The CEO She Divorced

My ex-husband bought my company at two this morning, and at eight he'd like a coffee.

"Black," Adrián says. "Two sugars."

Seven years. He still takes it like a nine-year-old.

Sixth floor of the Works, Monday. Glass on three sides, the skyline across the river doing its best. Fourteen executives at the table, one fiancée with a ring you could land a helicopter on, one chairman at the far end with silver hair and a kind face. Nobody has offered me a chair.

Here's what the room doesn't know.

The glass they're sitting in was bolted on top of my grandmother's noodle factory. Four floors of red brick. Her name's still painted on the river side, faded, under his sign. Vela rents the whole thing from a company called Lotus River. Lotus River was Po Po. Since March, Lotus River is me.

His lease ends in ninety days.

So. Coffee.

I pour it. I set it down in front of him. I don't spit in it, because I'm a professional, and because there are witnesses.

"Everyone," Adrián says, standing. "Last night Vela acquired Tsang Advisory. Thirty-one people, West Loop, very good at fixing other people's companies." He smiles at me. "Its founder joins us today as executive assistant to the chief executive. Ninety days. So she can see how a real company runs."

A laugh goes round the table. The kind you do when the boss jokes about someone who can't fire him.

"Does she take notes?" says the fiancée. Vanessa Rourke, head of brand. "Or just coffee?"

"Both," I say. "I'm excellent at both."

"Ninety days is generous," says the chairman. Whit Rourke. Soft voice, like a doctor with bad news. "One addition, Adrián. Her people stay employed while she does. If she walks, they go. Keeps everyone motivated."

"Agreed," Adrián says.

Then he slides something down the glass at me. Brass. Six inches long. Four screw holes.

TSANG ADVISORY.

The plate off my own front door. Someone unscrewed it last night while I was asleep.

"Souvenir," he says.

The laugh starts again and dies halfway, because a woman from HR is looking at her shoes and the man beside her has found something fascinating in his water.

I pick up the plate. It's heavier than I remember. Most things are.

"Fine," I say. "Ninety days. Here's my one addition." I look at the chairman, not at him. "My thirty-one keep their desks, their salaries, and the name on their door. In writing. Today."

Rourke tilts his head, like I've asked for a window seat.

"That costs us nothing," he says. "Done."

It costs him nothing. It costs me a plate. I'll take it.

"You left me with eleven trucks and a plan," Adrián says. Quieter now, for me. The room hears anyway; that's the point of glass. "Because I had nothing. Now I've got this." A hand at the skyline, like he poured it. "Enjoy the view, Ruby."

I look at the view. It's a very good view. He pays me forty-one thousand dollars a month for it, and he doesn't know, and for one second that isn't enough.

Nine o'clock. Rain on the glass. My desk is outside his door: a chair, a phone, my name already in the directory with ASSISTANT next to it.

He stands in his doorway with the cup.

"Two things," he says. "One. There's a company called Lotus River. They own this building. I've been renting it for seven years, which is embarrassing, so I'm buying it. Get their owner into that chair by Thursday."

"Their owner."

"Whoever it is. Some property outfit. My people have only ever dealt with lawyers."

"Thursday," I say, and write it down. Lotus River. Thursday. Owner.

I could tell him. Easiest sentence I'd ever say, and I'd love to see his face.

I'd love to see it more on Thursday.

"Two," he says. "The brick on the river side. There's old lettering. Noodle something."

"Tsang Noodle Company."

He doesn't blink. He was always good. "Get painters. Friday. I want it gone."

"You kept it seven years."

"It was a look. I've got a new look." He glances down the hall, where Vanessa is laughing at her phone. "Friday, Ruby."

He goes in and shuts the door.

I write it down. Painters. Friday. Po Po.

Then I cross out Po Po, because the directory says ASSISTANT, and assistants don't cry at their desks on day one. They do it on the Red Line like everybody else.

Nine at night, the river side of the Works. His sign is lit, white, six feet high. VELA.

Under it, if you know where to look, my grandmother. TSANG NOODLE CO., in red gone pink, letters she paid a man forty dollars to paint. Eleven trucks used to park right here. She used to shout at him in Cantonese for scraping her brick with his ladder.

I take a photo. Four days.

Tsang's, Wentworth Avenue, ten o'clock. Kitchen after close. Kevin's at the pass, wiping clean steel, radio off because he saw my face.

"Rubes."

"Don't."

"I'm not. I'm going to feed you, and then I'm going to say it."

He puts a bowl in front of me. Noodles. Of course noodles.

He says it before I've got the chopsticks up.

"Evict him."

"Kevin."

"Ninety days? Why ninety? Why not Tuesday?"

"He wants the brick painted over Friday."

"Po Po's letters?"

"I booked the painters myself. I'm his assistant. I book things."

He stares at me across the pass.

"Rubes."

"Not yet."

"Why not yet?"

Here's why not yet. Whit Rourke bought fifty-five percent of my company in September through three layers of paper and handed it to my ex-husband like a cigar. Rourke doesn't give gifts. Rourke invoices.

"Because Rourke gave him the firm," I say. "And I want to know what he's buying."

"Tell him why you left."

"No."

"He thinks you left because he was broke."

"He thinks a lot of things."

"Rubes. Tell him."

"He thinks he knows." I eat. The noodles are perfect; Kevin is a very annoying person who makes perfect noodles. "I'm going to let him keep thinking it."

"Why?"

"Because it's the one thing in that building he owns outright."

Kevin puts the cloth down.

"So what's Thursday?"

"Thursday he wants his landlord in the boardroom. In the big chair. He told me to arrange it."

"And?"

"And I'm good at my job." I push the bowl back. "He's got a meeting with his landlord Thursday at nine."

"Who's bringing her?"

"Nobody's bringing her, Kev. She's bringing the coffee."