Paris Is Always a Good Idea

by Jenn McKinlay

  “How did you know?” I whispered.

  Jason turned to look at me. “What?”

  “That he doesn’t shake hands.” I leaned close and kept my voice low.

  A small smile spread across his full mouth. He winked at me with his good eye. “Research, Martin. Surely you knew he hasn’t shaken anyone’s hand in over ten years.”

  “Of course I knew,” I lied. “I’m just surprised you did.”

  “Sure you did.” His low laugh sent a ripple of awareness right down my back.

  I ignored it, naturally.

  The dining room was beautifully done in gold, cream, and mauve, with pristine white tablecloths that draped all the way to the floor, chairs with plush round backs and upholstered arms—the sort of seating that encouraged lingering over your meal—and a thick carpet done in floral swirls that felt like walking on a pillow.

  Real palm trees in enormous pots, gilded framed mirrors, and a row of glistening chandeliers overhead competed for my attention. When Jason pulled out my chair at a table beside a large window, I slid onto my seat, feeling agog at my surroundings. I tried not to let it show, while for his part, Jason was as at ease as if he ate at restaurants that had three Michelin stars every day. I envied him that.

  I glanced away and discovered Eleanor watching me with a speculative look. I wondered if she could tell there was tension between Jason and me. I forced my lips into the shape of a smile even though it felt as hollow as a broken promise. She returned it and glanced away. I doubted that I’d fooled her one bit.

  The meal began with the waiter giving us a warm welcome. There were several options for dinner, but we deferred to Severin when he requested La Balade Gourmande, which consisted of the same eight courses served to everyone at the table.

  “It’s perfect,” Robbie said. “Now I won’t feel like someone ordered something better.”

  At €350 per person, I just hoped my corporate credit card wouldn’t explode when I charged the meal. I glanced at Jason, but he maintained his ease. So annoying.

  The sommelier and Severin conversed about wine. Le Cinq was known for its fifty-thousand-bottle wine cellar, so there was much to debate.

  “If I may make a recommendation,” Jason said. I turned my head to look at him as if he’d lost his mind. I’d always assumed he was a beer guy. What was he thinking? “I believe the 2011 Pauillac, Château Pichon-Longueville, would be a good selection with which to start.”

  Robbie looked at him, clearly impressed, and nodded. The sommelier straightened and said, “Excellent choice, sir.”

  I glanced at Jason in surprise. Was he bluffing? Or did he know wine? What else didn’t I know about him?

  After the bottle was opened and Robbie and Jason gave it an approving taste, we shared a toast.

  “To new friends and making a difference in the world for those less fortunate,” Jason said. Eleanor looked particularly pleased with his humility, and I began to feel as if I was being shut out of the rapport building, particularly since Jason had yet to look in my direction.

  I decided to steer the conversation to the purpose of our dinner. “Before we get distracted by the food, which I’ve heard is amazing, did you have any questions for Jason and me about our ACC proposal?” I asked.

  “I’m glad you asked,” Robbie said. He leaned forward, bracing himself with an elbow on the table. He held my gaze and asked, “What do you think about Mars?”

  “Mars?” I asked. “As in the Red Planet?”

  Robbie nodded enthusiastically. I blinked. From my research, I knew Mars was a subject of great interest for him, but I had no idea what this had to do with the ACC or our ask. Jason gamely stepped into the breach.

  “I think it’s highly habitable,” he said. “I’ll bet in our lifetime, there’ll be colonies.”

  Robbie grinned. “Right you are.”

  I glanced at Eleanor to see what she thought about this turn in the conversation. She sipped her wine, perfectly at ease.

  I turned my head to look at Jason. Okay, mostly I was shooting daggers out of my eyeballs at him—why, oh why, couldn’t that be an actual thing—but since he wouldn’t make eye contact with me, he was missing it. Fine. If the boy wanted to play, I was all in. No one knew as much about Severin as I did. Not even Knightley.

  I smoothed my expression and turned back to Severin. “With the advances made in constant-acceleration technology, such as ion drives and solar sails, the nine months that it takes to get to Mars could be cut down to just a few weeks. I can’t speak for anyone else, but if that became the norm, I think living on the Red Planet would be a dream come true.”

  Jason finally turned to look at me. His gaze was wide eyed, as if he couldn’t believe I’d gone there, but also amused, which warmed me. I turned back to Severin.

  He favored me with an enormous grin that was surprisingly infectious, given that we were talking about living on Mars and all. “Tell me, how would you occupy yourself?”

  Oh, shit. My bluff might have gone too far. I scanned my brain for viable employment. I suspected there weren’t many jobs in the charitable fundraising arts in outer space. The thought of which terrified me, by the way, but I kept that tidbit to myself.

  “Given the frontier-like nature of such a place, I assume I’d begin a career in agriculture,” I said. My voice went up at the end as if it were a question. Ugh, upspeak. I was losing my way, but hey, I’d seen the movie The Martian.

  “So you want to be a potato farmer . . . on Mars,” Jason said. His voice was dry. He looked like he was trying not to laugh. Clearly, he’d seen the movie, too.

  I met his gaze; his eyes were a soft flannel gray with a spark of laughter tucked in. He had to go to the potato. I knew we both knew that Severin proudly came from Idaho potato-farming stock. Now we’d see who’d done their homework.

  “Potatoes—fascinating things, potatoes,” Severin said. He glanced between the two of us as if issuing a challenge. “Eleanor, did you know that the average American eats about one hundred and twenty-four pounds of potatoes per year, while Germans eat twice as many?”

  “I did not,” she said. She turned toward him and pushed her glasses up on her nose, studying him with rapt interest.

  “I once read that the potato is roughly eighty percent water and twenty percent solid,” Jason offered. Severin’s right eyebrow ticked up. Impressed.

  “Fascinating,” Eleanor said. She looked at Jason with approval, as did Severin. I could not drop the ball. Not now. As crazy as it was, I had the feeling our $10 million ask was riding on this conversation.

  “The largest potato ever grown was eighteen pounds and four ounces,” I said. Knowing Severin’s personal history, I had recently read up on potato facts. It appeared Knightley had, too. He glanced at me.

  “Did you know the Incas used the potato to heal injuries and they believed potatoes made childbirth easier?” he asked. He tipped his chin up ever so slightly.

  Clearly, he was throwing down the potato-trivia gauntlet. Game on. I turned in my chair to face him.

  “Potatoes have more vitamin C than an orange, more potassium than a banana, and more fiber than an apple,” I said. Take that!

  “There are over one hundred varieties of potato in existence,” he shot back.

  I could feel Eleanor and Severin watching us as if we were a potato trivia ping-pong match, and I didn’t care.

  “Potatoes are grown in all fifty states, with the biggest producers being Washington and Idaho,” he continued.

  Oh, you tricky devil, I thought, giving a nod to Severin’s home state. I was going to have to bring it in for the win.

  “Really?” I smiled, acknowledging his point. Then I went for the big-daddy factoid, linking our entire conversation together. “Interestingly, in 1995, NASA and the University of Wisconsin successfully grew the first vegetable in space, on the space sh
uttle Columbia, and it was . . . wait for it . . . the potato.”

  Severin grinned and pointed at me with his fork. “There you have it. Spuds could be your future.”

  “You never know,” I said. But I knew it wouldn’t happen in this lifetime.

  “Well done, Martin. I can actually see you as a Martian potato queen,” Knightley teased. His eyes were twinkling, and it irked me that he could be so adorable while joking at my expense.

  “Don’t worry,” I said to him. “I see a bright future for you as my court jester.”

  Robbie and Eleanor watched us. Jason grinned. I mock glowered. Truthfully, I was impressed by Knightley’s capability. I had never had a colleague match me in my exhaustive research on a donor’s life and interests before.

  “I’m sorry—that got a bit away from us,” I said to Robbie. “While we’re here, was there anything you wanted to ask us about the ACC?”

  Robbie glanced between us. He gave us a considering look and said, “Truthfully, at the moment, I’m mostly curious as to whether you’re the one who gave him that black eye or not.”

  My eyes went wide. Severin sounded like he was joking, mostly. Panic thrummed in my chest, as I was certain he could sense that things were strained between Jason and me. See? This is why they tell you not to get involved with colleagues. Once the line from professional to personal is crossed, there is no going back, and the potential for disaster is huge.

  I glanced at Jason. He didn’t look anywhere near as freaked out as I was. To my surprise, he actually laughed. It sounded genuine, and I forced myself to chuckle while hoping, praying, that the man had a plan.

  “I’m sure I’ve given her a few reasons to want to be the one who popped me, but no, we treat knowledge like a blood sport. Speaking of which, this”—he pointed to his eye—“is actually a rugby injury.”

  “Rugby? I used to play. Are you in a league?” Robbie looked delighted.

  I remembered from Severin’s bio that he’d played rugby in college. Relief surged through me. All right, I had to give it to Knightley: the boy was quick on his feet.

  “Yes, I’m in a local Boston league,” Jason said. “This was from practice. I stopped my teammate’s foot with my face.” He shrugged. “It happens.”

  Severin laughed. “I know that play. What’s your position?”

  I clenched my hands in my lap. Did Jason really play rugby? I didn’t know. Was he making this up because he’d read Severin’s bio, too? What if he didn’t know the positions? What if he couldn’t bluff his way out? Then again, he’d certainly done his research on potatoes. I had to trust he’d been just as thorough with rugby.

  “Fly half,” Jason said evenly. “And you?”

  “Hooker,” Robbie said.

  I glanced at Eleanor. Was this for real? I knew nothing about rugby. These positions sounded made up. I started to sweat.

  “Tell me, Jason.” Robbie leaned toward him with the same sort of scrutiny he’d given me about Mars. “Do you really think you have a black eye?”

  “Well, it feels like a black eye and it looks like a black eye, so I’m thinking it’s a black eye, or a dark-blue eye if we’re being particular.”

  I glanced away, fearing I would laugh, knowing exactly how confused he felt by the question. I couldn’t wait to see what Severin hit him with next. He didn’t disappoint.

  “But what if it isn’t?” Severin persisted. “What if it’s all a simulation?”

  “A simulation?” Jason repeated. I could see him fighting to keep his face blank. “I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

  “What if this, all of this”—Robbie gestured to the restaurant around us—“is just a simulation, the creation of a higher being, and we’re all just players?”

  Jason and I sat, speechless. From Mars to potatoes to simulations. This was not the dinner conversation I had expected. In fact, simulations had not been a part of any article I’d read on Severin. It must be something new. Oh dear.

  Mercifully, the servers arrived at that moment and took our empty plates and brought the next course, gratinated onions, which were small onions flavored with Parmesan and truffle and filled with a liquid that reminded me of French onion soup. The artistic presentation of the nouvelle cuisine was so enticing. It looked like art and smelled delicious.

  The flurry of plates coming and going gave Jason and me a second to regroup. He leaned close under the pretext of commenting on my food and said, “Help me.”

  His voice was so plaintive, I almost laughed out loud. Instead, I reached between our two chairs, caught his fingers in mine, and gave them a quick squeeze. We were two intelligent, hardworking people; surely we could handle this. At least, that was what I was trying to convey. When Jason’s warm fingers squeezed back, I took it as message received and let go. He didn’t. Instead, his thumb brushed over the back of my hand, making my breath hitch. I pulled away, breaking the moment.

  Trying to regain control of the situation, I gave him side-eye and said, “I didn’t know you played rugby.”

  This time, when he looked at me, his eyes were thoughtful. In a soft voice, he said, “I imagine there’s a lot you don’t know about me . . . yet.”

  Yet? What did he mean? And why, oh why, did my heart flutter at the sentiment? Was he trying to tell me we weren’t done? That he would wait until I got back to Boston? That at the very least we’d be friends? The questions positively burned my insides, like hot lava trying to find a way out. I said nothing. Now was not the time.

  As the servers departed, Robbie leaned forward again and said, “If the simulation hypothesis is true, then that black eye of yours is about as real as a unicorn.”

  Jason nodded. He leaned forward and asked, “Do you believe that we’re living in a simulation, Robbie?”

  To my surprise, Robbie laughed. It was a deep, hearty laugh that made me smile. He lifted his wineglass and took a sip. Then he met Jason’s gaze and said, “Maybe. Definitely maybe.”

  “What makes you think that?” I asked. The words flew out of my mouth before I thought to check them. Damn it. I didn’t want him to think I was being contrary, but I was curious. Believing that everything around us was fake, manufactured, as if we were living inside the movie The Matrix, was, well, weird.

  “Because it makes the things that have hurt me in life, the pain I’ve felt, more manageable,” Robbie said.

  Eleanor, shockingly, reached across the table and patted his hand.

  “Like losing your father?” Jason asked.

  I choked on an onion. Oh my god. He went there. With Severin. Over dinner. I gulped some wine to clear my throat.

  Severin glanced up from where he was pushing his food around his plate. He met Jason’s gaze and said, “Yes.”

  A look of understanding passed between them, and Jason lowered his head with a nod. “That makes perfect sense to me.”

  Amazingly, Severin seemed to relax after that. There was a lovely rapport that existed between the four of us at the table, but I was darned if I knew how it had gotten there. The rest of the meal was conversationally just as random as the beginning. Severin rarely answered direct questions, but he fired out ideas and opinions that seemingly had nothing to do with the conversation at hand. We veered from the weather at the North Pole to how he lived in hotels and didn’t ever reside in the many residences he owned. So much for sitting on the golden throne. This topic rolled into his dislike of material possessions and his collection of classic cars, housed in a garage in Los Angeles. He owned sixty-four luxury cars but didn’t consider them possessions. Logical? No. It was mentally exhausting trying to keep up.

  “Your gift is the largest we’ve ever considered,” Robbie said toward the end of the meal while we enjoyed our pear sorbet. “While I like that you clearly understand that we would like to expand the company’s exposure on college campuses, positioning us as a potential employer to
some of the brightest engineering minds in the future, I’m curious as to what you think will be the most successful way to engage students?”

  Aha, finally! Shoptalk. This was my wheelhouse. I gave Jason a look that said, I’ve got this. Then I carefully put down my spoon even though my sorbet called to me with an insistence that was hard to ignore. I smoothed the tablecloth with my hands and focused on the best way to answer his question. I fell back on my tried-and-true method of numeric persuasion.

  Robbie listened and nodded as I quoted statistics and demographics for the campaign’s optimum reach, but I got the feeling I was losing him. Panic made me talk faster as I pointed out that the Severin Robotics name would be attached to every bit of swag we distributed. That didn’t work either. He still looked underwhelmed. I felt as if I were rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic while the ship slowly sank into the icy North Atlantic. I needed to get him enthused about how the ACC could use a partnership with Severin Robotics to raise money to fight cancer and give Severin Robotics the massive exposure he sought.

  “Well, you’ve given me a lot to think about,” Robbie said.

  “Chelsea’s being very modest about our ambitions,” Jason said.

  I looked at him and shook my head. He wouldn’t.

  “And she left out the part about the BattleBots.” He did.

  I was going to murder him. We’d talked about this. We were not going to pitch his insane robot idea.

  “BattleBots?” Robbie asked. He dabbed his mouth with his napkin and leaned in. In. Instead of out, which was what he’d been doing when I talked.

  “Yes,” Jason said. “We had originally thought this could be something used for in-house employee engagement, but I think it could be much bigger. Picture this: each college campus that participates is in charge of building a robot—”

  “That serves the community in some way,” I interrupted. Jason looked at me in confusion. Too bad. If he was going to pitch this lunacy, I was going to make it the grown-up version with community involvement and not a death match between jacked-up old toasters.