Chapter 10
Early the next morning, James woke up and got himself ready. He was surprised that Juliet didn’t try to argue with him the night before; she didn’t even ask what he was planning. She must’ve been very distracted.
Hopefully she hadn’t gotten any bad news or had disliked the video. So far they’d been pretty lucky with getting to all the pet owners on time, but they were running on a tight schedule. To meet all of these people, record enough video, and edit it all together in time for the deadline – they needed to keep being lucky.
Ten minutes to seven, he quietly knocked on the door to Juliet’s bedroom. No answer.
Greg was still sleeping, so he wanted to make sure not to disturb him, but since Juliet wasn’t responding, he knocked a little more loudly.
Still nothing.
In a coarse whisper, he said, “Juliet! Are you ready?”
Finally, he heard some rustling.
“Juliet?”
He could hear her coming towards him. She cracked the door and peered. “What?”
“We gotta get going.”
She let out a sigh. “I think I overslept.”
“Well chip-chap-chip Cinderella! It’s time to go!”
She groaned. “Why do we have to get up so early? I wanted to sleep in a little bit.”
“You agreed to it.” He knew that she was too groggy to realize that wasn’t exactly true. “Come on, we can get breakfast on the way.”
“Why did you call me Cinderella?” she said, rubbing an eye.
James tried not to laugh. “Because if you don’t get going soon, you’re going to turn into a pumpkin.”
“That’s not how that works.”
“It is today,” he said, his whisper breaking with laughter. “Let’s go!”
She shut the door. James could hear her getting things together, so he quietly went downstairs to put his bag and the camera in the car.
They were on the road twenty minutes later. That was another remarkable thing about Juliet – it never took her long to get ready. James was always so impressed by that.
“So why are you rushing me to Louisville?” asked Juliet once she was more awake.
“Do you really want to know, or would you prefer that it was a surprise?”
Juliet rubbed her forehead. “I think I’d rather know. I’m having a hard time imagining what kind of surprise you found.”
“Alright then, I’ll tell. We don’t have anyone to actually film today, right?”
Juliet nodded. “Right. Is this surprise going to take all day?”
“Kind of.” He took his phone from the center console and handed it to her. “Look at my email, there’s a confirmation for our activity today.”
She shot him a weary look before picking up his phone. She found it in a minute. “Ah, I see. We’re going on a food tour?”
“Not just any food tour!” he said. “We’ll get to see the city with an experienced tour guide, and we will get to have seven stops between breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”
“Huh,” she said. “That actually seems…kinda cool.”
“Yeah, it’ll be fun.” Plus it showed that he could be adventurous with food.
She tossed his phone back into place. “We’ll see. Are we going to be late? It said it starts at nine.”
“No, I think we should be good,” replied James confidently.
Not ten minutes later, they were stuck in standstill traffic. James regretted tempting the traffic gods with his overly confident statement.
It took some time, but eventually they got past the scene of an accident where a pickup truck flipped on its roof. After that, traffic flowed freely again.
“So all that traffic was caused by people rubbernecking,” commented Juliet.
“That’s right,” said James, getting over to the left lane. “Now we need to make up some time so we don’t miss the first breakfast.”
“Oh boy,” said Juliet. “I forgot how much you liked to speed.”
James smiled. “Is it really speeding if your car is built to go fast?”
“Speeding is always irresponsible,” said Juliet. “Unless you’re driving an ambulance or something. Or you’re a firefighter.”
“I’d like to be a firefighter,” mused James.
She scoffed. “You don’t have what it takes.”
He cleared his throat. “I’m not going to address that, because I need to focus on getting us to breakfast on time, but I know you don’t mean it.”
He didn’t have to look at her – he knew that she was rolling her eyes.
With a touch of speeding, they made it to the food tour’s first location only ten minutes late. There were six other people on the tour, all couples. As much as James wanted to comment on it being a couple activity, he knew that it would annoy Juliet, so he kept his mouth shut.
Their tour guide was a born-and-raised Kentuckian named Margo. At the first stop, they enjoyed French pastries and croissants, learning that Louisville was named after French King Louis XVI.
James kept shooting nervous glances at Juliet, hopeful that she would enjoy herself enough to forgive him for waking her up so early and calling her Cinderella.
By the time they got to the steamboat stop for their first lunch, he was fairly confident that he succeeded. Juliet made friends with everyone on the tour. One couple even had a cat that was treated with Delicaid.
Juliet was thrilled to hear their story, but as much as the couple wanted to be in the video, it just wasn’t possible. They traveled in from Tucson, Arizona, and their beloved cat was still back in the desert.
Juliet promised to email them the final copy of the video once it was submitted to the competition. James couldn’t believe how widespread the use of this drug was.
After lunch, they had a laid back bus tour that included the history of the Kentucky Derby and Mohammed Ali. James knew better than to take Juliet to an actual horse race; she could never stand to see the injuries that happened to the horses.
He knew that she would love the end of their tour. It covered the history of Kentucky Fried Chicken and ended at what was allegedly the best barbecue pit in Kentucky. They hung out at the restaurant a few hours after the tour was over, talking to some of the other couples.
By eight o’clock, everyone agreed that they were tired and ready to turn in for the night. Juliet seemed disappointed to end the experience, but she agreed it’d been a long day.
They were a few blocks away from the French bakery where they first started. James didn’t know how to break it to her that he booked two rooms at another Tiffany Suites in town.
Luckily, as they walked back to the car, she said that she tried to find a hotel in the city on her phone and couldn’t find anything for less than $300 a night.
“There must be some sort of an event or conference going on,” she said.
“Oh, that’s funny,” he said lightly. “Because the Tiffany Suites always make sure that they have rooms available for Gold Star members.”
She covered her face with her hands. “Of course they do. They wouldn’t want you Gold Star members to have to feel like us regular peasants.”
“That’s right,” he responded.
“Well,” she said, looking around. “Are you still using your points for the rooms?”
“Yes,” he lied. He wasn’t sure how much truth there was in that. He had a lot of points – though he wasn’t sure how that all worked. Embarrassingly, he never had to pay attention to that stuff. But he didn’t want Juliet to know that, she would only think less of him.
“Alright, I guess it’s a good option then. If you don’t mind,” she quickly added.
“It’s my pleasure,” he said. That, at least, was the truth.
Getting to the hotel was uneventful and they said their goodnights. The next morning, Juliet was not surprised by the complementary breakfast that she received at her door, and subsequently did not send James another angry text about it.
James made sure
to push back the delivery time of their breakfasts to nine o’clock so Juliet finally had a chance to sleep in. They only had one stop for the day, and they didn’t need to be there until eleven o’clock.
James used his free time to check out the hotel gym. He loved hotel gyms. Since he traveled so much, it was one of the few things that he could do that kept his life consistent. They were almost always empty, and almost always stocked with free water. Often there were great views as well. This hotel was no different.
He waited to knock on Juliet’s door until 10:30. She opened it immediately, ready to go and fully reenergized.
“Where are we going again?” he asked. He had a hard time keeping track of their schedule. That was probably because Juliet never actually told him the schedule.
“It’s a place called Ink Drop Farms. It’s a horse farm – they teach riding lessons, go on trail rides, and board horses. But a few years ago, the owner and her husband decided that they wanted to start offering low cost equine therapy.”
She had mentioned this. “Oh yeah, I remember now.”
“Our patient is Snoopy. He’s a quarter horse, and the first horse therapist at the farm.”
“I already love him,” said James.
They arrived at the farm in time to meet with Cindy, the owner. They got a great video of her walking around the farm, explaining why she and her husband Bob decided to develop the equine therapy program. Snoopy tagged along, following them.
“Bob was already a certified counselor, and we realized that there are a lot of kids who could benefit from pet therapy. But it’s so expensive! We were both able to get certified pretty easily, so we can even charge insurance. But if the kid doesn’t have insurance, or it’s still too expensive, we offer hour-long therapy sessions at a really low rate.”
James looked over at Juliet and realized that her eyes were starting to get glossy again. How did she get through the day if she got weepy so easily? She was ridiculous – but in such a lovely way. He felt his heart squeeze.
He decided that he needed to do the prompting. “What kind of kids do you see here?”
Cindy took a deep breath. “Well. We have a lot of autistic kids who really benefit from developing a relationship with the horses. We have several kids with Down Syndrome, and a handful with cerebral palsy. I wish you could include some of the testimonials from their parents.”
James pet the forelock of the sleepy horse standing next to Cindy. Snoopy closed his eyes, clearly appreciating the attention.
Cindy continued. “Snoopy was the first horse that we trained. He’s so gentle and he loves kids. It was devastating when we found out that he had skin cancer. The kids love him – I mean just love him. And we love him too.” Her voice broke and she looked away.
“He seems like quite the gentleman,” Juliet said, placing a gentle hand on his neck.
Cindy recovered with a smile. “He is. If it weren’t for the Delicaid, I just don’t know. If we lost him so young – he was only eight years old – I feel like the entire program would’ve fallen apart. I would’ve fallen apart.”
Juliet pinched her lips together. “Okay, if you’re going to make me cry, we’re not going to get anything done.”
They both started laughing. James tried to hold the camera steady.
“The Delicaid didn’t only save his life. It saved ours too.”
Bingo, thought James. They couldn’t have gotten a better line if they wrote a script. Juliet was going to be thrilled.
Chapter 11
They got back to the car and Juliet didn’t have to fight the tears any longer. At first it was just a few – but soon, she was full-on sobbing and snorting.
James stared with wide eyes. “What’s wrong? I thought we got some really good stuff for the video. What didn’t you like? We can go back, we still have time!”
It took her a moment to choke out a reply. “It’s not that.”
“Then what is it? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “It’s just…so sad.”
“What’s sad? That Snoopy got cancer? Look at him, he’s fine!”
“No.” She took a deep breath. “Everything is sad.”
James cocked his head to the side. “I’m going to need a little more detail on that.”
Juliet wiped away the tears on her cheeks, struggling to stop crying. James reached into the backseat and pulled out a handful of napkins. He handed one to Juliet.
“I’m sorry I don’t have any tissues,” he said. “I save most of my prime-time crying and good tissues for when I’m at home.”
The image of James sitting in his multimillion-dollar condo, high in the New York skyline, crying into a wad of hundred dollar bills popped into her head. She let out a laugh.
It seemed so ridiculous; she’d never seen James cry, and she couldn’t imagine why he would. At this point especially, his life must be perfect and exactly what he wanted it to be.
Even in high school he had it made. He was a starter on the football team, had a great smile and those sparkling blue eyes – he looked like he could be an Abercrombie and Fitch model.
Juliet was a year younger than him and they never once spoke when they were in high school. They ran in entirely different crowds. The only modeling that Juliet could’ve done then was for mom jeans in the Sears catalog.
He handed her another tissue. “Yeah, whenever my dad insults me in front of the entire staff, I always laugh. But on the inside, I’m crying, and then I go home and cry in front of the fireplace.”
Juliet snorted. “You have a fireplace? Don’t you live in a condo?”
“It’s electric. Doesn’t really do anything.”
“But it’s good to cry in front of?” Juliet said with a smile.
Maybe his life wasn’t entirely perfect. She knew him better than most – or at least, she used to – and it wasn’t fair of her to assume that his life was perfect just because he was rich.
His mom died when he was younger, and his dad was less than an ideal parent. Even though his dad was a brilliant scientist who built a successful drug company and was respected by his employees, he was a lackluster father.
James always struggled with trying to please him. Though clearly, his father must be happy with him now. James was a company man for sure.
“Oh, it’s the best,” he continued. “I cry in front of it, feeling so very sorry for myself, and the flames dry my tears.”
“They do not!” laughed Juliet. “You’d have to hold your face up really close.”
“I do,” he said solemnly. “I dry my tears with fire. Fake fire. I have to make it somewhat manly, you know, because I cry so much.”
Juliet blew her nose into one of the napkins. “Of course.”
She took a deep breath, trying to steady herself so she could explain why she was crying. James pulled out a McDonald’s bag from the back seat for her to toss the tissue into.
“Lots of things make me sad,” she finally said. “It makes me sad that Snoopy got cancer. It makes me sad that there are so many kids with special needs who can’t afford to go to a therapy like this. It makes me sad that there’s so much injustice in the world…” Her voice trailed off.
James waited a moment before responding. “That took quite a leap – from feeling sad for Snoopy and the kids, right into feeling sad about the entire world.”
She sighed. How could she explain it to someone like James? Someone who had the world handed to him? He’d always had enough money for everything he ever wanted. He didn’t even know what it was like to need something and be unable to get it.
The very fact that he and his father were billionaires in a world where people couldn’t afford care for their sick kids – how could she explain that to him? When his dad had dozens of luxury sports cars, and her dad, at age 55, had dentures because he never could afford to go to the dentist growing up?
There was no way he would ever understand. Even if he didn’t own a yacht and spend all of his money on gold toile
ts, or whatever rich people spent their money on, he was still one of them.
“Hey,” he said softly. “I know that the world can be a terrible place. And it’s unfair, and it’s cruel, and bad things happen to good people. But you’ve always dedicated yourself to trying to make the world better, however you could. That means something.”
Juliet’s lip started to quiver. Why did he have to go and say things like that? She wanted to answer, but she knew that if she spoke, she would start crying again. Instead, she nodded in agreement.
“That’s why I’ve always been so inspired by you. When things are dark and bleak, you have always been a beam of light.”
Oh, now he’d gone too far. “Alright, that’s enough for you,” she said.
“I mean it! You’ve always known what you wanted, and you’ve never let anyone stop you. And what you’ve wanted was to help others, not to enrich yourself. I wish I could be more like you.”
“Uh huh,” she said. “We need to get going, there’s a snowstorm coming into Cleveland, and we need to meet with a bunch of people tomorrow early in the morning. We can’t miss it.”
“We won’t miss it, don’t worry. And you can’t just change the subject like that.”
“I’m not changing the subject, I’m just stating a fact. We need to move.”
“Let me continue talking as I move us in the direction of Cleveland,” he said. “If I were more like you, I wouldn’t be in the situation that I’m in now.”
She scrunched her eyebrows. “What situation? You mean you’d have ten billion dollars instead of five billion?”
He put the car into drive. “How rich do you think I am? I don’t have five billion dollars.”
She crossed her arms. “Two billion?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. It mostly belongs to the company. I didn’t really make it, and my dad will never let me forget it.”
“Yet he’s still going to make you CEO when he retires. It doesn’t seem that tragic.”
James smiled. “He’s trying to do that, but I fail him at every turn.”
Veterinarian's Date with a Billionaire Page 7
