“And make more money?” Renee looked startled. “Who wouldn’t want to do that?” she commented, as Mike jotted down the name of the store. He wanted to ask his mother and daughter about it. Jennifer loved to shop and knew every store in New York, and his mother knew the fashion business from the inside, although she didn’t carry high-end luxury brands at her online store. The low prices had been the secret of her success.
“You’d be surprised. Family businesses aren’t always about money,” Mike answered her, and they moved on to three suggestions offered by Joe Weiss. They were mineral deals in the Pacific Northwest, and an interesting oil deal in Norway. Will only had one biotech suggestion. It was a short meeting, and they left Mike’s office an hour later to start their day. Mike had given Joe the green light to research the oil deal, and one of the mineral opportunities, and had discouraged Will from pursuing the biotech deal. They had others that were more lucrative at the moment. Renee had half a dozen other options she was working on, but they weren’t far enough along to present to him yet. They were a busy group of bright young minds, always on the hunt for new investments for him and the people who invested with him.
Mike had lunch with one of their major investors, a land developer in Oklahoma who had made a fortune in oil, thanks to Mike. He had meetings after that for a company they had bought and which was about to go public after four years of grooming, and at the end of the day, before he left the office, he called his mother. She was still at her office at seven o’clock and was pleased to hear from him. He didn’t call her often but tried to have dinner with his parents every few weeks. Neither of his parents had slowed down despite their ages. And he had the same constitution they did. Mike had been full of energy since he was a boy, and his sister Stephanie claimed they all wore her out. Older than Mike, she worked for their mother, had two sons in college, was divorced, and had a boyfriend Mike liked who owned a construction firm. The whole family admired industrious people and were hard workers.
“Hi, Mom,” he said easily. “You’re working late.” He got on well with his parents and had always hoped to have the same kind of relationship with his own children. He enjoyed spending time with his kids, but he was always being painted as the bad-guy absentee father at home, which didn’t help. And he missed them now that they were gone.
“We’ve got a million orders to fill, and our computers were down for three hours today. I’ll be here all night,” Beverly explained.
“You work too hard.” But he had a feeling it kept her young. “I have a crazy question to ask you. Have you ever heard of a store called Brooke’s? It’s somewhere downtown in a dicey neighborhood.”
“Oh my God. I haven’t been there in years. My grandmother took me there when I was a young girl. She bought a beautiful hat. They had a full custom millinery department. That was years ago. I haven’t thought of it in ages, and I haven’t been there since. Years ago, I couldn’t afford it, and now I just shop online. It’s easier, at least that’s what I tell our customers. Are you buying it? It used to be owned by a very elegant older man. He stopped to say hello to my grandmother, and he was very charming. I still remember him. He must be dead by now. They must have sold the store.”
“Apparently not. The researcher who mentioned it to me says it’s family-owned. Apparently, it’s still in the same place. His son must be running it.”
“It’s a very special store,” his mother said, remembering it. “I can’t believe it’s still there. I had forgotten all about it. What would you do with it?”
“Probably nothing. It sounds too small-scale and specialized for us. Something one-of-a-kind like that is too limited. Low-cost, high-volume is a better opportunity,” which Beverly knew too, as she had been an econ major in college. “Renee in my office thinks we should invest in it, move it uptown, make it bigger, and open branches across the U.S. Too big a project for too little return,” he said simply. “But I was curious about it. She said the same thing as you, that it’s a very special place.”
“It was.” Beverly Weston sounded nostalgic, and Mike smiled.
“I’ll have to stop by sometime. Don’t work too hard, Mom. I’ll call you for dinner with you and Dad next week.” Maureen had never warmed to his parents, which had always bothered him. Hers were much fancier, and her father had built a new fortune on old money. Mike’s parents had started from nothing and were simpler people. Maureen’s father had respected that. She and her mother never did.