Trilemma (8 page)

“To the waterfront and around the harbor. Running is
great,” he says. “Makes me feel so alive! You should try it sometime.”

“I prefer to walk,” I reply. “I only run when I'm scared.”

Adam's face relaxes in a smile. “And not much scares you, does it, Lin?” The elevator doors open and he gets in. “I'll see you at two.”

It is true that not much scares me. When it comes to conflict, my first response is fight, not flight. I am not afraid of people, perhaps because I've never been physically hurt by anyone. While I wouldn't claim my childhood was close and loving, I wasn't beaten or abused, no stranger attacked me on the way home, and no date raped me in my room.

My greatest fear is irrational—being enclosed in a small, tight space. I hate elevators, and you would never catch me canyoning, one of this country's more adventurous sports. I much prefer to stick with the wide-open spaces. And so instead of joining Adam in the elevator, I walk down the stairs to the company's kitchen on the first floor. The office provides a coffee machine, teabags, and, of course, fresh milk. The Kiwis are very precious about their milk, like the French about their baguettes. Not for Kiwis the white paint mix that Yanks use to color their coffee.

I make myself a flat white, slide a coin into the chocolate machine, and smile at the workers sitting at the tables eating their packed lunches. Conversation stills for a moment, but then Helen shuffles along.

“Join us, Lin.”

I smile and sit beside her. Helen is eating a large bowl of pasta with walnuts, drowning in oil.

“You like dressing?” I ask.

She laughs. “It's the Mediterranean diet. I make sure I have lots of nuts and olive oil every day.”

The woman beside her opens her plastic container, which has two compartments, one holding pie and the other a stick of celery and a morsel of ham.

“I'm on one of the fasting days for my five-to-two diet,” she says, her expression morose. She tilts her wrist to look at her watch. “But in another thirty-five minutes, I'm eating the pie.”

They look at my Moro bar. “What diet is that?”

“The I-left-too-early-to-make-lunch diet,” I reply. “Works for me.”

When I arrive back at Adam's office, Helen is still on her lunch break. His door is slightly ajar. I knock and enter the room. “Boss?”

He is not in his chair. I look beyond the desk to the view over the harbor. The weather is mixed today. The sky is a pallid blue and a long cloud hovers over the hills. As usual, the wind is blowing. I can see yachts out on the water, their sails billowing in the breeze.

On Adam's desk are three photographs. A beautiful young Asian woman smiles out of one. Filipino, perhaps? The second is of Adam holding a baby wrapped in a long white shawl. I look closer at the third photograph, which shows Adam with the beautiful woman, this time dressed as the bridal couple. So it must be his baby then, not a grandchild.

A common story: a rich and successful older man snaring, or snared by, a much younger woman. Did he dump a first Mrs. Challoner for this gorgeous Asian beauty? I wonder idly before turning to leave the office.

I catch my breath. Adam lies curled on the floor behind the door, still in his running clothes. His head is twisted to one side, his face flattened against the pale carpet. His right eye stares blankly at me. I kneel down and take his wrist, feeling for a pulse. But there is none.

I stretch out to brush the hair away from his face.
Poor man. I am so sorry I couldn't help you.
Then I put my lips to his mouth and try to blow life into him, then I press his chest to make his heart beat again.

“Helen!” I call out, hearing the bustle of her return. I sit over
him, shielding her from him, or him from her, I don't know. “Call an ambulance. Adam's had a heart attack.”

“Ohhh,” she says, covering her mouth with her hands. “Is he all right?”

I press his chest again and shake my head.

The funeral is held at Old St Paul's Cathedral on Mulgrave Street. I pity the young widow sitting by herself in the front pew, veiled and silent. Afterward, when the casket has made its stately way down the aisle on the shoulders of Adam's first family, she seems uncertain what she is supposed to do next. When I approach and introduce myself, she thanks me for trying to save him and starts crying. I look around desperately until Marion comes over and takes the sad girl into her kind arms.

Tom and I flee to the foyer to drink stewed tea and eat sweet, dry biscuits.

Marion arrives ten minutes later.

“Is she okay?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “She is lost without him.”

“Adam's child bride,” says Tom, and shakes his head as well.

As I sip the harsh tea, I push away the memory of Adam's dead eyes, and try instead to remember the photographs on his shelf, the beautiful bride and the baby wrapped in white.

In them, he looked happy, before the stress built up and stopped his heart beating, leaving a young widow alone in a strange land and yet another child to grow up without a father.

Now we sit in Tom's office wondering what kind of leader the Board will choose to replace Adam. Ian flings his arms about like Laurence Olivier and talks of discussions with the agency over Hera's brand. Fred sits at one end of the table and Deepak at the other, wearing matching worried frowns. Tom leans forward, his hands moving restlessly across the papers, but his dark
eyes are hooded. Marion smiles her calm smile and nods as each person gives an update on the week's work.

I look down at my charts and worry about the time passing. We are in limbo. Nothing is going to get decided on the project while there is no chief executive.

After an hour, the Board calls me in. The atmosphere is cool. All five men sit a yard apart from each other, faces unsmiling.

“We need a fresh pair of eyes,” Robert says. “I've told them I think you're an excellent judge of people. Tell us what you think of Hera's executive team.”

I gaze around the faces for a moment, reflecting on what I should say.

“Ian is everything you need in a marketing director,” I tell them. “Imaginative, enthusiastic, optimistic. But he is only thirty and has limited experience in the rest of the business.”

“Young,” says Dao. Hobb grunts in agreement.

“Deepak has extensive business experience, and an exceptional grasp on how best to deploy money. I've found his judgment to be very sound. I guess if he has any fault it's that he's not forceful enough.”

“Lacks confidence,” states Stanton.

“He is a very courteous man. Marion is—”

“I don't think we're interested in Mrs. King,” he interjects. “A good woman, no doubt, but hardly of the stature we need to be chief executive.”

“Fred is an excellent IT manager,” I continue. “The best I've worked with. But I doubt if he'd be remotely interested in taking on the CEO role. He is just too
nice
.”

“And Heke?” asks Lane.

“Tom is a very good operations manager,” I say. “He is confident, and he knows the technology very well.”

“But?” asks Robert.

I pause before replying. “I don't think he is very good at making tough decisions. I think he is out of his depth in any project that requires a major leap into something new.”

“But if he has Green for new ideas and Gupta for the financial analysis?” Lane asks.

“And Lin to drive things along,” adds Robert.

“Don't get me wrong,” I add. “Tom is a terrific manager and for any organization in a more stable situation he would be an outstanding chief executive. But I don't think he is the best candidate when the role requires stepping outside of standard practice and into the unknown.”

The men fall silent.

“What about that woman who used to run the local telco?” asks Stewart Hobb.

“Tania Gates? No,” says Stanton. His nose curls with disgust. “Too emotional.” He glances around the table. “I have several good candidates in mind. Men I know well.

“Linnette, you can go now,” he says.

“It's Linnet.”

“Whatever.”

Tom, Ian, and Deepak are hovering around my desk.

“Did they say anything about who will replace Adam?”

“I think they're looking at some mate of Stanton's,” I reply.

“Shit.”

“Bummer.”

“Blast.”

“Yeah.”

When the Board breaks for tea, Robert says he wants some fresh air and tells me to join him. We walk across to the civic center and find a coffee bar.

“What did you decide?” I ask.

“We haven't,” he says. “Stanton's mates will take too long to come on board. We can't afford to be without a CEO for two months or more. It is too critical a period.”

“I guess you could appoint someone to act in the meantime.”

“We could.”

“Who? Tom?”

“Maybe. He's offered to step in. Do you think he could handle things for a couple of months?”

“Perhaps.”

Inwardly, I wince as I think about Tom's conservative approach. And then I let myself think about how it might feel to be the chief executive of Hera. Being a chief executive wasn't something I'd ever considered. Oh, of course, you dream you might climb that high, but so few do that it's not an ambition I'd ever dwelled on. And yet, and yet, why not?

I
could make the decisions I knew had to be made.
I
could lead the way I thought a leader should lead.

Did I know enough?
But the rest of the team was strong. Anything I didn't know was well covered by Deepak, Fred, Ian, Marion, and Tom. We were a perfect team.

Tom! How could I do this to him?
He had the best right to this job. And yet I knew, I knew he could not bring Hera to the launch date as well as I. I knew he could not achieve as much with our few resources as I.

Sometimes there's a time and tide in your life that waits for no man. Or woman.

“What about me?”

Robert sips his coffee. “You?”

“I'm smart, I'm decisive, and I've got the right experience. And I know what needs to be done and how to get it done. Why can't I throw my hat in the ring?”

“This is a hard job. Are you tough enough?”

“I'm strong.”

“Not quite the same thing as being tough. And you're a maverick, Lin. Useful when the going gets rough, but a liability when you have to deal with the Government, and the media, and all the other players in this game.”

“I can be diplomatic when I need to be,” I say. “Haven't I
been polite to Adam and Tom and to the Board even when I thought they were goddamn fools?”

“It's a thin veneer,” he says. “And the job will require absolute commitment.”

“I don't have any family,” I reply. “No husband, no children, no parents. No distractions.”

“I'm not sticking my neck out for you on this one, Lin. Don't go expecting that.”

I've pushed too hard. Time to back off. I shrug. “I expect nothing, Robert. All I ask is that you consider me as another option.”

Robert's eyes lose focus. He puts down his empty cup to look at his watch. “I'd better get back to the meeting.”

I try to focus on the financials in my spreadsheet, but when I think about the opportunity to be chief executive, to be right at the top of that ladder, my heart starts beating faster and the blood pumps thud, thud, thud, so I get up and pace back and forth across the room.

I want the job. I
want
it.

Why is it taking them so long?
I send Robert a text asking him how much longer. He doesn't reply.

I get up and pace back and forth, sit down, try to work, give up, stand and pace again. I'd been in my profession for seventeen, going on eighteen years, climbing that ladder, rung by rung, success by success. I'd moved rapidly into being a manager, not because I was one of the effortless confident leaders who could always assume they would be the one people would follow, but because I was damned good at what I did. I never failed to deliver. I argued for what I thought was the right way, and then proved myself correct. I recognized good people, listened to them, and made sure to pull them together into a team.