My Attorney Set The Original Note Beside The Separation Papers

I handed the separation agreement back without signing it.

"My paycheck doesn't need this," I said. "Please tell payroll to use the usual account."

The office manager looked relieved. Her name was Beth, and she had spent that morning being sent into rooms she did not want to enter.

"He said the lender agreed to wait," she told me.

"Did you see that in writing?"

"No."

"Neither did I."

At ten, Leena arrived in a navy raincoat with water shining on the shoulders. She was forty-one, Egyptian American, and carried a square black case with no loose papers sticking out. She checked the name on the visitor sheet before she signed it.

"Still Salma Haddad?" she asked me.

"Despite efforts to reduce it."

She gave me a small smile.

Dorian met us outside the glass conference room.

"This isn't a good day for an employment dispute."

"I agree," Leena said. "I represent Cedar Interval Holdings LLC. We have a scheduled transaction meeting."

His smile stayed up. His eyes changed.

"Then why is Salma here?"

I opened the blue folder.

"Because I manage Cedar Interval. My family owns it. I decide what it does with this note."

He looked at my cardigan again, as if the answer might have changed its price.

"I thought that was your brother's fund," he said.

"Our fund. My brother approved the investment. I managed it. That was in the disclosure."

"You let me believe somebody else handled it."

Leena opened her case.

"We'll use the records to establish what was disclosed," she said. "We don't need to guess what anyone believed."

"You don't have that kind of money."

"You had that kind of money. You wired it to the cooling contractor."

Leena waited while he worked through that.

We had sold the warehouse where my mother once ran a sewing shop near East Sprague. My brother and I had kept the proceeds in our family company. He managed the property investments. I managed the cash, with his written consent.

The loan had not been a secret favor from my own thin paycheck. It had been a documented investment, approved by our family and reviewed by counsel.

Dorian had received Cedar Interval's name, its formation papers, and Leena's contact details. The required ownership schedule had gone to his finance officer. I had never promised him that the person behind the fund would be a stranger.

He had supplied that promise himself.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You asked for a lender that could fund by Thursday. We funded by Thursday."

Mara stood up inside the conference room.

"Should I bring our counsel back?"

"Please," Leena said.

Dorian tried to close the door behind us. Mara held it until her attorney joined the call on the wall screen.

Leena laid down the note, the board's approval, and the payment receipt.

"Principal, $2,400,000," she said. "Accrued simple interest through today's agreed calculation date, $192,000. Total, $2,592,000."

"We can roll that over," Dorian said.

"Our client hasn't agreed to that."

"The deal clears everything."

Mara turned toward him. "This is a purchase from shareholders. We aren't buying your debt away."

His own shares would produce cash for him. The company would receive none of that purchase price. I watched him realize he could no longer let those two piles of money blur together.

Leena turned to page seven.

"A proposed sale of more than half the voting stock opens an election period before signing. The holder can require repayment at closing or convert the outstanding balance at sixty cents per share."

"Standard language," Dorian said.

"Signed language," she replied.

The company had 3,680,000 shares outstanding. Conversion would add 4,320,000. Cedar Interval would hold fifty-four percent of the resulting eight million shares.

Enough votes to replace the board.

The note also required the company to cooperate in seating a board with an independent majority if the holder converted for a control sale. Leena had asked for that protection when the dishes went dark. Dorian had called it harmless.

"This is an ambush," he said.

"You sent a separation form that tried to waive creditor rights," I said. "Who wrote that paragraph?"

He did not answer.

The buyer's attorney asked for the full lender file. Leena sent the copy she had prepared, then checked the time on her watch.

Mara closed her laptop.

"No signing at two until this is resolved."

Dorian leaned toward me.

"You want your desk? Fine. Have the desk. Don't wreck everybody's sale over a bruised ego."

"I want the company to keep its promises."

"You have no idea what that will cost."

Leena slid a printed cash report across the table.

It showed $118,600 available, with Friday payroll of $164,000 still unpaid.

Stapled behind it was a wire request for $186,400 to a vendor I had never put on a station schedule.