by Bec Linder
“Very well,” she said, so regal that she was basically a parody of herself—surely they didn’t let people like this wander out of the Upper East Side without a chaperone. “I would be delighted to listen to your sales pitch.”
What a condescending hag. I plastered a fake smile on my face and launched into an explanation of the company’s mission. But despite her pinched look and haughty attitude, the woman listened intently and asked surprisingly insightful questions, and I found myself relaxing and even enjoying our conversation.
We talked for half an hour, and when at last she glanced at her watch and announced that she needed to go, she gave me an appraising look and said, “Kindly give me one of those business cards. I’ll need to speak with my husband before making any decisions, but I’m sure he’ll agree with me that your company is a worthy investment.”
“I hope he will,” I said, giddy beyond words and trying to hide it. I scribbled my phone number on the back of a business card and handed it to her. “That’s Mr. Sloane’s contact information, and if you’d like to talk with me again, I put my cell number on there too.”
“A pleasure,” she said, and sailed off.
I shook my head to myself, bemused. Rich people were so strange. Lord, and so was my life. Before I met Elliott, I never in a million years would have envisioned spending half an hour chatting casually with a blue-blood heiress.
When Elliott returned, bearing two boxed lunches, I said, “I think I landed us an investor.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Already?”
“I told you I was going to do it,” I said, a little annoyed that he wasn’t more excited. “She said she’s going to talk to her husband and get in touch.”
“Well, let’s not celebrate until we get a firm commitment,” he said, “but that’s great. I knew bringing you to this conference was a good idea.”
“Bringing me a sandwich was also a good idea,” I said, stupidly pleased by his faint praise. Was I really that desperate for his approval? Let’s be real: yes.
While Elliott was in the plenary session, I had looked up the time of his talk. It was at 3:00, and as the afternoon wore on, I watched him become progressively more nervous and withdrawn. By an hour out, he had stopped interacting with the people who came by the booth, and was sitting bent over his notes and looking pale and a little clammy. Finally, I said, “You’re making people nervous sitting there like grim death. Go take a walk or something. I’ve got this.”
“Okay,” he said, and rubbed his face with both hands. “You’re right.”
“You’re going to be fine,” I said. “Lots of people are afraid of public speaking. It’s totally normal.”
He cracked a weak grin. “What makes you think I’m nervous?”
“My keen observational skills,” I said. “Just go.”
The afternoon was quieter than the morning had been. Most people were in talks, and when only a handful stopped to speak with me in the hour before Elliott’s session, I didn’t feel so guilty about abandoning the booth. I set out some more pamphlets, made an impromptu sign that read “BACK IN 20,” and made my way to the room where Elliott was scheduled to speak.
I slipped into the back of the room just as the previous speaker left the stage. A short, balding man stood up from a table on the stage and said, “Our next talk is by Elliott Sloane of One Drop, LLC, titled ‘Differential advantages of mediums for water filtration.’”
What a terrible title. Boring. He should have asked me for advice. Men always thought they could handle everything themselves. Elliott mounted the stage to a polite but unenthusiastic smattering of applause. It didn’t seem to bother him, though. He looked crisp and confident in his suit. He adjusted the microphone to point upward, paused, made a skeptical face, and tilted it a little higher. The audience laughed. “Good afternoon, everyone,” he said, warm and amused, inviting the audience to share the humor of the situation. “Today I’d like to speak with you about a common problem in clean water interventions…”
The man on stage was a totally different creature from the nervous wreck I’d sent out for a walk. He was funny and relaxed, using his slides to bolster his point but not relying on them to convey his message for him, gesturing for emphasis, moving confidently around the podium. I tried to be an objective observer, to watch him the way I would watch a stranger, and I thought it was clear to everyone in the audience that he cared very deeply about subject. Here was a man who wanted to transform the world. Elliott’s fire was no secret to me, and now it was on display for everyone in the room. I knew that he would find investors after this.
I was so proud of him that I felt like I might burst.
When his talk ended, the session chair asked if there were any questions, and so many hands went up that I saw Elliott blink and jerk his chin slightly in surprise.
I stayed for the questions—thoughtful, probing—and then slipped out of the room. Elliott would probably stay until the end of the session, and I needed to get back to the booth. I could congratulate him later.
He didn’t return until past 6:00. I was sitting at the booth, bored, waiting for someone to come talk to me. “Sorry,” he said, taking the chair beside me. “A couple of people wanted to talk to me after the session ended. I didn’t meant to abandon you here for so long.”
“No problem,” I said. “I watched your talk.”
He groaned and covered his face with one hand. “How bad was it?”
“Elliott, are you kidding me?” I asked. “It was incredible. You did a wonderful job. I don’t know how, because you were so messed up beforehand that I really thought you were going to throw up or something—”
“I did,” he said, and grinned. “In the bathroom, right before my session started. Glamorous, huh?”
“Well, you pulled it off,” I said. “I never would have known.”
“I’m just glad it’s over,” he said. “Christ. I hate giving talks.”
“Let’s go celebrate,” I said impulsively. “We can go out for dinner. Nobody’s going to come to the booth this late. They can just take a pamphlet and come back tomorrow.”
He laughed. “Okay. You’ve convinced me.”
We walked a few blocks east to have our pick of the restaurants along 9th Avenue. “Nothing fancy,” Elliott told me as we walked. “I want a burger. A huge, juicy burger. With onion rings.”
“You got it,” I said. “Whatever you want. You’re the boss.”
We looked at a few menus and settled on the place that had, according to Elliott, the most promising burger. It was still pretty early for dinner, and we snagged a secluded table in the back. Our waiter came by, and Elliott ordered a bottle of wine.
“Really?” I asked. “Wine and a burger?”
“The finest of dining,” he said. “My ancestors came over on the Mayflower, which means I can do whatever I want and nobody can judge me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Is that how it works? I must have missed that memo.”
We made light, pleasant conversation while we ate. The wine was pretty good, and Elliott was in a buoyant mood, riding high on the success of his speech. He ordered a second bottle of wine, and then dessert for us to share, a ridiculous brownie sundae drenched in chocolate syrup and whipped cream.
“There’s no way we’re going to be able to eat all of this,” I said, laughing.
“The effort is the reward,” he said. “We’ll make a good go of it.”
I dug my spoon in and glanced up to see him watching me, a small smile on his face. “What?” I asked, suspicious.
“Nothing,” he said. “Today went well. I’m happy.”
“Okay,” I said, and narrowed my eyes at him. “Is this a date? Are we on a date right now?”
“It can be a date if you want it to be,” he said.
“No,” I said. I took my spoon out of the sundae and pointed it at him. “We aren’t doing this.”
He held up both of his hands in a placating gesture. “Okay, it’s not a date. We’
re just two people eating dinner together. Platonically.”
“Okay,” I said, even though I didn’t really believe him. Part of me wanted him to insist. I wanted it to be a date. I wanted to date him. I wanted him to be my boyfriend. I wanted to hold hands with him in public, and come home to him every evening and tell him about my day.
And I couldn’t. I couldn’t.
We only got halfway through the sundae before I admitted defeat. With a groan, I leaned back against my chair and folded my hands over my belly. “I regret eating that.”
“But it’s so delicious,” he said. He took another bite and then set his spoon down on the tablecloth. “Sadie, there’s something I need to tell you.”
That didn’t sound promising. “Okay.”
He sighed deeply. “I met with my mother’s attorney yesterday.”
I waited, but he didn’t say anything else, which meant I would have to drag it out of him one sentence at a time. He did this whenever he felt uncomfortable or wasn’t sure how to phrase something, and it drove me crazy. I wished he would just spit it out. “Her attorney,” I said.
He nodded. “He told me—well. Apparently my mother left me some money.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to figure out why he was telling me this. “And you didn’t know about it?”
“No,” he said. “Not until yesterday. It was being held in trust until I turned thirty-five, and my birthday is next month.” He grimaced and took a sip of wine. “It’s actually… it turns out that it’s quite a bit of money.”
“How much money,” I said slowly.
“Fifty million,” he said.
It took a moment for that number to sink in. “Fifty—wow. Okay. But that’s great, right? Now you don’t have to worry about finding an investor! You can bring Jim down here and get started on the prototype—”
“I’m not accepting it,” he said.
I stared at him. I couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
“I’ll give part of it to my sisters,” he said. “And the rest of it I’m going to donate to charity.”
I could not believe what I was hearing. “Elliott, that is by far the stupidest thing I’ve heard in at least a year. Are you on drugs? This is exactly what you need to get the company off the ground. Why would you turn down the money?”
His lips compressed into a stubborn line. I’d pushed him too far. “I want to make my own way in the world,” he said, “instead of relying on my mother’s generosity.”
“This is about your father, isn’t it?” I asked. “You’re turning down the money to spite him. My God.”
“That’s not true,” he said, but I could tell from his expression that it was.
“This is ridiculous,” I said. “You’re a grown man. Why do you still care what your father thinks of you? Are you really so desperate for his approval that you’re going to throw away your chance to change people’s lives for the better?”
“That’s not what I’m doing,” he said stiffly.
“You really ought to put this behind you,” I said. “Just, I mean. Just tell him to get lost. Tell him you don’t care what he thinks. You need to get over your daddy issues.”
“Well, you know what, Sadie,” he snapped, “we all have our cross to bear. You’re still mourning your dead boyfriend. Why don’t you get over that?”
I flinched. That was a low blow, and it hurt. But at the same time, I couldn’t deny that I deserved it. It was no worse than any of the things I had just said to him.
But Elliott’s scowl instantly crumpled into regret. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That was cruel of me. I didn’t mean it.”
“No, you did,” I said. “And I meant what I said. And we’re both right. So where does that leave us?”
He sighed heavily. “I don’t know, Sadie.”
The waiter, with impeccable timing, appeared beside our table. “Is there anything else I can get for you?”
TWENTY-THREE
Sadie
We ended the night on reasonably good terms. Elliott walked me to Penn Station and kissed me on the sidewalk before he continued on to Herald Square. It was a polite kiss, though, dry and close-mouthed, not at all the sort of passionate embrace I had come to expect from him. He was still angry about what I had said. Well, fine: I was angry, too.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said. “Sleep well.”
“You too,” I said, and turned and went down into the station, leaving him behind.
I didn’t sleep well. I tossed and turned all night, wondering how I could change, how I could make him change. How we could both make peace with our stubborn, prideful hearts.
The other reason I couldn’t sleep was that I had told Eric I would meet with him tomorrow, and I was terrified about what he might say to me. What he might tell me about Elliott. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
I finally fell into a fitful sleep and dreamed that I was walking through an enormous, empty house, opening the door to every room and peering inside, searching for someone, but there was nothing in any of the rooms but dust.
I woke before my alarm went off, feeling tired but also weirdly energetic. It was a sunny morning, and bitterly cold. I stopped in a bodega a couple of blocks from the conference center and bought two cups of coffee: one for me, one for Elliott. A peace offering. We had both said unkind things. Tempers had frayed. We had been under a lot of pressure for a long time; it was understandable. We could put it behind us.
I felt magnanimous. Forgiving.
I thought I had gotten an early start, but Elliott was already at our booth in the vendor room, sitting at the table with his laptop open in front of him, scowling at the screen.
There were two cups of coffee on the table beside him.
I started laughing, and he looked up, eyebrows raised in inquiry. “I got coffee,” I said, holding out my hands, each one wrapped around a cardboard coffee cup.
A slow, rueful smile spread across his face. “So did I,” he said. “O. Henry would be proud.”
“Nice reference,” I said. “I didn’t cut off all my hair, though. Buying coffee doesn’t have the same sacrificial irony to it.”
“Well,” he said, and shrugged. “I could probably use two cups of coffee this morning.”
So could I, but I didn’t want to admit that I’d slept so poorly. “So what’s the plan for today?”
He shrugged again. “More networking, more talks. There’s a session this afternoon that I’d like to attend, so I’ll leave you to man the booth. I may have dinner tonight with a few potential investors.”
“Really? You didn’t tell me you had anyone sniffing around,” I said.
“Oh, am I supposed to tell you everything now?” he asked, smirking at me. “A man needs to have a few secrets. No, these are people who spoke with me yesterday after my talk. It’s likely that nothing will come of it.”
“Such a pessimist,” I said. “Something could come of it. Just be your charming self and they’ll cough up a billion dollars.”
“Sound advice,” he said, with that tilt to his mouth that meant he was making fun of me.
I didn’t care. It felt good to banter with him just like always. I hadn’t ruined everything last night, then. We could still be friends.
Things got off to a slower start than they had on Saturday. By 10:00, only a few people had trickled past our booth. “Everyone was out drinking last night,” Elliott told me, when I asked him what was going on. “Aid workers love to party, especially when they can claim it’s ‘networking’ and justify their hangovers as part of the cost of doing business.”
“Sounds like my kind of people,” I said. “Where are the investors, though?”
“They were probably out drinking, too,” Elliott said. “Or else they’re sleeping in. Rich people don’t believe in waking up early on Sunday mornings.”
“So why are you here, then?” I asked.
He grinned at me. “I’m the particular subspecies of rich person known as a ‘busines
sman.’ Found in tropical environments, we shun daylight and prefer to lay our eggs in pools of stagnant water.”
I rolled my eyes and went back to reading design blogs on my phone.
A little while later, Eric showed up.
I didn’t see him coming. I wasn’t paying any attention; I had moved on to the international development blogs I’d added to my daily regimen, and was totally engrossed in a post by a guy arguing that digging new wells made people feel good about themselves but didn’t accomplish much in the long run. I took vague note of someone approaching our booth, and then I heard Elliott exclaim, “Eric! I didn’t expect to see you here.”
My heart dropped into my shoes, and I glanced up, hoping I didn’t look as guilty as I felt. Eric was shaking Elliott’s hand and slapping his shoulder, making a pretty good show of Gosh Old Chum Fancy Meeting You Here, Quite Delightful, and then he cut his eyes at me for a single instant and winked.
Lord, what a creep. I never should have gotten involved with him. I should have hung up on him when he called me.
But I hadn’t, and now I was too curious to let it go.
I put my phone away and stood up, trying to look polite and disinterested. “Sadie, you remember Eric,” Elliott said, one hand on my lower back, drawing me forward.
“Of course,” I said, offering my hand to shake.
“I’m glad to hear I left an impression on the lady,” Eric said, and bent to kiss my knuckles.
Ridiculous. I made a face at Elliott, who brought one hand up to conceal his smile.
“Elliott, you don’t mind loaning her to me for an hour or so, do you?” Eric asked, still holding onto my hand. “I’m sure you’ve been keeping her here at the booth, doing your boring dirty work for you—”
“Yes, the dirty work that she’s getting paid to do,” Elliott said.
“—and she should have a chance to walk around and experience all that the conference has to offer,” Eric finished, flashing a winning smile. His teeth were too white and too even. It didn’t look natural.
“Right, the exciting benefits of hearing other people pitch their companies to her,” Elliott said. “Thrilling. But sure, you can take her if she’s willing to be taken.”
