Correctly. Professionally. And not one inch further. For the following two months, Delia found everything roughly thirty percent harder.
She could not understand why. Problems kept surprising her. Small issues became visible later than they used to. Things she had once caught somehow slipped past until they were bigger.
The only explanation available inside Delia’s framework was that Bea had checked out. Her assistant had lost commitment. Perhaps Bea needed a performance conversation. But Bea had not checked out.
Bea was doing her job perfectly. She had simply stopped giving Delia a gift. Delia had no conceptual category for that. So she classified it as a performance problem.
She was making the same mistake in the hangar and in her own office at exactly the same time, for exactly the same reason. And she could not see either one. About a week after the $12 million contract disappeared, the company called Vern back. To Delia Frost’s credit, the call was not an attempt to threaten or strong-arm him.
It sounded closer to bewilderment. The company had reviewed what happened. Management could not identify a conventional failure. Every process had been followed.
Every contract had been honored. Everybody had performed correctly. And somehow, within ten days, the operation had degraded badly enough that the company lost its biggest client. Delia asked Vern to come in.
He came. He was not hostile. Vern Ashby was not a man who did hostile. Delia offered him a new arrangement.
A better rate. Preapproved expenses. A discretionary fund for minor parts. No purchase orders required for purchases under $200.
It was genuinely reasonable. A good-faith effort to correct the problem. Vern said yes. Then he told Delia the thing she most needed to understand.
“I’ll take that,” he said. “It’s fair, and I appreciate it.” He shifted the bag on his shoulder. “I’ll come back and do the job. And I’ll do it properly, same as I always did.” Then he paused.
“But ma’am, I need to be straight with you, because otherwise you’ll be disappointed in about six months and you won’t know why.” Vern met her eyes. “The free part isn’t coming back.” Delia looked at him.
“The free part?” “The evenings. The Saturdays. Buying things out of my own pocket. Answering the phone at eight at night. Walking past something that isn’t broken yet and fixing it anyway.”
He slowly shook his head. “That was never in the contract. You never paid me for any of it.”