Senior Year Box Set

When Cindy was working with her colleagues on the design, she’d asked me what I thought was missing. I jokingly said a tennis court. She surprised me with her creative use of space.

“Who do you know out there? Did Lexi find someone?” I asked.

“Rosy, Rita’s cook,” Mom shared.

“Rita’s going to kill me,” I worried.

“Actually, she’s good. Halle bought a house and is moving out. Trip is always at the beach house, so Rita didn’t really need Rosy anymore. The bonus is that with Rosy and her husband living on site, it will cut down their commute time,” Mom said.

Before I could ask any more questions, Megan stuck her head in the door.

“Your next meeting is here.”

◊◊◊

Chapter 33 – Next Stop, The Twilight Zone Friday May 12

Grace Davenport walked in. She was Brook’s grandmother and the woman who’d bought a controlling interest in my California-based businesses. Along with her were Caryn Buckley, my former COO; Kent Crain, the senior manager of my old management company in LA; and Bev Mass, the previous State’s Attorney for Cook County.

I got up and greeted them all.

“I didn’t expect to see you all here,” I said.

“We had a board meeting last week, and I wanted to fill you in on what’s been happening,” Grace said, taking charge of the meeting.

“Still, I’m only a minority stockholder. I wouldn’t expect you to fly here to talk to me,” I said and then hurried up and added, “I am, of course, happy to see you all.”

“Nice save,” Caryn said.

Fortunately, Grace was in business mode and ignored my nearly incoherent ramblings. Grace Davenport was someone that you traveled to meet, not the other way around. Her presence had me a little flustered. It was one thing for her to come here when her daughter and granddaughter lived here; it gave her an excuse to visit them. Since they had moved to Cincinnati, that meant she had come here to see me.

“The insurance company you were in negotiations with didn’t work out. We did some research and found they lacked the bandwidth to handle all the potential needs of our projected clients. We close on the partnership with the new insurance company at the end of the month,” Grace shared.

“That’s good, right?” I asked.

“Yes, it is, David,” Kent answered.

Grace had just shown me that I really did need her. When I’d sold most of my company to her, I’d wondered if we were onto something and if it wouldn’t be more profitable to go it alone. She’d pointed out at the time that we didn’t have the experience to handle the growth we’d be experiencing. We’d either botch our expansion, or someone with the resources to crush us would steal our idea.

Grace had said she researched what our potential insurance needs might be, and the company we’d planned to partner with couldn’t handle them all. That told me several things. We either didn’t think everything through or didn’t really know who our potential clients were. I needed to get to school in a hurry and start learning this stuff because I felt I’d missed a big one there. The corollary was that it was only the tip of the iceberg of what I didn’t know.

“We also voted on a new name. Our company will be called Holistic Wealth Management.”

“It tested very well with our focus groups,” Caryn said.

“Okay, where are we in terms of expansion?” I asked.

“That’s my next topic,” Grace said. “We are opening offices in Chicago and Cincinnati. Bev will oversee the one in Chicago since they are already in place with management. Ava will take over the one in Cincinnati with my assistance until she’s able to step into the role on her own. Caryn will run the LA office. New York will be next, once we get the two new ones up and running,” Grace said.

“Why those two places? Is it just convenient because you’ve got people in place who can be in charge?” I asked.

“Well, not exactly. Ava won’t be in charge initially; she’ll be working with Grace while Grace trains her to take over at some point,” Caryn answered.

“The locations are based on the leads you gave us,” Grace said. “We’ve been able to sign up enough clients to get the Chicago office off the ground, and the one in LA has been growing like crazy. Of course, I have a lot of people in Cincinnati we can contact, so that was a given.”

I remembered Grace asking for me to help them sell the company with my contacts. At the time, I’d been hesitant to trade on my relationship with people to get them to trust us with their money.

“I don’t remember giving you a list,” I said.

“I had Megan create one from all of your contacts,” Scarlet said.

“You didn’t tell him?” Mom asked.

“Phyllis, from Grace’s office, called and said I was to send it over. I just assumed …” Scarlet trailed off.

“No, I think this is my fault,” Grace said. “My executive assistant tries to read my mind at times. She may have misunderstood what I asked for. I told her that when David was ready, he would send over a list of potential clients,” Grace explained to save Scarlet from my mom … and, later, me.