Chapter 8 - The Night Shift
By six that evening, the luxury showroom looked ordinary.
The influencers were gone.
The champagne was gone.
The supercar had been moved to secured storage pending the inventory review.
The only people still working were service employees, compliance staff, and a cleaning crew vacuuming confetti from beneath a display platform.
I should have gone home.
Harrison told me to.
Lena told me twice.
Tyler stopped trying after I glared at him.
Instead, I changed into a spare Vance work shirt from the service locker and joined the inventory count.
"You know this is performative," Lena said when she found me scanning brake assemblies.
"Nobody can see me."
"I can."
"Then be impressed quietly."
She handed me a second scanner.
"Bay Three. And don't reorganize anything."
"I built three warehouses before you worked for me."
"Exactly why I'm worried."
For two hours, I counted parts with Mateo and Devin.
Devin was not actually a valet by trade. He was a business student at City College who worked the front entrance because the schedule let him attend morning classes.
"My mom thinks I sell cars," he admitted.
"Why?"
"Sounds better than valet."
I stopped scanning.
"Does it?"
He laughed awkwardly.
"After today, probably not."
I looked at my boots.
"Jobs are jobs."
"Easy for the owner to say."
The comment was not disrespectful.
It was accurate.
"Fair."
Mateo slid a carton onto the shelf.
"My mom says the same thing. Then she tells everyone I'm in automotive engineering."
"You're an apprentice technician."
"Tell her."
They both laughed.
The sound made the building feel less haunted.
Around eight, Brittany appeared in the parts room carrying three bags of sandwiches.
She had changed out of the mink coat and into black pants and a plain gray sweater.
Devin looked at her cautiously.
She noticed.
"I brought food," she said.
"For the aesthetic?" he asked.
Mateo made a strangled sound.
I stared at Devin.
The boy had courage.
Brittany took the hit.
"No. For eating."
She put the bags down.
"Also, I owe you twenty dollars."
He blinked.
"What?"
"This morning. I told you to hand Mrs. Vance a twenty and put her on the curb."
She took a bill from her wallet.
Devin did not accept it.
"I didn't give her one."
"I know."
"Then why would I take it?"
Brittany looked at the bill, then put it away.
"Good point."
She handed him a sandwich instead.
It was the first conversation I had ever seen Brittany lose without trying to recover the upper hand.
That impressed me more than any apology she had made.
We ate at a metal table in the corner of the service bay.
Brittany told us she had resigned from the ambassador role. The manufacturer had accepted immediately.
"No severance?" I asked.
"It was a marketing contract, not a marriage."
Tyler entered as she said it.
He heard.
So did she.
Neither pretended otherwise.
He pulled up a chair.
"Can we talk later?"
Brittany unwrapped half a turkey sandwich.
"Yes. Later."
Tyler nodded.
He did not ask when.
Another improvement.
Lena joined us with a clipboard.
"I reversed Calvin's transfer. Two others asked to return from Queens. One wants to stay there because the commute is better."
"Fine," I said.
Lena looked at me.
"Not your call tonight."
I bit into my sandwich.
"This arrangement is already intolerable."
She smiled.
"Eight a.m., remember?"
After dinner, I walked through the lower service floor alone.
The dealership at night reminded me of the early fleet years. No music. No clients. Just fluorescent lights, floor drains, compressed-air lines, and people solving mechanical problems one at a time.
I found Calvin under a delivery van with a flashlight between his teeth.
"You're supposed to be in Queens," I said.
His voice came from beneath the chassis.
"Not anymore."
"Lena works fast."
"That's why you should leave her alone."
I leaned against the lift.
"I came to apologize."
The flashlight stopped moving.
Calvin rolled out on a creeper.
"For what? You didn't transfer me."
"I built a company where my son believed presentation mattered more than the people who built the company."
He sat up slowly.
"That's a little dramatic."
"I'm having a day."
He wiped his hands on a rag.
"You built a company where people knew your name. Then you built a bigger company where people knew your policies. Then Tyler built a dealership where people knew the brand. That's what happens when things grow."
"You make it sound inevitable."
"No. I make it sound fixable."
I looked at him.
Calvin shrugged.
"Tyler's not you. That doesn't mean he's useless."
"I did not say he was."
"You say it with your face."
Everybody was apparently a psychologist now.
"He nearly buried a safety incident."
"So did you in 2009."
I glared.
"Who told you?"
"Half the old crew remembers Cincinnati."
I sighed.
"Wonderful."
Calvin smiled.
"You fixed it after."
"After the insurer almost dropped us."
"Still fixed it."
He slid back under the van.
"Let the kid have a chance to fix his."
The kid was forty.
But I knew what Calvin meant.
At ten thirty, Harrison found me in the old records room staring at framed photographs from the company's first decade.
One showed Tyler at sixteen, wearing a Vance work shirt too large for him and holding a socket wrench like a trophy.
Harrison stood beside me.
"The open letter is at sixty-one signatures."
"Out of eighty-three."
"Yes."
"They really hate us."
"They want the store open. That's not hate."
I looked at the photograph.
"Tyler thinks I've never let him own anything."
"Have you?"
"He owns his house."
"Purchased with a loan from Vance Family Credit."
I turned.
"The rate was excellent."
Harrison laughed.
I hated that everybody found this funny except me.
"Margaret, you spent your whole life making sure nobody you loved could fall too far. That's admirable."
"Here comes the insult."
"It also means nobody knows whether they can stand without your hand under them."
I looked at Tyler's photograph again.
"So what do I do?"
Harrison took a long breath.
"Tomorrow, you let the review happen without trying to control the outcome."
"That sounds irresponsible."
"It sounds unbearable to you. Different thing."
My phone vibrated.
A message from an unknown number.
MRS. VANCE, THIS IS DANA LOWELL. BRITTANY'S OLD CONSULTANT. BEFORE EVERYONE BLAMES TYLER FOR EVERYTHING, YOU SHOULD KNOW WHO ASKED ME TO MAKE THE STORE LOOK "YOUNGER."
Below it was a photograph of a handwritten meeting note.
At the top was my own name.
MARGARET VANCE - BRAND REFRESH COMMENTS, 18 MONTHS AGO.
I stared at it.
May you like
Then I remembered a conversation I had almost completely forgotten.
And suddenly Calvin's transfer no longer looked like an idea that had begun with Brittany or Tyler.
