She wondered what Ron would do if she forgot the unwritten rules of a business lunch and confided in him about her sex life. Told him her man knew how to turn her into a writhing, screaming, pleasure-seeking hoyden, but that she’s scared him recently and he was being so careful with her she wanted to string him from the ceiling and beat it out of him. Too much information, and not just for Aaron, she wouldn’t tell anyone that, but it would be fun to fluster Aaron with bawdy bedroom talk. He almost deserved it.
But if she told him exactly how much of a private passion Mace was and exactly how she spent most of her time in front of an easel, Aaron would write her off as a serious career contender before their order went in. And he had an influential network, the members of which would chew up that information like a stoner with the munchies.
If she wanted this lunch to be the shortest on record, she’d dangle the idea of being in a permanent relationship with Mace because that was virtually the same thing as announcing she was fifteen months pregnant with quads, or becoming a nun, or retired. Or dead.
She looked at her copy of the menu, wondering if they had duck, because it was unlikely they had goose or gander but that’s what was going on here. Two ex-wives, attendant public scandal—wife two was almost a teenager—and four kids weren’t a liability for man. A wedding ring on a woman’s hand was a bat signal there could be serious, long-term work-incompatible distractions coming.
God, where did that thought come from? Marriage wasn’t anywhere on her agenda. A serious relationship wasn’t either, but now that she had one, she was intending to hold on tight, even knowing more than Mace did about what stresses they’d need to get though. He was easily the best thing that that had happened to her. Without him, and without her brushes and her art classes, she’d have been far less mentally capable of waiting out her waiting period and more inclined to snap Aaron’s head off.
“Really enjoying the time off, but very keen to get back into it again,” she said, giving good old Ron almost nothing he could work with.
He gave her a calculating look. Searching for a line to read between. He could search all he liked.
“I’m bored, Aaron. I want to be working again, but it’s a waiting game.” Maybe that was what he was waiting for. If he had anything up his sleeve to offer that was his introductory line.
“How’s Tom?”
They’d probably throw her out, maybe charge her with malicious use of silverware if she lurched across the table and stabbed Aaron with a fish fork. He should’ve asked Tom for lunch. She could’ve had this discussion with Aaron on the phone. If she made some excuse she could skip lunch altogether and be back in her studio before the light died. “Busy, I imagine.”
“Sure, but how’s he coping?”
She studied the menu so hard the type blurred. That was better than screaming at the lunch crowd about Tom being a scumbag opportunist, much like Aaron. “You mean is he in the market for consulting services? I have no idea.” She had no idea if Tom still had two arms and legs either, but she assumed so. She’d had no contact with him. She’d have to do something about that, Tom wasn’t Malcolm and he hadn’t deliberately gone out of his way to steal her best ideas. Even if it did feel that way. “You’d have to ask him.”
“Right, but I thought you’d have insight on the best way to approach him.”
Which translated into that’s the way you pay your share of the use of this tablecloth and that cutlery in these very pleasant fine dining surroundings.
She could be in her car in ten minutes, home in thirty, have a paintbrush in her hands in another five. Or she could swing by the school and see if anyone was around for coffee, or to sneak in a movie; all of that would be more fun than this. If Mace wasn’t so stressed about his presentation she could kidnap him for a late lunch. But none of that would keep her network humming, none of that back scratching and favour bank building would be in place when she needed it, and she was going to need it. She took a calming breath, the kind that traditionally went with yoga pants, and ordered a salad.
While they ate, she talked Aaron through the best way to approach Tom, and the most likely needs for consulting services. It hardly mattered since her Wentworth bridges were torched with intergalactic fire. While they ate, Mace would be fretting his pitch. Though he had it locked, nothing to worry about. She’d rehearsed him till he was almost verbose with it, even threatened him with a re-enactment of the Hugh Jackman, John Travolta interview scene from Swordfish. In her version, he’d pitch instead of hack, and she’d intended to give him more than sixty seconds of distracting attention involving her mouth and tongue and the most sensitive, responsive piece of his anatomy.
She smiled at the memory of Mace’s horror, and how he’d laughed when she’d explained he was most free with his tongue when she wasn’t able to be free with hers. It put an end to rehearsing, but not to laughter.
While Aaron ate chocolate cake, she realised the most interesting things in her life weren’t going on at this table, or at Wentworth or Turnbull and Co, they were happening in her loft home with Mace, in her studio with her paints, and in the classroom she’d entered with a mixture of fear and determination, half expecting to fail and wanting to push herself to prove she could still stand and fight, even with her knees cut off.
Aaron was an associate, not a friend. They would never sneak out and watch a movie together, and he could check out her legs all he wanted, he’d never get past the acceptable public mauling of a kiss on the cheek.
All of that was more disorienting than how easy it was to build a strategy for Aaron out of nothing more than his enquiry, a plate of seafood salad and her deep knowledge of the bank and its issues, as well as the best way to appeal to Tom.
On one hand, it was good to know she hadn’t lost the ability to think about strategic issues amidst all the new focus on shapes and textures, lines and layering, colour and form. On the other, it was a shock to realise how much her life away from her usual life was starting to mean to her.
And despite the flaming bridges, perhaps she shouldn’t be giving this knowledge away for the price of a posh lunch.
Aaron promised to stay in contact, keep her informed of any movements in the job market, or opportunities she should be aware of. Hell would sprout snowmen first, but still, he owed her one now, so maybe the lipstick wasn’t a complete waste.
She made it back to home in time to catch the last of the good daylight, but she was too distracted to get much done in the studio. Lunch with Aaron was a magician’s misdirection. All the look of something important happening, but it was Mace’s pitch that was the showstopper. Win or lose, it was going to change things. Alone with her music and art, it was hard not to stop herself nurturing the tiniest hope the pitch failed.
Not because it would cut Mace in half and devastate Dillon, but because if the pitch failed, she and Mace would go on as they had been, in this gorgeous bubble of unexpected freedom and affection they’d built together. If it failed, they had time and space and energy for each other. If it failed, they had a chance to be lovers and partners and there was no outside agenda that could make it hard to be devoted, to split their attention.
Hoping for failure made her a terrible person. The take no prisoners, cold, hard, bitch type she’d inferred she was to Aaron, that Mace had first taken her for, but she didn’t care, because if Summers-Denby funded Ipseity, she was well aware of what they faced as a couple and she’d need to be strong to get through it.
For Mace it would be a rollercoaster rocket ship ride. He’d need to climb on board and hang on tight or get thrown off. They’d be no second ticket. It was one shot, nothing guaranteed, step out of line, lose your place, and someone with grippier hands would step in.
And much as she could coach and cheer from the sidelines, the most she could be in this was the magician’s assistant. The one left holding the bunny, while Mace took the applause.
It wasn’t jealousy. Nothing as simple as that. It was his turn and he’d wor
ked so hard for it, and she knew what it felt like to have a goal, coat it in dream and work for it—thrilling, miraculous, life-altering. She wanted him to have that for himself.
It wasn’t envy or resentment that he was starting when she’d failed either, but it might’ve been, and she could’ve talked herself out of that mean-spiritedness because she loved that man.
It was so much worse.
If Mace won his funding, if Ipseity gestated, it meant the pressure on them as a couple would be immense. It was unrealistic not to fear that. After Brent, she’d spent her life in anticipation of it. Staying aloof because being involved was too complicated. She knew the cost of dreams, she’d paid them. Mace was still learning the full penalty rates.
But in spite of vague premonitions of doom, she’d hope for success, she’d revel in it with Mace and she’d find a way to do more than coach and cheer. She’d use her fear and knowledge to make sure they didn’t fail, to make sure they were smarter, stronger, more able to press back on a world that could squeeze them lifeless, because that idea of permanence, it’d come to her at the oddest moment and seemed so awkward and embarrassing, but it was stuck in her head and wouldn’t shake free.
Not the sugarplum fairy white dress and tiered froufrou cake stuff of a wedding fantasy, that wasn’t her thing, but the idea of the kind of security and belonging, of deep trust and partnership, of being supported and cherished, that came with loving one incredible person who loved you just as hard back. That was a dream she had no intention of giving up and every means of fighting for.
It made her nervous in a way she didn’t remember having been for a long time, sick to the stomach and a little light-headed. She itched to ring Jay, text him, take a back channel approach to check in on Mace, but even Jay wouldn’t play that game, she was forced to wait. She made a tuna pasta, enough for both boys, and then wandered around, vaguely tidying up, waiting for Mace’s key to go in the door and the next phase of their lives together to start.
30: Quit
Mace stood at the head of the boardroom table. His collar was too tight. He hated this tie. The new suit was charcoal with a light pinstripe and made him feel like an insurance salesman. He had no insurance, if this failed they were out of luck, and he was no salesman, but that’s the job that was expected of him now.
He should’ve come in his jeans, at least then he’d be comfortable when his ambition got blasted to pieces and his future caved in around him, but he’d listened to Dillon who’d insisted he dress like everyone else in the room, and that it was bad luck to wear the suit he’d bought for Buster’s funeral and had worn to each of their failed pitch meetings.
He cleared his throat and eyed the glass of water in front of him. It was small and he was monstrously big and out of place, in this room full of PhDs and MBAs, but if it were at all possible, he’d prefer to drown in it than do what he was about to do.
He looked at Dillon who’d spoken for forty minutes without drawing breath. He was pale and kept licking his lips. Jay was standing at the back of the room wearing a suit that was worth more than a car. In a minute he’d finish the call he was on and then everything would come down to whether or not Mace could convince the investment committee they should green light first round funding for Ipseity.
He’d done this basic pitch five times now and five times they’d failed, each time on the merits of the software. In the twenty-four hours since Anderson Abbott invited them to take the spot another start-up had suddenly withdrawn from, Dillon and Cinta had helped him recraft his presentation and practise it till he was able to speak confidently without notes. He should be able to give this presentation in his sleep, or under extreme provocation.
But looking down the barrel of the table at Anderson and nine other men just like him with their business haircuts, expensive watches and shoes that cost more than a month’s rent, he couldn’t remember a single word of what he was supposed to say. And this delay was making him want to lose his shit, and break something like he’d done his last day at Wentworth, like Cinta had done the night she’d heard about Malcolm being forcibly stepped down.
And if he lost control, it really was all over. They had nowhere else to go.
He loosened the tie, pulling it out from his collar a little. They could struggle on using what was now left of Buster’s money after they’d redeveloped the prototype, maybe get a bank loan. Cinta was prepared to lean on Tom if she had to for them, but without the finance, investment support and the influence a VC could bring they were as good as dead in the water before they could dog paddle.
Dillon gave him a terse grin. He made a remark Mace didn’t catch because his brain was having a white-out, reduced to the functions that kept him breathing and standing. And then Jay stepped up to the table.
“When you’re ready, Mace.”
No more time to get ready. Fuck. He opened his collar button. It made no difference, he still felt choked. He pulled at the tie and undid it, whipped it off his neck, undid another button for good measure. Dillon’s mouth dropped open. He knew they were in trouble. Mace could see him frantically thinking of a way to jump in and save things.
“I’m getting comfortable, because what Ipseity is about is disruption.” He took off his suit coat and flung in on the back of an empty chair. He glanced at Dillon who was holding his breath, his fingers to his lips. He undid his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves.
“That’s better. I’m an engineer, a programmer, a designer. I’m not like you guys, I don’t wear a suit comfortably, but that’s okay, you guys need guys like me because while you might be able to see the future, I can built it.”
Dillon’s out breath was so loud, there was soft laughter. Mace said, “Yeah, that wasn’t a line we rehearsed. In fact I can’t remember anything we rehearsed and Dillon knows it. But what I know is what I’ve designed and how it can change the world and I don’t need a prepared presentation to tell you about it.”
He saw Jay smile. He tapped the laptop and the screen behind him changed, he tapped it again till he got to the slide he wanted. He explained Ipseity to the eleven members of the Summers-Denby investment committee in the same way he might explain it to Buster, as though it was a novel with a setting, characters, a timeline, some tricky moments and a happy ending.
He got enthusiastic and spoke too fast. At times he forgot not to get too technical and had to backtrack when he clocked blank expressions from his audience. He moved around the area at the top of the table, unable to stand still. He was probably making them seasick. But he kept talking. He answered probing technical questions and shot down stupid ones—stupid to him anyway. That caused a rumble of disquiet—nothing he could do about it. He was arrogant about Ipseity. It was his life’s work and if he failed today at least he’d only have himself to blame.
When he’d said all he could think to say, he picked up that glass of water and eyed it. He’d done everything he could do not to drown and drag Dillon down with him. The water was cool in his mouth; he had to hope the reception wasn’t. When he lowered the glass he realised he still had everyone’s attention and didn’t know what to do with it.
“Ah, that’s it. That’s all I have to say.” He glanced at Dillon who at some stage had ditched his tie as well. He looked like he’d swallowed his tongue.
“Mace.” Benedict Chong, the committee chairman addressed him. “If we should choose to fund you, what role would you play in the company?”
He looked at Dillon again. They’d had this dream from the time they were fifteen. They were going to be joint CEOs, but Mace knew he was no leader, and Dillon would do a better job of it. He also knew saying they’d share the title had lost them points in at least one pitch. He could be happy as chief engineer, he’d be a founder and that’d be enough. They’d argued this out, but not agreed on it.
“Ah, I could be ha—”
“Joint CEOs,” said Dillon. He stood and joined Mace at the head of the table. “I’ll focus on sales and marketing and Mace will drive te
chnology and innovation. We work together as equals or it doesn’t happen.”
He gave Dillon a disgruntled look that got laughs.
Dillon clapped him on the shoulder. “Dude.” He looked down the length of the table to Chong. “You know my credentials. You know Mace’s. We have complementary skills and we’ve been working together for,” he laughed, “since before either of us got kissed.” That got a bigger laugh.
Mace said, “Really,” and meant, you really said that, but it came across as if he was querying Dillon hadn’t had any action before then. That got another laugh, slow to build but sustained, and he recognised what he felt was warmth, not the hot and sweaty kind, but the kind associated with acceptance. They’d done all right. Now it was up to Benedict Chong and the rest of the board to make a recommendation to Jay.
Chong thanked them for presenting at short notice and dismissed them quickly after that. The committee would make its decision in a week. They passed another group, in the anteroom, and Dillon stopped to wish them luck. Mace stepped into the hallway, the adrenaline he’d needed still fizzing inside him. He needed to run it off or hit the bag. He needed Cinta, but he heard his name called.
“You did well,” Jay stepped into the hall. “I feel like I should apologise to you and Dillon.” Jay worked his tie out from his collar and Dillon joined them. “I was impressed with what you had when I first heard you talk about it. But you didn’t meet our investment risk profile: you still don’t. You’ve done good work since then.” Jay undid his top two buttons. “I like what you’ve got even better now.”
“What does that mean?” said Dillon. They both knew having Jay come to them like this meant something. He owned the company. The committee worked for him.
“Means I will think carefully about what the committee recommends.”
Insecure Page 23
