“Ah,” said the old man. “That’s an important job.”

“It is.”

“It takes a particular kind of person.”

“Yes,” Ryan said. “It does.”

The old man smiled, a small, crinkled smile that Ryan took for admiration. “And what kind of person is that, would you say?”

Ryan almost laughed. He should have been annoyed, but the question was so perfectly shaped for him that he could not resist. “Someone who can see where the whole machine is going, and who isn’t afraid to make hard decisions. Someone who isn’t sentimental. In logistics, sentiment costs money.”

“Does it?” the old man said gently.

“Always.”

The old man nodded slowly, as if he were filing the answer away somewhere. “I see. Well, I hope it goes well for you.”

“I’m not worried,” Ryan said.

“No,” the old man said, still looking at the numbers. “I can tell.”

The elevator slowed. The doors opened onto a quiet reception area carpeted in deep blue, with a curved desk and a wall of framed photographs of trucks, old and new. The old man stepped out first, his cane tapping softly. Ryan followed, already looking past him.

At the desk, a young woman with dark hair and a lanyard that said MARIBEL looked up and smiled. The smile was warm and quick, and it landed first on the old man, in a way Ryan noticed but did not examine.

“Good morning, Mr.—” she began.

The old man raised two fingers, a tiny, almost invisible gesture, and she stopped mid-word and said instead, “Good morning. Can I help you gentlemen?”

Ryan stepped forward before the old man could answer. “Ryan Mercer, nine o’clock, Vice President of Operations.”

“Of course, Mr. Mercer. Please have a seat in the waiting area. The panel will be with you shortly. May I offer you coffee or water?”

“Water. Sparkling, if you have it.”

“Certainly.”

She disappeared down a corridor. Ryan turned toward the waiting area, a small cluster of leather chairs under a window with a spectacular view of the lake. Behind him, he heard the old man’s cane tap slowly across the carpet, and a soft sound as someone settled onto a bench against the far wall.

He did not look back. He had an interview to win.

The Bench by the Wall

The waiting area was quiet enough that Ryan could hear his own watch ticking. He took the chair nearest the window, placed his portfolio on his knee, and let his gaze drift across the lake. The water was a flat, pewter gray under a low sky. A single sailboat, impossibly small, moved across it like a thought.

He checked the time. 8:52.

Across the room, the old man had settled onto the long wooden bench against the far wall. It was an odd piece of furniture in that polished space, plain and slightly scarred, with a worn cushion that looked as though it had been there for decades. Ryan had noticed it when he walked in and assumed it was a decorative touch, a nod to the company’s humble beginnings.

The old man lowered himself onto it with the slow care of someone whose knees had opinions. He set his cane against the wall. He opened his paper bag and took out a wrapped sandwich, then a small thermos, and then, to Ryan’s astonishment, a folded paper napkin that he spread carefully over his lap.

Ryan watched him unwrap the sandwich. Wax paper crackled. The smell of something simple drifted across the room, bread and mustard and cold meat.

He is eating breakfast in the executive waiting area, Ryan thought. At a company where people are being interviewed for jobs that pay half a million dollars.

He felt an irritation so sudden that it surprised him. It was not exactly anger. It was closer to the discomfort of seeing a stain on a white shirt. Everything in this room was supposed to signal excellence, and a man in a threadbare cardigan was chewing a sandwich in the middle of it.

He turned back to the window and tried to reclaim his concentration. He ran through his opening line. He pictured Priya Nair’s face when he cited the fuel-efficiency projections. He imagined the board nodding.

The crackle of wax paper came again.

Maribel returned with a glass of sparkling water on a small tray and set it on the table beside him. “The panel is finishing a prior meeting,” she said. “It should be about ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes,” Ryan repeated. “My appointment was for nine.”

“I apologize. They’ve been running a little behind this morning.”

“It’s not a problem,” he said, in the tone of someone for whom it was a problem. “I assume I won’t be penalized for their schedule.”