Bitter Business

her himself? Why drag all the way downtown and waste an hour in order to ask me? “We discussed the possibility of the family buying back Lydia’s shares.”
    “Lydia will never sell those shares,” Philip announced, shaking his head in a gesture of disapproval that bordered on disgust. “This is just another case of Lydia standing up and saying ‘Look at me.’ She wants to make us jump through hoops. She’ll keep us negotiating until we’re blue in the face, but I guarantee we’ll never reach an agreement. Believe me, this stunt is no different from any of the others.”
    “What others?”
    “Lydia pulls crap like this all the time. For example, last year she announced that she was going to take her job as director of community relations more seriously. More seriously, what a joke. You’ve been to the plant— what do we need a director of community relations for? It’s just a title my father made up so that we can justify Lydia’s phony salary to the 1RS. But Lydia went ahead with it. She pushed our sales manager out of his office and ordered ten thousand dollars’ worth of new furniture.
    Her first week on the job all three secretaries gave notice.”
    “Why?”
    “They refused to work with her. Dad had to give them raises. By the end of the second week they were all calling her Princess Lydia. By the third week they were saying it to her face.”
    “And by the fourth week?”
    “She stopped coming in. She told Dad that her doctor didn’t want her near all the toxic chemicals in the plant. She was pregnant with the twins at the time.”
    “And was that the real reason?”
    “There are no toxic chemicals in the office,” snapped Philip. “She’d gotten bored, that’s all. She thought it would be glamorous getting dressed up and coming to work every day. She’s always envied Dagny... but it’s all a game to her. At first she got a kick out of pretending to be the big important businesswoman, but when she got down to the nitty-gritty—the grind of getting up and going to work and actually doing a job—then she lost interest.”
    “Dagny seemed to think that you’d be happier with Lydia off the board.”
    “Happier? I’d be ecstatic. But as I said before, I think the possibility of that actually occurring is remote.”
    “Because you think she doesn’t really want to sell?”
    “Why would she want to sell? If she didn’t own any shares in the company, then she wouldn’t be able to use them to torture us whenever she felt like it. If you knew Lydia you’d realize how ludicrous it is to take her seriously.”
    I thought about my conversation with Dagny and the letter that she’d received from Lydia’s investment bankers. I was getting whiplash bouncing from one family member to another’s prediction of what was going to happen.
    “Have any of you talked to her about this since receiving her letter?” I demanded in frustration. “If it’s attention she’s after, maybe that’s all she wants.”
    “When I want to speak to Lydia about anything, you’ll be the first one to know,” Philip announced, with a dry cough.
    “Why’s that?”
    “Because I have absolutely no intention of speaking to my little sister without an attorney present.”
     
    After Philip had gone I buzzed Cheryl and asked her to set up a meeting for me with Lydia Cavanaugh.
    “Sure thing,” she said. “Your mother’s on hold for you on line two.”
    “I’ll give you fifty dollars if you tell her I’m not here,” I pleaded.
    “I bet she’d give me a hundred just to put her through. Would you please stop being a baby and just pick up the phone?”
    I took a deep breath and punched the button.
    “Hello, Mother,” I said sweetly. “Welcome home. How was your trip?”
    My mother had just returned from her semiannual swing through Europe with her friend Sonny Welborn to shop the couture shows.
    “The clothes were awful and the French get ruder every year. The models were all emaciated and very unattractively made up. I don’t think I saw one item of clothing that one could actually wear in public. I did order some things at St. Laurent, so at least the trip wasn’t a complete waste of time. But that’s not why I called. I wanted to remind you of your obligations.”
    “Saturday night at eight o’clock,” I cut in quickly. “It’s been on my calendar for six weeks. Dinner for Grandma Prescott at the Whitehall Club.”
    “I assume you’ve already invited Stephen?”
    “Of course,” I