“I guess that’s it then,” Bill said, and Spencer sat quietly for a minute. It had never been a big love affair and she wasn’t even sure she’d miss him. His not showing up for the fire, or even calling, finished it for her.
“Bye, Bill,” she said softly and hung up. And thus ended two years of dating Bill Kelly, as quietly as that, without a tear.
Marcy rented a temporary office, where she, Spencer, and Beau met on Monday to discuss the fire situation. The insurance adjuster had assessed the damage, which was considerable, but not nearly as bad as it could have been. The store staff had to do an inventory of the damaged items. The construction company had come by to assess what needed to be rebuilt and promised to give them an estimate by the end of the week. Mike was right. Now it was all about insurance. And they had to replace lost merchandise, if they could. Beau was working on orders based on what they’d seen. It was going to be a costly business, and the store would have to be closed at least part of the time during construction, meaning a loss of revenue, which they had insurance for too.
“And more bad news,” Paul said with a grim expression. “We had another leak in the warehouse and lost another fifty thousand dollars’ worth of merchandise. Add that to the leak last week for a hundred thousand and the fire damage, and Spencer, I hope you’re willing to at least talk to Mike Weston now. We need money, and not just from the insurance people. We want to expand, in order to look to the future, and now we’re going to be closed for a month or two and we have to rebuild. Now’s the time to really look at our needs, see what kind of money we require, and how best to get it, and from whom. Mike Weston may not be the answer, but someone will have to be,” he said somberly, as Spencer listened.
“I’ll meet with him once and see what he says. But just because I sat next to him at the Met and he showed up at the fire does not mean I’m going to turn the store over to him. Let’s be clear on that. You set it up, and I’ll meet him. But I’m not giving up my business to anyone.”
“We need to think about moving too,” Marcy added. “I know you don’t want to,” she said to Spencer, “but at some later date, it might be the smart thing to do.” Spencer looked miserable when she said it. It was the last thing Spencer wanted to do. And she wanted even less to take on a partner.
Paul said he’d set up a meeting for her with Mike Weston as soon as they got organized after the fire, which wouldn’t take too long at the rate they were moving. Since she knew Mike now, and he had been kind to her, she was willing to at least listen to him.
Paul made the appointment for the meeting, at Spencer’s request, at the store. She had taken a basement storeroom and turned it into an office, so she could be on-site to see what was going on with the removal of debris, and the reconstruction. The contractor had estimated eight weeks. In the meantime, Spencer wanted to see everything that was happening. The meeting was set for the week after the fire. Mike met with his team about it before he met with her. He wanted all the figures available to them, and everything they could lay hands on, so he could understand Spencer’s needs even better than Spencer did, and that way he could make intelligent suggestions, in her best interests and his own. He wanted to offer a short-term plan and a long-term one, and hear her thoughts about them.
He came to the meeting with a briefcase full of research, and Spencer came to it with her intimate knowledge of the store. She had all the current figures in her head.
She looked tense in the grim basement office without a window, when Mike arrived for the meeting, looking friendly and relaxed. This was obviously one of the things he did best. Negotiating was not her strong suit, especially when she felt threatened. But at least she was on home turf. Paul had offered to join them, and she declined. Now that she knew Mike, she wanted to meet him face-to-face, alone. She thought it would go better. She handed him a mug of steaming coffee and they began.
She listened carefully to what Mike envisioned for her, given what he’d read and studied so far. What struck her immediately was how bright he was. He really was brilliant, just as people said of him. And he seemed like a straight shooter, which she was too. They were two smart people meeting on a level playing field.
“First of all, you need a well-set-up online business, with all the merchandise you have in the store, and maybe some special opportunities as an incentive. And you need that right away. It will double your sales overnight.
“Next, you need to find a way to expand. I think the annex Paul Trask suggested is just a patch on a leaky tire. It’s a half-assed solution that will be complicated to run, and more of a headache than an asset. I think you need to move to a bigger facility, and move out of this neighborhood, either uptown or down. But you need to get out of here. It’s dangerous, for your customers and your employees. The police reports on this area are alarming, particularly on this block, we checked. You need to get out while you can. You can sell the building, not at a huge price, but you’ll make some money on it, to put toward a bigger store somewhere else. Those are the two biggest changes that I think need to happen. Then you can fine-tune it later. You should probably look at a new warehouse facility too. The one you have is leaking like a sieve and that’s costing you money too.