Return Billionaire to Sender

by Annika Martin

  “Erp,” Nisha whispers.

  Walt raises his glass in a long-distance toast. Coralee nods. I copy Coralee, nodding at him from afar before I plaster my gaze down at my half-finished pasta, heart pounding.

  “What is this strange madness?” Nisha asks. “Will he come over here, now?”

  “Uncharted territory,” Coralee mumbles through unmoving lips, as if there’s even a danger of Malcolm reading lips.

  Everybody is more subdued as we finish our meals. Even the topic of conversation—football—is tamer now, as if he might hear.

  After dessert, Coralee announces she’s going aspirational shopping at the boutique in the lobby. Nisha claps. Nisha’s all in.

  “What’s aspirational shopping?” I ask.

  “It’s where we go to the boutique where they serve us bubbly while we try on designer gowns that we’ll never be able to afford,” Nisha says. “Come with. It’s fun.”

  “That does sound fun,” I say. Though it would be better if we were going shopping where I could afford things. I feel out of place in my business outfit. They’ll think I’m weird if I keep wearing the wrong clothes to everything.

  “I’ll pass,” Walt says.

  Coralee throws a wadded-up napkin at him. “You’re not invited.”

  The bill comes—separate checks. I take out my wallet.

  “What are you doing?” Walt asks. “You didn’t use up your per diem already, did you?”

  I frown. What’s a per diem? Is it the stipend? The way he says it, it sounds like it would be weird if I had used it up already. “No,” I say. “But I wasn’t sure…vis-a-vis your company culture…” I mumble as Willow taught me.

  “Put your room number and it’ll go toward your per diem,” Nisha says. She makes me tell her my room number and then she scribbles it on my check with a nice tip and throws it onto the table. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Coralee stands and grabs her purse. “We’ll be passing by him on the way out, but don’t engage unless he does,” she says to me. “Follow my lead.”

  I follow her and Nisha down past the row of booths. The path to the door takes us right past the corner where Malcolm scowls at his phone in the candlelight.

  He lifts his gaze as we near, expression mysteriously stormy, like he’s just learned lots of mysterious things on his phone that he feels really intensely about.

  Coralee nods as she passes and he nods back at her. Nisha exchanges nods with him, too. He catches my eye as I pass. I nod, ears buzzing like crazy. Luckily, my feet still work, carrying me ever forward.

  Did he nod back? I don’t even know, but I can feel the weight of his gaze on my skin as I follow my new coworkers out into the bright lobby.

  Nisha grins at me. “Your cheeks are all rosy,” she says. “When I drink, I just get puffy eyes.”

  “Red carpet time,” Coralee says, grabbing our arms and leading the way across the glamorous lobby. High above, a strange glass sculpture glimmers in the light.

  11

  Malcolm

  * * *

  Lying to oneself is one of the most idiotic habits. Just one more won’t hurt. Maybe this time will be different.

  How gullible do you have to be to believe a lie that you yourself tell yourself?

  Yet people do it. They do it a lot. It keeps them victims of their own ridiculous games.

  So just to be clear, I didn’t come down to the bar for a drink, though I could have tried to tell myself that. I didn’t need to stretch my legs; I didn’t feel like a change of scenery, nor was I up for a bit of a stroll.

  I wanted to see her.

  I’ve been unable to wrest my attention from her since the moment I collided with her in the lobby, and my inexplicable inability to ignore her only intensified when she turned out to be my coach. And then there’s that maddening, tantalizing butterfly bow tie.

  And the way she threatened me. Yes. She’s got my full attention now.

  Her sitting next to Lawrence was not my favorite thing ever. But then she left with Nisha and Coralee while Walt and Lawrence stayed behind, huddled up in intense conversation—American football, knowing them.

  I finish my drink just as a call comes in from Tokyo. I wander out to the lobby to take it, pacing around, guiding my software systems group across the ocean toward salvaging a deal. I’d assumed she’d gone up to her room, but some twenty minutes into the call, I spy her through a lobby shop window, or more, I spy a bit of her hair, partially hidden by mannequins. I’d know that hair anywhere.

  I find myself drifting nearer, settling into a seating area on the boutique side of the lobby, giving marching orders to a team a world away, while being entirely focused on the scene through the window of a women’s dress shop.

  Coralee moves in front of Elle at one point. Coralee wears a gown of blazing sapphire, and Nisha’s in a bright retro number with geometric pink shapes, but it’s Elle who shines. She’s in something subdued—a slim sheaf of light brown. A shade lighter than her honey-colored hair, it sets up a resonance—the gown enriching her hair, the hair enriching her gown.

  Before I know what I’m doing, I’m on my feet, moving even closer, mesmerized. I’m close enough to see that the two of them are listening, enrapt, to Nisha. Nisha’s talking and laughing and clapping. Nisha’s a woman with a clap for every occasion; on this one, she seems to be emphasizing a humorous point she’s making.

  Elle turns to the mirror. She smooths her hands over her hips and turns this way and that, army green eyes steady on her reflection.

  She likes the dress; that’s clear enough, and really it is perfect in the sexy way it grazes her barely there curves, perfect in the way it hugs her breasts, the way the scoop of the neckline frames the regal collarbones that she hides under those ridiculous pantsuits. I imagine running my finger along her collarbone, from one side to the other. The line of her collarbone is my second-favorite line on her, second only to the coy slope of her nose.

  She puts up her chin, straightens her back, and gazes at herself from where she stands at the corner of the shop, unaware of the world outside the store window, unaware of the fact that when a bad man stands in a certain place in the lobby, he is free to enjoy her secret communion with the mirror.

  Is the chin-up woman the woman she imagines would wear this dress? She turns again, taking herself in from another angle, and I think it’s most definitely bravery—that chin up attitude she puts on, as though she’s trying on the feeling of bravery the way she’s trying on an elegant dress. And in a flash of intuition, I know she’s thinking of me, thinking of facing me down. I could be wrong, but I don’t think that I am. I’m the dragon she’s been sent to torment, after all. I’m the one she requires bravery for.

  I drink in this unguarded moment, this private performance of bravery. Real bravery is tedious. But this girl’s put-on bravery is vulnerable and fascinating and entirely unexpected, just like her.

  I remember when I was first trying on my own look of bravery as a young boy; trying on bravery like an ill-fitting suit, a hard stare at the mirror, an invisible cloak, desperate for that brave feeling to become part of my very own exoskeleton.

  She turns again, straightens even more. This time she narrows her eyes at her reflection, lips slightly parted. This new look—good god—it’s demure and flirtatious and ever so slightly witchy at the same time.

  The playfully witchy look is gone as quickly as it appeared. And I’m left panting. I need more of that look. I could feast on that look forever. Brave Elle, witchy Elle. I want to peel back layer after layer of her. I want to taste every inch of her.

  Dimly, I’m aware of an annoying noise in my ear.

  My Bluetooth. Tokyo.

  “What?” I bark. “Say something worth saying and maybe I’ll listen.” I storm off in the other direction, shaking her out of my head.

  The next morning she’s standing with the team and two of our West Coast lawyers in the seating area nearest the lobby door. People stiffen up when I arrive. I
never cared about that before, but I don’t want Elle doing it.

  Elle is wearing another one of her suits. We’ve seen maroon and green; today’s is brown, but otherwise identical, aside from a new color of butterfly bow tie—this one simply black. I look hard, trying to determine whether it’s a clip-on bow tie or some sort of a slim scarf, threaded under the collar. I find it infuriating that I can’t tell.

  Also infuriating: that I’m expending mental resources on it.

  “Cars out there yet?” I ask.

  “Both,” Walt says.

  I point. “Walt, Elle, Nisha, you’re with me.” I head to the cars. What am I doing? I need to be focusing on this inaugural session.

  And why the iterated suits? I iterate my suits because I don’t like to use mental bandwidth on something stupid as clothing—a black suit for each day of the week. Decision made. But Elle’s in a barely skilled profession, regurgitating things she learned in some seminar. What does she need bandwidth for?

  We settle in. Elle ends up next to me on my left, and I can feel her energy, her heat, her nearness in a strangely palpable way. I tell myself it’s because she’s different, an oddball here, a square peg for a round hole—if there’s anything I hate, it’s a square peg for a round hole.

  I successfully force myself to stop thinking about the infernal tie, but that just leaves my wicked imagination free to focus on that witchy gaze she gave the mirror.

  Then I’m running a scenario where she gives me the flirtatiously witchy gaze while I slowly draw the tie free of her collar.

  I clear my throat. “What do you know about the meeting today?” I ask her.

  “Not that much,” she says. “A large family-owned logistics firm that is not keen on selling.”

  “Have you been instructed on protocol in the negotiating room? I have very strict preferences.”

  She swallows. “No.”

  “You will not react,” I say, “no matter what I do in there. You understand?”

  She nods, color riding high.

  It’s here that I realize she heard that sexy. I didn’t mean it sexy, but knowing she heard it that way nearly destroys my mind. And before I can stop myself, I lower my voice and ask, “Is that a problem?”

  “No,” she whispers hoarsely.

  And just when I need to be focused on the upcoming negotiation, I’m wondering furiously about her; what it would be like with her; what she would be like. In my mind I’m tracing the line of her collarbone. She’s in my bed looking up at me, watching me with that deliciously witchy expression.

  I lower my voice to a deeper register. “I might do some outlandish things in there.”

  Her expression is priceless.

  “Things that might even shock you,” I continue. “But they will be effective.”

  Her color deepens. “Okay,” she says.

  What am I doing? This is my executive coach, a woman sent to punish and torture me.

  I straighten up. “However, it’s far more likely I’ll seem friendlier than you know me to be,” I say. The truth. Hardball negotiation is for amateurs. “Let’s see your bored face.”

  “My bored face?”

  “Are you able to look bored? Can you act at all?”

  Walt leans forward and says, “It’s important to have a neutral face in there.”

  “Okay.” She sits up and puts on a little pout. “Wait—No.” She wipes the air in front of her face and tries it again.

  “No, no, no,” I say.

  “Okay, hold on.” She tries for a neutral face, but all I see is energy and excitement, badly hidden. And pale, freckled skin. There is one darker freckle at the edge of her lips, and I imagine tasting it, kissing it, or maybe just taking that entire side of her mouth into mine, and then I’d let her lips go and kiss her properly, full on. What would it take to turn her on? What would it take to get her to aim that flirtatiously witchy face at me?

  “You’re an observer,” I say, forcing my attention down to my phone, “but the Germantown Group doesn’t know that. They’ll assume you’re privy to inside knowledge, and they’ll be watching your reactions every step of the way.” I look up and meet her intelligent green gaze. “An undisciplined team can undermine a negotiator’s strength like nothing else. Even if you don’t understand what’s happening, they won’t know it, and they’ll be looking at you for cues. I can’t have you muddying the water. Your poker face…no.”

  She nods.

  “They’re going to give you a packet of materials when we get in there. Every time you feel eyes on you, every time you think something interesting’s going on, anytime you feel anything beyond neutral, you’re to look down at that material and don’t look up. Look at the packet the whole time if you need to.”

  “Okay,” she whispers.

  “Good,” I say. “I’m glad we understand each other.”

  Once again, her face blazes. She swallows, blinks. “Um, they say that h-he doesn’t want to sell.”

  “Deep down, I suspect he does,” I say, “but he won’t take a deal that fires his truckers and repurposes his assets, and that is the only deal he will ever see. The deal he wants existed in 1989, but it doesn’t exist today. And once his kid inherits, he’d be wise to break up the company first thing while it still has value, but Gerrold doesn’t want to face that reality either.”

  “Well, wouldn’t it be bad for the people to lose their jobs?” she says. “He cares about what happens to them. I think his loyalty is admirable.”

  “Whose side are you on here?” I tease.

  “It’s just…I’m imagining it from their points of view,” she says.

  “They haven’t exactly kept the self-driving car a secret,” I say. “Gerrold knew, the truckers knew, everybody knows it’s a dying business, and it has been dying for a long time. Gerrold didn’t see what was coming down the pike, or maybe he didn’t want to see, because he needed them. It doesn’t matter. I need his infrastructure. His distribution centers, his logistics, all of it.”

  “And he wants to teach his son to negotiate,” she says.

  I’m pleased to see she’s gone to school on the situation. “Exactly. A bit of schooling for Junior.”

  “So why are you indulging them? Why waste your time?”

  I lock on to her army green eyes, pinning her with my gaze. I need to stop this madness, but I don’t seem to be able to. “You can’t win if you don’t play.”

  She swallows. Nods. Freckles strewn like stars.

  12

  Noelle

  * * *

  The negotiation takes place in the Kendrick building, a gleaming tower in downtown San Francisco that seems to have been rented out for this specific purpose. Our conference room is on a high floor with glass windows all around that overlook the city.

  We all sit at a long table carved from a huge piece of wood, polished to a high gleam. Our team—Walt, Nisha, Coralee, Lawrence, and I—is on the fringes, and Malcolm and five people I haven’t met—the legal and money people, I’m guessing—sit in the middle of our side of the table across from Gerrold Jespersen Sr., owner of the Germantown Group, and his son, Gerrold Jr., and their people.

  Gerrold is a sixty-something man who wears one of those black Greek fisherman’s caps. He actually looks like a fisherman, burly and bearded. His son, Gerrold Jr.—Junior, as Malcolm calls him—is in his forties, thick like his father, but clean-shaven.

  I imagined a negotiation to be a tense affair, but on this first day, it’s more a getting-to-know-you session. Everyone even goes around and says their names, and some even tell a little bit of personal stuff, like one of Gerrold’s lawyers just moved out from Texas. Another of them explains his broken arm is from competitive tennis. Walt figures out that he and Gerrold’s accounts person have the same alma mater. I say I’m with HR—I was told to say that, and it’s more or less true. Training and coaching is considered an HR function.

  Gerrold talks up his business—the amazing service, the human touch, the state-of-th
e-art distribution centers. I expected Malcolm to pooh-pooh the value of the company—isn’t that what you’re supposed to do in negotiation? Act like there are problems with the thing you want to buy? Like kicking the tires on an old automobile? But Malcolm seems to have genuine appreciation for different aspects of the company. Now and then, Gerrold looks over at the son; it’s hard to tell if the son is following along; I half suspect he’s looking at his phone under the table.

  There’s even beverage service—you can order café lattes and espressos and things like that by text—and there is a giant platter of pastries in the middle of the table.

  People don’t seem that interested in the pastries, but I am—all I had for breakfast was some coffee in my room and one of the apples from the bowl that the hotel puts out in the lobby.

  Maybe it’s silly, but I can’t justify spending that per diem/stipend thing. I feel bad enough that I’m here under false pretenses, staying in a room on their dime. No way am I going to go living it up at restaurants.

  I don’t know, spending a bunch of Blackberg Inc.’s money on meals just feels like crossing a line.

  I take a croissant at one point when I feel like I’m falling asleep, and it turns out to be the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted. I’m still in way too much debt from my mother’s illness to justify expensive taste treats in my everyday life; the most I’ll do is throw in for pizzas with my girlfriends. But that’s more than food—spending time with my galpals is a lifeline to me.

  So I’m staring at the croissants, thinking about taking another. But nobody takes two—it seems like the culture of the meeting. Also, when I count them, it’s clear that they have one for each person, so it’s possible it’s against the rules.

  Even so, I spend my time identifying the exact one I’d take—it’s bigger than the rest, with way more almond paste in it, from the looks of it.

  It’s hard to focus on the negotiations and not the remaining almond croissants nestled among plain croissants and berry scones. I just want to eat them all.