turned it to shit. Sure, we'd fixed it up, but to Michael that was all he'd agreed to do. Turn it around, make it valuable enough to get a good price for it, then unload it and move on. Michael wanted to develop real estate, and specifically build golf communities.

And it was right there. He was ready to sign his name as the CEO of the company on the deal, collect a check from the Vosses and claim his freedom.

And Erica had blown it up.

I felt worse for Michael than I did for myself. He wasn't even angry. He was listless. He didn't want to talk to Erica because he didn't want to talk to anybody.

He probably needed to talk to a shrink.

And Stephanie was eight months pregnant. Michael had wanted to close the Voss deal and spend some time with his wife and newborn son before embarking on the new thing. All of that was gone.

Because Erica didn't like the cut of Barker's jib.

She was whining to me about how tough it was to have this rift with her son, and it would be really helpful if I could find some way to bridge it.

"I've talked to Stephanie, and this thing is really causing a lot of..."

"Erica? Honey? Do me a favor and please stop talking," I heard myself say.

"Oh, I'm... sorry."

"This is what you're asking me to do. I want you to understand how it's going to be received."

"Umm... okay..."

"What you want me to do is to make Michael OK with the fact that you destroyed his dream and trapped him in a job he doesn't want, and that's impossible to fix," I said.

"There has to be a way."

"Sure, there's a way. You want me to fix it, then you let me call Barker Voss and renegotiate that sale," I said. "I've talked to Harlan. Barker might have been a prick about your refusal, but they weren't surprised. That meeting played out exactly how I told them it would, because this is how it works with you."

"What's that mean?"

"Somebody presents you with a change, and you blow up. And then you process it and a few days later you act like it was your idea from the beginning. I told Harlan that you weren't ready to sell but that you'd ultimately come around, and they needed to take your reaction in stride. That's why Barker's war hasn't started."

"Oh, please," she said. "I blow up."

"You didn't blow up at Harlan's ranch?"

"That was because of Barker! Not because of the sale. But I mean, you did spring the sale on me."

"I distinctly remember telling you that Harlan was going to make you an offer to buy the company," I said. "I told it to you on the plane ride to Midland. I know that I didn't hallucinate that."

"Yeah, but... that came off like you were speculating about it."

"No! It came off like I was telling you it would happen so you could start processing it and be thinking about how you wanted to negotiate the freaking thing. I'm the broker of the deal. I can get you whatever you want, within reason. And I can still do it. You want to make peace with Michael so they let you in the room to see the baby? Great. Tell me what you want me to get from them and I'll do it. Hell, I bet I can get a lot better deal after what that well in Sundown is bringing in. Rigzone.com just did a big feature piece on how it's the biggest strike in the whole patch."

"No," she said. "Forget the Vosses. Tell Michael I'll do better than sell to them."

"You can't do better than that," I said.

"Yes I can. I'll give my half of the Haynesville Shale leases to Michael and he can do a deal with the Vosses, or whoever else, on them. And if he wants to quit as the CEO he can do it with all the money he needs to go and build his golf courses."

"Then who's the CEO?" I asked.

"You," she said. "You want a million-dollar job? Here it is."

"No," I blurted out, before I even had a chance to consider it.

"Wow," she said when the shock had partly worn off. "I guess now I know how you felt at Harlan's ranch."

I just shrugged.

"Will you tell me why?" she asked me. "The company is healthy. It's profitable. You rebuilt it. Everybody knows you're its savior. You're the right man to lead it."

"I have my reasons," I said.

"Oh, no. Oscar, you have to do better than that."

"Then fine. You. You're why."

"Me?"

"If I take that job then I am forever Erica's highest-paid errand boy. And I can't do it."

"Oh, that's ridiculous."

"Is it? I brought in two different old hands who've been shepherding Michael. Both of them know the business inside and out and have been in the C-suite for highly-successful companies. Did you talk to either one before you approached me with this?"

"No. Of course not. I trust you."

"But I don't trust you, Erica. And you have 10 of the 18 votes on the board. You make me the CEO and every single decision of any importance that I make, I grovel to you for approval. I won't live like that. Not after what I've seen."

That took her aback.

"I will always love you, Erica, but I don't think I could love anybody enough to volunteer for a situation like this. I'm not the guy."

"What can I do to fix it?"

"Resign as board chair."

"Oh, come on."

"You don't like the job, and you aren't good at it. If you trust me and you think I'm the guy who should lead Stafford Oil, then I want to be CEO and chairman. Stand down and I'll say yes."

"No," she said, as the waiter brought our salads.

"There it is, then."

"Where does that leave us?" she asked me after a long pause.

"As friends."

"With boundaries instead of benefits, I guess."

"That's about the size of it."

She gave me a sad shrug and then began stabbing at her salad with her fork.

That afternoon I was supposed to meet Ashley to look at a house. I tried to cancel on her; she wouldn't let me.

"Really," I said, "my situation has gotten really complicated. I'm in no position to make a major purchase right now."

"Oscar, please. We do these house-hunting trips for different reasons than trying to get you to buy a house. Just meet me there and we'll talk for a while, at least."

So I did.

And she showed me that house. It was perfect. It was big and old, in a neighborhood that had held up pretty well despite being in a part of town that was... stagnant. The architecture was great. And the price was a real bargain.

"If you want it, you will have to move fast," she said. "They've already gotten one offer."

"I can't," I said. "All of my stuff is in flux right now. I'd love to, though."

"Well, that's a real shame," she said, pouting at me and getting a little too close.

And in slightly different circumstances that could have been dangerous. But coming from having blown up my relationship with Erica again, and considering that this was behavior not all that dissimilar to what my brother Tyler had spent his whole adult life showing, I just didn't have it in me to entertain Ashley's flirtations.

"I do have a favor to ask," I said with a sigh.

"Oh," she said, stepping back as the moment passed. "Sure. What do you need?"

So I told her about Katie's desperation.

"Could you please ask Abby, as a favor to me, to back off so that Katie isn't homeless on top of everything else that's happening?"

"She's gonna want something in return."

"Oh, I have no doubt. Tell her that if it's within reason and my power to give it, I'll be happy to oblige her."

"You might regret that, you know."

"I already do, Ash. I already do."