“Natalya Nikolaevna, forgive me for being tactless, but how are you holding up over there? Managing all right? Drinking valerian?”
The voice of Sergey Borisovich, the owner of a chain of auto repair shops and my long-time client, sounded cautious over the phone, with faint notes of sympathy.
“Good morning, Sergey Borisovich. I’m drinking coffee,” I said, taking a sip from my cup. “Should I be drinking valerian?”
“Well, German Eduardovich called me about half an hour ago. He said that after the divorce you’ve become emotionally unstable. Crying, mixing up estimates, snapping at staff. So he, as a true gentleman, is taking control of business matters into his strong professional hands. And he asked that all new contracts be reissued directly to him. To a new account.”
I carefully placed my cup back on its saucer. Inside, there was neither anger nor hurt. Only the mild surprise of an entomologist watching a May beetle charge headfirst into a concrete wall. Having lost my apartment and the salary he had enjoyed as a nominal director, German had decided to steal the only thing he could still reach—my reputation.
“Please forward me his letter,” I asked calmly.
That evening, Dasha and I sat in the kitchen, studying my ex-husband’s literary masterpiece. The letter overflowed with words like “strategy,” “optimization,” and “rebooting partner relations.”
“Mom, honestly,” my daughter sighed, enlarging German’s signature on the tablet. “You fired the ‘general director’ but forgot the most basic thing.”
“What basic thing?”
“Information hygiene. When you fire a key employee, the first thing you do is change passwords, revoke access to clouds and databases, and send an official notice to clients explaining who handles the business now. And German dug up your old backup email on a free domain and is spamming contacts from three years ago.”
“Are you suggesting I call him and make a scene?” I snorted.
“Absolutely not,” Dasha said, putting the tablet aside. “Why waste energy on Dad’s shadow theater? Let’s just show the clients where the real entrance is. Send a proper announcement. And with this auto repair shop… let him dig his own hole.”
Sergey Borisovich turned out to be a man with a sense of humor and a practical business grip. He disliked empty, pompous words, but valued his money very highly. So he simply arranged a meeting with German in the lobby bar of a business center to “discuss new prospects.” Then he sent me the address and time with a short note: “Come by at three. We’ll listen to the soloist together.”
I arrived exactly at three.
German was sitting in a deep armchair, his arms spread so wide it looked as if he intended to embrace all of Moscow’s small business. He was wearing his best blue jacket. At the next table, hiding behind a ficus and nursing one cup of Americano for nearly forty minutes, sat Margarita Vasilyevna. Apparently, she had come to supervise her son’s return to the status of breadwinner.
“…and that is why, Sergey Borisovich, I am ready to offer you an exclusive twenty percent discount on full legal support,” German proclaimed in a velvety voice, sliding an old business card across the table. “Natalya is not in the right condition at the moment. She needs rest. And I am returning the business to a stable course.”
“An interesting proposal, German Eduardovich,” Sergey Borisovich said, scratching his chin. “Tell me, under our current contract from March, what penalty percentage did we set for suppliers?”
German blinked. The smile on his face froze slightly.
“Er… the standard one, Sergey Borisovich. Market rate.”
“Zero point one percent for each day of delay,” I said, approaching the table. “But no more than ten percent of the total amount of the act. Good afternoon, gentlemen.”
Sergey Borisovich immediately stood up and pulled out a chair for me.
German went pale. His confidence began to deflate rapidly, like a punctured balloon.
“Natalya?” he hissed through his teeth. “What are you doing here? This is a business meeting.”
“I came to see how you sell my services, Gera,” I said, sitting down and placing my hands on the table. “Go on. What other discounts were you planning to hand out from my pocket?”
“Don’t make a scene, Natalya!” German tried to furrow his brows to look stern. “I simply wanted to return our business to normal male hands! Without unnecessary emotions!”
“Gera,” I looked at him with slight pity, “a business is not a pot of borscht. You can’t just take it because you barged into the kitchen louder than everyone else and put on a pretty apron.”
From behind the ficus came an indignant snort. Margarita Vasilyevna could not hold back any longer. She abandoned her Americano and swooped down on our table like a hawk.
“That is not true!” she declared, shaking her handbag. “In my day, clients went to the one with charisma! Gera has grip! At my cheburek shop on Sukharevskaya, I pressed people with authority so hard that even the OBKhSS walked the line for me! Press them, Gerochka!”
I turned my gaze to my former mother-in-law.
“Margarita Vasilyevna,” my voice was quiet, but suddenly everyone in the lobby bar could hear me very clearly. “In your day, a client might still believe there was meat in a cheburek purely because of your charisma. These days, people read contracts.”
Sergey Borisovich could not hold back and burst out laughing openly.
“You know, Natalya Nikolaevna,” he said, rising from the table, “after today, I’ve understood one important thing. With you, things are somehow calmer. You don’t promise mountains of gold, discounts, or exclusives. You simply know where the documents are. I’ll be waiting for the addendum for the new branch from you this evening.”
He nodded to me, cast a disdainful glance at German, and headed toward the exit.
German sat staring into his empty coffee cup. All his polish had evaporated. It was finally clear: respect cannot be printed on a piece of cardboard, and professionalism does not transfer automatically along with a husband’s surname.
“Come on, Gerochka,” Margarita Vasilyevna commanded gloomily, tugging at her sweater. “Don’t cast pearls before swine. But on the way, we’ll stop by Pyaterochka. Buckwheat is on special today. I can’t carry much.”
German silently stood up and trudged after his mother toward the doors.
“Sir! Excuse me!” A waiter in a snow-white shirt ran up to them. “You forgot your cards on the table!”
He handed German a stack of old business cards bearing the proud inscription: “General Director.” My ex-husband snatched them from the waiter’s hand so sharply that several fell onto the carpet. He did not pick them up.
Half an hour later, I was already back in my office. I turned on my laptop, took a sip of fresh coffee, and opened my inbox. At the very top was an email from Sergey Borisovich confirming a new, very profitable contract.
I leaned back in my chair and smiled. My ex-husband had tried to steal my clients and my significance, but in the end… in the end, he brilliantly showed everyone who in this story had merely been decoration, and who was the real director.
