Grant's answer arrived on March 14, printed on Bellweather Auction Rooms stationery and placed beneath the catalogue proof I was supposed to approve. I read the offer twice before touching the proof. The salary was enough to make a lender listen. The condition was equally plain: advancement depended on completing the scheduled sale, including Nolan's consignment, and a satisfactory review afterward.
I carried both documents into Grant's office. He had cleared a space between two stacks of proofs, precisely the width of an open catalogue. When I set the offer there instead, he glanced at it and moved his coffee away.
"You wanted it in writing," he said.
"I did. I also need to change the entry." I opened the proof to Nolan's property and laid my marked sheet alongside it. The original summary described a collection retained within one family, supported by records. My replacement specified which records existed and which stretches of purchase history remained undocumented.
Grant read without picking up his pen. Through his window I could see a man across the street washing the same corner of a window until someone inside moved a chair. It was easier to watch that small practical negotiation than Grant's face.
"This makes the collection sound suspect," he said.
"The existing version makes the documentation sound complete."
"Nobody said complete." He put his finger beneath the sentence. "Family ownership. Supporting papers. Both true."
I explained the unmatched inventory entries, the receipts that supported some groups but not others, and the difference between Nolan's recollection and a record I could cite. Grant listened, then asked whether I had found anything proving the bottles were wrong. I said no. He spread his hands as if I had finally reached his point.
"That isn't the same as supporting what we wrote," I said. "A reader shouldn't have to guess where our checking stopped."
He leaned back. "What does Perrin want?"
"He's looking for more papers. I'm going to his apartment on Saturday. Until then I want this held from final approval."
Grant drew the proof closer and circled my longest sentence. He suggested a shorter qualification, then a footnote. Neither identified the actual missing history. I heard myself beginning to bargain over adjectives as though the right arrangement could make the underlying problem smaller. I stopped and asked him to read the two versions as a buyer would.
"A buyer reads everything as a reason to pay less," he said.
"Then Nolan needs to know that before he decides to sell."
For the first time he looked at the offer between us. I had left it uncovered, an appeal I hadn't intended to make so openly. He tapped the condition with his pen and told me that a review was permissible. The proof could wait while I examined the additional papers. He would not authorize an unsupported statement merely to keep a sale moving.
Relief came quickly enough that I nearly thanked him before he finished.
"But I can't promise the position if this consignment comes out," he said. "The work and revenue we discussed would no longer be the same. You understand that."
I asked whether the rest of my work could support the appointment. He said it supported my present job, which was not in question. The proposed responsibility was larger, and the sale was part of the basis for offering it. His tone was neither angry nor apologetic. That made it harder to argue with.
"So I can review the papers," I said, "but I can't count on the offer surviving what I find."
"You couldn't count on it before. That's why there are conditions."
I wanted to tell him about the house, the valuation and the pencil mark Mara had made me put beside my actual income. Instead I asked him to initial the hold on the proof. Household need couldn't turn an estimate into evidence, though I had been hoping professional success might somehow spare me that distinction.
He initialed it and returned my replacement wording with two sensible edits. I accepted both. We agreed to reconsider the entry after Saturday, without treating the review itself as a finding against the collection.
Back at my desk I filed the offer separately from Nolan's papers. I had imagined that a written promise would settle one uncertainty while I dealt with another. Instead it had shown me exactly where they joined. I called Nolan to confirm Saturday and told him the catalogue entry was being held. Then I put Mara's valuation beneath my own notebook, where no client would mistake it for part of his file.