"Nobody's cancelling anything," Craig said from the phone. "Let's be clear. Apex Hydration is not cancelling. But the family positioning—"
"The family positioning," Dane said, to the ceiling.
"—the family positioning takes a hit when our guy is on forty million phones shoving a grandmother."
"She's not a grandmother," Dane said. "She's the cleaning—"
"She is fifty-two years old and reads as a grandmother on a phone screen, Dane, that's the whole—"
Diane, who had been silent in the way of a woman letting a fire burn down to coals she could manage, put one finger on the mute button with great gentleness. "Craig will wait," she said. "Rick. You had a plan. Let's hear the plan before we hear any more weather reports."
Rick brightened. Rick had the manager's gift of experiencing any room he was in as an opportunity. "Okay. Okay, here's the play. It's a great play. Friday, we do a thing. Cameras, but small, tasteful. Dane apologises to the lady — Mrs. Lindqvist — in person, on the mat, flowers, the whole grammar of sorry. We gift her something. A spa weekend. A cheque for, I don't know, a cleaning-services appreciation fund, we invent it, it polls great. Dane says he's been under pressure, camp's been brutal, no excuse but context. She accepts — she's a sweetheart, she'll accept, staff always accept — we get ninety seconds of absolution on the evening news and by Monday this is a story about a guy who owned it. I've already floated it to Tessa Okonkwo at the regional desk, she loves it, she says if it sings she can place it above the fold—"
"No," Diane said.
Rick blinked. "It's a *good* play, Diane."
"It's a photograph of an apology," Diane said. "She isn't in it. You've written her a part in a play about Dane, and the part is *staff always accept*. I've known Greta Lindqvist three years. She will not be your ninety seconds." She took her finger off the desk and folded her hands. "Here's the counter-offer, and I've thought about it since Tuesday. We don't stunt this away. We answer it. In the ring, properly sanctioned, exhibition rules, for charity — a charity exhibition between Dane and Greta, proceeds to the port youth fund. If she's who the slowed-down clip says she is — and Frank Barlow, who has never once been excitable in twenty years, sat in that chair yesterday and told me she is — then it's a real event, an honest one, and it raises real money for kids two streets from here who are exactly the age to start hitting things in worse places than a gym."
The office went quiet in a new key. Below, through the window glass, came the muffled percussion of the morning classes.
Dane laughed first. It was not his best laugh; it had something strained in it, but he committed to it, because committing was the whole of his talent. "Diane. Come on. She's fifty-two. She *mops* my mat. I'm headlining in six weeks. What am I supposed to do, fight the staff? Next it's Big Eddie, then I take on the towel service in a ladder match." He looked around for the laugh and got a thin one from nobody in particular. "The sponsors want sorry, give them sorry. Flowers. Whatever Rick said. I'm not getting in a ring with the cleaning lady because the internet had a feeling."
"The internet," Diane said, "had forty million feelings, Dane, and Craig is still on hold having several of them professionally." She looked at the speakerphone, then at Rick. "Unmute him, tell him Northgate is preparing a substantive response and he'll have it before Friday. Then both of you get out of my office and let me make a phone call I should make alone." She stood, which ended it. "Dane."
He was at the door, entourage-shaped even alone. "Yeah?"
"If she says no, I'll respect it, and we'll find another way, and you'll write her a letter by hand like a person. But understand me. I am not asking her to rescue your reputation. I am asking her whether she wants to do a good thing for the youth fund, in a ring, under rules, with her name on it. Those are different requests. One of them she might even accept."