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THE BILLIONAIRE'S AFFAIR 185
By 5:00 PM, I’d gotten over three dozen emails from various managers talking about availability.Eff my life.The only good thing was that most of the managers were wary of me, and most had wanted to schedule their interviews for later in the week, probably so they could get the gossip on me. I’m sure most (if not all) of them considered me a threat. Like the advance scout for the Hatchet Man.Anh helped me cram, just like the olden days in college when I was woefully unprepared for tests. “Okay, what questions are you going to ask them?”“What’s the top three problems they see in the business on a day-to-day basis… what they would change if they could…” I put my forehead down on our IKEA kitchen table. I was way past the hand-flapping panic stage, and well into the ‘total collapse and defeated resignation’ phase. “Oh God, this is going to be a disaster…”Anh smacked my arm with a sheaf of papers. “Stop being defeatist. Come on, you can do this.”“No I can’t…”“Connor set this up f
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Keisha was fully loosened up by the time the second margarita arrived.“Girl, he wasn’t a dog, was he?” she asked. “‘Cause in my experience, men are dogs. And I’m bettin’ the richer they are, the bigger the dog.”I laughed. “No, he was actually a really good guy.”“Then what happened?”“Did you see any of the interviews with him?”“Did I see any of the interviews with him?” she asked rhetorically as she gave me a Have you lost your mind? look. “I watched every damn one I could, because he is FINE.”I almost snorted margarita through my nose. “Yes, that’s true, he is fine.”“So what happened?”“Well, remember in the interviews when everybody kept asking him if we were going to get married?”“Yeah.”“Well, imagine a guy you dated for seven days, and people started asking him on the national news if he’s going to marry you.”“Oh my GOD.” She put hand to her chest. “Oh, you poor thing. He probably ran faster than Usain Bolt, huh.”“Well… let’s just say he sort of faded away really quickly
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Keisha’s insights were the foundation for everything else that followed. Once I knew the right questions to ask, the rest of the interviews went amazingly well.People were so used to accepting the status quo, they just didn’t think about it until someone brought it up. But if you happened to stumble across one of their pet peeves, that was usually a match to a can of gasoline. In fact, if you knew their pet peeve, and indicated that other people hated that thing, too, they would go off on all the things that were wrong with the company.And because of Keisha, I had a whole laundry list of potential pet peeves.I think some writer gave a speech once that started with a joke about an old fish who meets two young fish and casually asks, “How about the water today?” and then swims on. After he’s gone, one of the young fish turns to his friend and asks, “What the hell is ‘water’?”When you’re in it all the time, you stop seeing it – whether the ‘it’ is water, or bullshit problems at a cor
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It was funny watching people’s reactions to my presentation. Over and over, I would say something that would incense the head of one department – yet three or four other people would nod silently and exchange meaningful looks.Of course, we cycled through each department head getting pissed off, with all their coworkers nodding or smirking in agreement.Bryce, in particular, laughed the loudest and nodded the most vigorously, occasionally throwing in a “Hell yeah, you guys always drop the ball on that one,” or “Yeah, you screw that up every damn time.”Bryce did me a favor, though, in that most people’s ire got focused on him rather than on me.Even those who were seriously pissed off were deferential and polite, though.Until I started bringing up the shortcomings of Sales.“NO. WRONG,” he barked at one point, just a few minutes into the Sales part of the presentation.“I had seventeen different people tell me that, Mr. Smith,” I responded politely.“Bullshit. Customer service always
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Just as Scott promised, the check came by courier service around 5 o’clock.I about peed myself when the runner had me sign for the envelope – and after he was gone, I almost cried when I opened the envelope and saw the check.$10,000.I’d received five times that amount a month ago – but this time it was different.This time I’d earned it.Anh came home at 6 o’clock and went into a screaming fit when I showed her the check. I joined in and we jumped around like two little girls at a slumber party.“I’m taking you out,” I announced gleefully. “And we’re getting a cab so we can get smashed. Where do you want to go?”“Lily, you don’t have to do that,” Anh protested.“Yes I do – I couldn’t have done this without you.”“Oh, you would have been fine without me… I really appreciate it, but – ”“Okay,” I shrugged, doing my best to keep a deadpan expression, “we’ll order something in and drink a $5 bottle of wine.”“No, no, I was just being modest,” Anh said cheerily as she patted me on the h
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The answer came on the social page of the Los Angeles Times. I didn’t read the paper regularly, but Anh did, so we got it delivered to the office. We were taking an afternoon break as we planned our next consulting gig. I was drinking coffee and answering emails. She was sitting across the desk and reading the paper when she suddenly looked up at me with something akin to horror.I glanced up. “What?”Her eyes flitted back and forth between me and the paper. “Uhhh…”I frowned. “What?”“Hypothetically… if I knew something that I knew you’d want to know, but it wouldn’t help you and would probably just make you upset, should I still tell you?” she asked in a miserable voice. “…hypothetically.”Terror of the unnamed and unimaginable surged through me. I clicked through a list of things she might be talking about – my parents were in an accident, my brother was hurt, Connor – Connor.The newspaper.There was something in there about him.Our eyes locked, and she knew I knew.She started
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I turned Anh’s last questions over in my head as I raced home.Why does he even want to see me?And why right away?For the life of me, I didn’t know.Did he have some important piece of information about Connor that he needed to tell me, away from prying ears?Was there some new horrible fallout over the photos?Was… was Connor going to be there at my apartment?The thought of that made my panicked heart skip a couple of beats.Ultimately, I had no idea what I was walking into when I parked my car in the garage and hustled up to my apartment.I was several minutes early – which, if you know anything about getting from Santa Monica to Hollywood at 3PM on a Friday afternoon, you will recognize is a minor miracle.I paced back and forth in my apartment, flapping my hands, trying to stay calm and failing miserably.Then the intercom beeped.I clicked on the button. “Yes?”“We’re here,” Sebastian’s voice barked through the static.We’re here.As in, more than one person.OH MY GOD.“S-sec
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The first thing we had to do was wash my hair so Javier could cut it.He gave me two fancy plastic bottles with French written on them. “I want you to lather and rinse twice with the shampoo – really work it into your scalp. Then put the conditioner all over your hair, from your scalp to the tips. Leave it in for three minutes, then wash it out. Do you have a robe?”I winced. “Um… it’s kind of ratty…”“How did I guess?” Sebastian muttered.“I didn’t know I was going to do a makeover show, jackass.”“Just come out wrapped in a towel, I need access to your shoulders anyway,” Abby said. “But before you go in, I need to strip off your makeup first.”“Um… is that necessary?”“Yes. It is.”I sighed and let her get to work with cotton balls and some sort of makeup remover. As she worked, she gave me more directions.“I’m going to give you two bottles. Use the bigger one on your body with a washcloth, and exfoliate gently. The smaller one use on your face with just your hands, and do NOT rub
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