by Theresa Alan
Chapter 16
O n Monday morning, I meet with the execs from Woodruff Pharmaceuticals and give them a several-hours long presentation in a multimedia format that basically goes over the eighty-page report I sent them the week earlier. Highlighting what the report states in this way gives them the opportunity to ask questions and make comments as we go. I review the potential benefits and potential risks, and I tell them that, “While branching out into the area of diagnostic equipment could be a good move for WP in the future, at this time I believe the risks outweigh the potential benefits. The economy is just too rocky right now, and you don’t have the cash reserves to get through tough times, if that’s what it comes down to. I think the plan to acquire Ridan should be shelved until next year at the earliest.”
“But look at these numbers,” Kyle says, pointing to a chart that estimates what Exploran could yield the company in terms of revenue. “Look at that potential. I say we go for it.”
“Haven’t you been listening to a word she said?” Michael says.
In moments, the air in the room is like a wrestling match, with shouts and accusations being flung around like rotten fruit thrown at actors in a bad play.
I keep out of it. I’ve given them my opinion. It is possible that acquiring Ridan could be lucrative, but before it can become profitable, WP will have to expend a tremendous amount of capital that will severely strain their resources and could potentially be the ruin of the company.
I don’t like Kyle Woodruff, but I almost feel sorry for him. He does not know what he’s doing; he does not know how to run a business; but he feels like he should know what he’s doing and that he should know how to run a business because his father was a savvy businessperson, as if this were the sort of thing that was passed on through genetics rather than experience.
After an hour or so of debate in which I’m silent unless asked a question directly, Kyle says he thinks they should take a vote. He finally gets the men in the room to state their opinion about which way they are leaning. One by one he goes around the room—after skipping Michael and Dr. Lyons, stating “we already know how you two feel.”
Kyle starts with Brandon Donovan, a tall, forty-something guy full of arrogance and self-confidence. I suspect he was a star on his high school basketball team and never quite got over himself.
“So, Brandon, what do you think?” Kyle asks.
“Well, I’m concerned about what happens if the stock market takes a hit. With all the political unrest in the middle east…what if there comes another event like September Eleventh? Are we going to be able to survive if we outlay the capital we’ll need to ensure Exploran is a success?”
“Obviously, Brandon, no one can predict the future,” Kyle says. “Are you suggesting that we don’t make any strides forward just in case there is political unrest or the uncertainty of terrorist activity in the future? Because if that’s the case, we may as well shut our doors right now. I can guarantee that wars will continue raging in some corner of this planet and a few terrorist insurgents will continue to voice their unhappiness in violent and destructive ways.”
“Of course you’re right, I just meant—”
“I think the bigger question is, do you think Ridan can take our company into untapped markets, thus bringing the potential for new growth and new opportunities?”
“Clearly, the numbers show that that’s possible.”
“So then what you’re saying is that you’re in favor of acquiring Ridan Technologies?”
“Ah…yes, that’s what I’m saying.”
If an executive or board member sounds like he is wavering in favor of holding off on making a bid on Ridan, Kyle keeps hammering away at him, asking questions until he at least sounds like he’s agreeing with Kyle. Then Kyle says, “So you agree that we should move forward with the acquisition?”
Then the man, tentative and vaguely confused, will nod, “Yes, I think we should.”
So okay, I take it back—Kyle does know what he’s doing. Maybe not how to run a business, but he sure knows how to get his way because in the end, the vote is eight to seven in favor of purchasing Ridan Technologies and acquiring Ridan’s primary technology, Exploran.
Basically, Kyle Woodruff paid me thousands of dollars to do the exact opposite of what I recommended based on several weeks of research.
The meeting breaks up. Some people leave, others cluster together talking. As I pack up my laptop and briefcase, Kyle comes up to me and says, “Eva, I just wanted to commend you on some exceptional work. As we discussed earlier, I told you this project had the potential to take on a life of its own and there might be several stages to it. I’d very much like you to be a part of the next phases. Specifically, we’re going to need help communicating the news of this purchase with all the satellite offices, and we’ll need assistance in planning our marketing and communication strategies for external audiences. I’d like you to help with that.”
There is a large part of me that would like to say no. Why would I want to be a part of communicating what a great idea it is for WP to acquire Ridan when I don’t, in fact, think it’s a good idea? But I don’t have any other projects lined up. I was too busy working on this project to generate other leads. So, I tell him I’ll be happy to.
And then, as I leave WP World Headquarters, it hits me that I’m not happy to. Not happy one bit.
Chapter 17
I spend the few days before Dad and his new girlfriend arrive furiously cleaning the house and my car. It takes so much more time to really clean the house than to do the cursory cleaning I normally do. I have to clean everything , every nook, windowsill, closet, cabinet, appliance, and window. I do piles of laundry and clean the sheets and comforters. I vacuum with such vigor I break into a sweat. I wash and vacuum my car. And at last, I decide that, while it’s still not perfect, my house is as clean as it’s going to get.
I bought my home a year ago. It was the first time I’d ever owned my own place. My father has never seen it before, and since he’s got a carpenter’s eye for detail when it comes to homes and buildings, I’m worried about what he’s going to think about it. When I first moved in, I spent a few weeks in a flurry of redecorating. I’d never paid the slightest attention to details like faucet colors, light fixtures, and door handles, but the moment I became a home owner, these seemed like hugely important details. There is no escaping it: When you become a home owner you are sucked into the Home Depot Vortex.
It started with little things: Shades for the living room and kitchen, a new lock for the door. The woman who’d owned it before me had painted the entire house in a pale, cheery yellow, and I decided I’d just do a little painting. Paint was only twenty dollars a can or so, right? And how hard could it be? I’d wrap it up in a weekend.
Two weeks, countless frustrations, and hundreds of dollars in primer, paint, and equipment later, the master bedroom, the guest bedroom, and the downstairs basement were delightful shades of pale green, rich blue, and medium rose, respectively.
It wasn’t easy getting there. I may well be the worst painter on the planet. Because my walls have a bumpy pattern—knockout, I learned it’s called—trying to get a straight line where the blue wall met the white ceiling was challenging indeed, as the paintbrush would bump along on the hills and valleys of the textured walls. I tried four different kinds of paintbrushes before I found one that worked just this side of miserably. In several places, I splattered the white ceiling with splotches of blue paint. So I took some white paint that had been left in the basement to cover it up. I didn’t realize that I was using gloss paint against a flat white ceiling until the next day, when the paint was dry and shining patches of ceiling beamed out at me like stage lights.
Every ten minutes I would need to run back to Home Depot: I’d run out of masking tape; I’d need a different kind of brush; I’d need a lightbulb for the spotlight that lit my way. I began to hate Home Depot, its magnetic pull, its seemingly inescapable hold on me.
What was worse was that in the process of deciding what colors to paint the rooms, I’d flipped through dozens of decorating books and magazines for ideas. Looking at those beautiful homes in which every item in every room—every piece of furniture, every decoration, every floor and window covering—were perfectly coordinated and stunningly executed was like trying heroin for the first time and becoming instantly addicted. I salivated over the spacious kitchens, the stunning designs, the gorgeous furniture. The internal mantra began: I want, I want, I want.
I decided I simply couldn’t tolerate the old carpeting. If I emptied out my savings account, I could get lovely new carpet. And it would help the resale value too, right?
Without hesitation, I eviscerated the remainder of my savings account and ordered the new carpeting.
I thought of several more expensive improvements I could not live without, even though my credit card was getting so much use I was developing ulcers.
I finally had to go cold turkey on the decorating magazines before I ravaged my finances any more. But right now, as I think about my father seeing where I live, I wish I’d done more. In fact, I wish I’d never bought this place to begin with. I hate everything about it.
W ill and I pick Dad and his girlfriend Annabella up from the airport. Annabella is a beautiful woman. She’s thin and has dark hair and dark eyes, great clothes, and funky jewelry. It looks like Dad’s taste in women has improved considerably since Deanne.
Dad and I exchange hugs and great-to-see-yous. He congratulates me once again on my engagement and then says to Will, “So, this is the guy who finally convinced Eva to tie the knot, huh?” He gives Will a big handshake.
We pile into my car. The first thing out of Dad’s mouth is this: “Have you ever cleaned these windows?”
Immediately, I’m embarrassed by my inadequate car-cleaning skills. I’d tried so hard to get my car into sparkly great shape, but I forgot to clean the inside of the windows and so, of course, that’s the first thing Dad notices.
“I guess not.” I laugh, but I’m mortified. “So, how was your flight?” (Notice my deft work in changing the subject.)
We make idle chitchat on the drive home. When we get to my place, I give them a tour of the house. They don’t say any of the stuff they are supposed to say, like, how cute and homey the place is.
“So, what do you think?” I say, determined to get praise somehow, even if I have to beg for it.
“It’s cozy,” Dad says.
“Well, yes, I guess with all of Will’s things here, we don’t have any extra space really,” I say.
“I couldn’t bear to have all my walls bumpy like this,” Dad says, patting a wall. When Dad makes the comment, I want to tear all the walls down and start over. But there’s nothing I can do about it now, so instead I just get everyone something to drink and get started on making dinner. I’m making an asparagus and sundried tomato risotto recipe. I tried it out on Will the week before and we determined it was edible, which makes it one of the few dishes I’ve experimented with that we can say that about. As I chop vegetables and prepare the meal, Dad, Annabella, and Will sit at the kitchen table not ten feet from the counter where I’m working.
“How’s work going?” Dad asks me.
“Great. I may get flown out to Germany next month as part of this major consulting project I’m working on for Woodruff Pharmaceuticals. I’ll go with an interpreter, naturally.”
“Everyone in Germany is miserable. The Germans all have unhappy marriages,” Dad says.
I wish I could tell you I was making this up. You’ll notice, if you haven’t already, that my father makes sweeping generalizations based on no evidence whatsoever. My guess is that he talked to an acquaintance who has one unhappily married friend in Germany, and Dad has extrapolated this and decided it’s a fact across an entire culture and country. When Dad talks, you can just hear the gavel coming down and the words “OZ HAS SPOKEN” bellowed in the background.
I used to think my father was omniscient. I thought of him as more or less as a superhero, someone who could protect me from all harm, the real and the imagined.
When he would go away on business trips, leaving me, Mom, and Sienna alone, I couldn’t sleep. I was too worried about the burglar-murderers who’d slice my sister, mother, and me to pieces with no problem at all without Dad there to protect us.
Dad unknowingly cultivated my belief that he was omniscient and omnipotent. When I was young, no matter what I asked him, he always had an answer. He spoke with such unwavering authority, such absolute confidence, I really thought he knew everything.
Then one day when I was about seventeen, Dad and I were at McDonald’s eating french fries, and Dad said something about how potatoes were a delicacy in Russia, a real treat, and weren’t we lucky that McDonald’s cranked fried potatoes out by the millions for us here in America?
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Dad, I’m pretty sure that potatoes are like one of the main things Russians eat. I mean isn’t that what vodka is made of?”
“You know,” Dad said, nodding, processing what I’d said with a thoughtful look, “you may be right, I may have gotten that backward.”
I sat there in stunned silence. The curtain had been pulled back, the wizard was just an ordinary man, and he was blithely eating french fries as my universe crumbled around me.
Of course, it was just the first of many times that would illustrate that my father was a mere mortal. The desire to believe that my father is omniscient still lingers, though. Even now, everything Dad says he says with such conviction, without the doubt or hesitation or I’m-not-really-sure-but-I-think sort of phrases that permeate my sentences. I still want to believe everything he says, but now I can’t, I always have to wonder.
Chapter 18
T he visit with my father goes better than expected, and I get through the weekend relatively unscathed. Just the two self-esteem hits about my inadequate car-window cleaning skills and my too-small house with textured walls. Dad and his girlfriend are only here for two days, but it seems like a lifetime. It’s just exhausting trying to keep two people entertained twenty-four hours a day.
The good news is that I like Annabella a lot. She’s sweet, and kind, and she treats my dad well. The four of us are eating breakfast at a restaurant called Bump & Grind, which has a Petticoat Brunch on weekends. That just means that all the waitstaff are men in drag. It’s a fun place, with toys on the table for you to play with while you wait for your meal. There are also funny little hats and headbands that make you look like you have blond braids or springy alien antennae. Dad looks hilarious wearing the blond braids. He never would have put those on when I was a kid. He’s mellowed considerably now that he’s older. Maybe it’s Annabella’s doing. She is an amazingly positive, happy woman. She determinedly sees only the bright side of things. She’s a jewelry maker, so she’s got that artist flaky thing going for her. She’s nice and smart in a vacant sort of way. Or maybe Dad’s chilled out now that he doesn’t have to worry about supporting two daughters anymore. The only duties required of him as a parent are a once yearly visit and the occasional phone call.
It’s interesting to watch your parents grow and change. Maybe some people’s parents never evolve, but that’s not the case with mine. I’ve watched my parents date, fall in love, fall out of love, and have their hearts broken and their dreams crushed. I’ve seen the entire evolution of my mother’s career from being the low man on the totem pole to having a stressful, powerful position making lots of money. And now I’m witnessing my stressed-out father learning how to enjoy life. I’m jealous. He’s learned how to relax and I’m still stuck in basketcase mode.
“Are you two thinking about getting married?” I ask Annabella.
“We’re actually talking about moving in together, but I don’t want to get remarried,” Annabella says.
“Really? Why?”
“There are just too many financial considerations. I’ve done marriage once. That was enough. But congra
tulations to you on your engagement.”
I laugh. After she’s just told me that she no longer believes in marriage, she congratulates me on my engagement. There seems to be a pattern here. “Thanks.”
“Have you started planning it?”
I nod. “I’ve started checking out reception sites.
“Have you picked a date?”
“Nothing official.”
“Well, I’m just excited to be able to walk one of my daughters down the aisle at last,” Dad says.
“Oh, Dad, you’re not going to walk me down the aisle.” He looks at me. He’s initially taken aback by that announcement, and then he looks hurt. “It’s nothing against you or anything, it’s just that I want Will and I to walk down the aisle together, hand-in-hand. I don’t like that whole ‘being given away’ concept. I’m not being given away, Will and I are choosing to go into this thing together.”
Dad smiles the kind of smile that is a mere curvature of the lips and doesn’t extend to his face or eyes.
“I suppose you’ll want some help paying for the wedding though. The bride’s father paying for it—I bet that’s a tradition you’ll follow.”
Ouch. The way he says it has a harsh tone of anger masked beneath the surface. “No, Dad. Actually, Will and I are going to pay for everything ourselves.”
Now I’ve truly stunned him.
“I mean, Dad, if we’d gotten married in our twenties, then yes, we definitely could have used the help, but we’re well-established in our careers. We have money in the bank. We’ll take care of everything ourselves.” I think back to what a struggle it was to get through college when I was so dependent on Dad’s checkbook to help me achieve my goal of getting a degree. I never want to feel that dependent on him again.
Dad brightens considerably. “Really? Well, maybe I can pay for the rehearsal dinner or something.” Everything is different now that he knows I don’t expect his money. Now, he can pay for things not out of duty, but because he wants to.
