Just Not That Into Billionaires

by Annika Martin

  I nod and wait, knowing she’s not looking for answers from me.

  “I’ve been going after this specific vision of a ballet career for so long, it’s all I know,” she says. “It’s everything that I’ve molded myself to be. I’ve never questioned it because it’s what my brain wants and it has been forever, like I have five fingers on each hand and I’m gonna be an international ballerina. But what if it’s not what my heart wants? What if this ballet tour is like an instruction manual I wrote for myself fifteen years ago, and I’ve just been blindly following it all this time, never questioning it?”

  “It’s always good to question.”

  “I was thinking last night—what if I can make a dance at the ruins happen without Sevigny? If I can do it on my own terms? What if I blended my desire to dance at the ruins with teaching the class? What if I made it a class goal to do this amazing choreography based on the ruins, to get grants, to raise money, to make it happen? I feel like I can teach these girls dance, but also, how to do a big thing. It would be pure chocolate chip cookie dough.”

  “A hundred percent,” I say.

  “I always feel like everything has to be a struggle,” she says, “but why can’t my goal just be to have the chocolate chip cookie dough parts? I know I gave you that lecture, but I don’t apply it to myself all that much.”

  “I love that vision,” I say.

  “Right? It’s scary though. A sudden about-face like this?”

  “Maybe that just shows it’s right,” I say.

  “I know it’s right. Even so, I feel sad and even scared about it.”

  I touch her arm. We’re in it together. That’s what my touch says.

  She looks down at her plate and assembles another bite—a square of toast, a blob of bright orange egg yolk. “You helped inspire it all. Our conversation about your Juliana sale.”

  “I’m definitely rethinking it.”

  “Wait, what? You seriously are?”

  “Yeah. Am I truly willing to trade a year of my time working in somebody else’s robotics lab just to get more zeroes in my bank account? Because who cares? I already have more money than I’ll ever spend. And it’s a year of my time. Misery was an okay trade-off for a little more money before, but…I’m going to nix the sale,” I say. “Juliana and the gang are going to be unhappy, but nothing was in stone.”

  “You’ll keep the company?”

  “I’ll make it into what I want,” I say. “I have some big plans. Radical plans. I’ve been thinking about restructuring things. Spreading the profit around. Raising everybody’s salary and cutting my own. Creating a foundation to unload some money.”

  “Wait, what?” Her eyes go wide.

  “My wife is not into billionaires, and it turns out I’m not either,” I say.

  “Oh my god,” she says. “Are you serious?”

  “Entirely,” I say.

  “Aaron is going to be so upset,” she says. “Aaron is going to flip out.”

  “Yes, he will. He’s definitely going to try to stop me,” I say. “But I don’t owe him anything. He’ll still get a lot of money. Not as much as he wants but…”

  “And a year is precious,” she says. “We could do so much in a year.”

  We could. We. Us.

  She grins.

  “I love this,” I say.

  “Me too.”

  We haven’t talked much about the future, but it feels infinite now, and full of possibilities.

  I go around behind her and pull her hair free of the hair binder, kissing her on the neck where she loves being kissed. “I feel like we’ve done everything backwards, getting married before anything. But maybe we could take the very huge step of dating. If you would do me the honor…”

  “And make you the happiest man in the world?” She spins around and kisses me. “I’m in.”

  “We can see where this goes. We can make it up as we go along. You live in a place that you love with all of your friends and that’s great. But it goes without saying, the studio here is all yours. It always was.”

  “Oh, Mr. Stearnes.”

  “We’ll figure it out as we go along,” I say.

  “Hell yeah,” she says. “We can apply the chocolate chip cookie dough test to everything. If it’s not chocolate chip cookie dough, screw it!”

  “If we had to do our wedding vows over again, that would be mine, Francine. All chocolate chip cookie dough from now on, starting with you.”

  Her eyes gleam. “So we’re doing this. We date. I’ll dump the tour.” She stands and extends her pinky.

  “Pinky shake?” I ask. “You know dudes don’t pinky shake, right?”

  She forms her beautiful lips in a little pout.

  I grumble and grab her pinky with mine.

  “I’ll call Aaron and Juliana,” I say.

  “You can’t just pull out,” Aaron says when I call him.

  “I can absolutely pull out,” I say. “This whole month was our getting-to-know-you phase and I know I’m not interested in the sale anymore.”

  “But this is the deal we’ve been waiting for!”

  “You’re not the one who has to work in somebody else’s lab for a year,” I say. “I’m no longer willing to do that.”

  “Is it the price? Are you looking to get more money?” he asks.

  “I’ve been reevaluating things. What I really want, when I really think about it, is the freedom to pursue the ventures that I want to pursue.”

  “And with the money that you’ll get, you’ll be able to do that!” Aaron insists. “Arcana Protech is the only game in town.”

  “It’s not the same,” I say.

  “Have you been negotiating with someone else?”

  “I’m just rethinking a lot of things,” I say.

  “Does this have to do with Francine?” he asks. “She’s a gold digger—”

  “Which just goes to show that you know nothing.”

  “She’s the most dangerous kind of gold digger there is—the kind that convinces you she’s not.”

  “I don’t owe you explanations, Aaron. I’m nixing the sale. I’m going to exercise my option to buy you out.”

  “Hold on here,” he says. “Can we think this through? We need to think this through.”

  “I don’t need to think this through,” I say. “I know you were counting on a payday. You’re still going to get an enormous amount of money relative to the hours that you’ve put in.”

  He’s got a lot of legal arguments for me, but I’ve done my research. There’s nothing he can do if this is my decision.

  “Let’s discuss this. Before you make any moves, can we just discuss it? Think through all of the options?”

  “I’ve made up my mind. There’s no world in which this sale to Juliana and her people happens, so there’s nothing really to discuss.”

  “Just humor me?” Aaron pleads. “Have you had lunch? Let’s meet at Brandenburger. You haven’t had lunch yet, right?”

  I roll my eyes. He thinks he can change my mind. He thinks he can tempt me with zeros and spreadsheets. Maybe he’ll even sweeten the deal for me. It’s not going to happen.

  “For old times’ sake,” he says. “James would hear me out.”

  I groan inwardly. I hate that he’s invoking James. James would hear him out—it’s true. James was all for being diplomatic.

  I sigh. I’m in love with Francine and she’s in love with me. I can afford to be generous.

  I agree to meet him at three. I can give him an hour more of my time, and then we’re nixing this deal and I’m buying him out.

  It’s dizzying.

  “Can we make it three forty?” he asks.

  I don’t know what the difference is, but I agree.

  Brandenburger is a neighborhood restaurant down two blocks and over. Burgers, chili, that kind of thing. There’s a ton of construction out front that’s been hurting their business and I’m always trying to take meetings there, to support them.

  I’m texting, w
alking under the massive scaffolding shed on the block before the restaurant when I see Aaron up ahead, waving.

  “Hey!” he says.

  I walk up to him. “Is everything okay? Were there no tables or something?”

  “No, it’s fine, I just wanted to have a quick word before the restaurant. I wanted to show you something.” He’s noodling on his phone.

  Did he pull the Protech people together for this? I wait, feeling annoyed, leaning on the gap in the barrier. Hammers ring out above us. Workmen shout from somewhere in the distance. Traffic whizzes by behind me, the screeches of massive trucks and busses, honking horns.

  “Is this honestly something that we can’t handle in the restaurant?” I ask, impatient. “I’m taking this meeting as a courtesy. My mind is made up. You won’t change it. Neither will Juliana.”

  “This is really important,” he says, holding his phone up, screen faced toward me.

  I take off my glasses and squint; I can’t see it. “What is this?”

  “I’m sending it to you. Check your mail. It’s critical.”

  I pull out my phone and open my mail. “I don’t see anything.”

  “I just sent it,” he yells over the screech of more traffic.

  I’m squinting, looking for whatever ridiculous thing he wants me to see. The mail hasn’t come through. The next thing I feel is pressure on my chest. Two hands shove me backwards—into the traffic.

  My phone flies from my grip. I can’t get my balance.

  Time seems to slow. I’m aware of a massive hulk of steel barreling down on me. The last thing I see are Aaron’s crazy eyes.

  Twenty-Two

  Francine

  * * *

  He won’t wake up. They don’t know when he’ll wake up, and they don’t know why he won’t wake up. It’s a head trauma—that’s the word they keep using. He lies there, motionless. His head is bandaged and his leg is in a cast, elevated by a sling that hangs from the ceiling. Tubes snake into his arm.

  I’m in some sort of shock. I’ve gone completely numb. Everything seems unreal, almost translucent and far away.

  I hold his hand in the folds of the sheets. I trace a soft finger over his beautiful lips, over his forehead. “Come on, Benny.”

  He’s been unconscious for four hours now. I heard somebody use the C word: coma, and something about it being a bad sign if he’s unconscious for more than six hours.

  I tell him everything that comes into my mind. I want him to know I’m here. I try to sound bright and chipper, but I’m so scared. We just found each other—how could this have happened?

  Waves of disbelief move through me, over and over.

  Sometimes I lean over and just put our cheeks together. I don’t want to jiggle the machines or anything, but I want him to feel me, to feel my skin, to feel my heart near his.

  It’s unbearable to see him so motionless. Unresponsive. Unable to ward people off with his scowly demeanor. Unable to be his intensely private self. He’d hate these tubes. He’d hate these lights. He’d hate so many strangers.

  His nurse arrives. “It’s a good sign that your husband is breathing on his own,” she reminds me.

  She’s a woman of maybe forty with close-cropped brown hair, and she used to be in the Army. We talked a little bit about that on her last time through.

  “He doesn’t need a ventilator. It’s a very good thing.” She’s hooking up something orange to the tube in his arm—an antibiotic of some sort. Apparently his blood pressure is good as well. They sometimes tell me he’s lucky, considering he was hit by a bus going at full speed.

  He needs to wake up.

  Thank goodness we’re married. I don’t think they’d let me in to see him otherwise.

  I was preparing our celebration dinner at his place when Aaron called me. Apparently they were to meet at a restaurant. Aaron was waiting, and when Benny didn’t show up, he started walking toward the penthouse. There was all this commotion in the street—cars stopped. People gathered around. Apparently Benny had stepped out into some traffic.

  Benny’s phone was found nearby. He’d been immersed in his email and tripped or something. It’s hard to believe he’d be so careless. It’s true that when Benny puts his attention on something, that attention is total, but he’s lived in the city for years. He knows you don’t go bumbling into traffic while you’re looking at your phone.

  I tell him about my meeting with Sevigny, and about quitting the tour. Sevigny was upset, but people in the dance world get it about injuries. “I’m helping my understudy, Daneen, on my part,” I say. “Of course my colleagues are upset, Benny, but I feel like it’s right. I know it’s right. We can do so much together now!” I squeeze his hand. “Right? Annie and the whole company, they deserve somebody who’s operating at full capacity for the tour.”

  I scrub away a tear.

  He just lies there, face ashen. I pull out my phone and put on a playlist that I made and downloaded, based on all of his favorite music. The nurse said it was okay as long as the phone stays in airplane mode.

  “Your favorite music, Benny,” I say, letting the tunes roll.

  Nothing.

  I leave it playing while I go to talk to Mac in the waiting room. He’s distraught. “Benny’s a good boss, a good guy. The best.”

  “The best,” I agree.

  “He’d hate this,” Mac says. And I just nod. Mac says something about having called Benny’s parents in Ann Arbor. There’s been discussion of travel arrangements.

  “He won’t be unconscious for that long,” I say. “I can feel him right there. I know he’ll be fine. He just needs to wake up.”

  Mac nods. “Of course.” I can’t tell if he’s placating me or if he really believes me.

  “Hey, will you do something for me?” I ask. “Will you go back home and get his favorite robe and his slippers? We’re supposed to have familiar things around him.”

  Personally, I’m planning on getting Spock Must Die on my ereader so that I can read it to him when I run out of things to say.

  “I’d be happy to grab anything,” Mac says, “but visiting hours are over in twenty minutes. They’re going to kick you out.”

  “No!” I look up at the clock. Shit. “I can’t leave him!”

  Mac shakes his head. “You may not have a choice.”

  I go to find the nurse who’s working with us and beg her to let me stay over. “Aren’t the first few hours of a coma critical? He needs to know I’m there!” I tell her.

  She informs me that rules are rules.

  I rush back to Benny’s room, and I’m surprised to see Aaron there sitting in the bedside chair. “What are you doing here?” I ask him.

  “Seeing Benny, obviously,” he says. “What do you think I’m doing here?”

  “I thought it was next of kin only,” I say.

  Aaron smiles. “I’ve got connections.”

  A queasy sensation spreads through my stomach. It’s his smile. It’s the way he said it. It’s that he has no business being here! Benny certainly wouldn’t want him here. “I’d like for you to leave so that I can be alone with him.”

  Aaron looks up at the clock. “Sure.” He disappears.

  It suddenly occurs to me: isn’t it kind of suspicious that both of the owners of TezraTech would be killed in the same span of six months?

  My pulse is just racing. My antenna is up so high, it’s a wonder there are no holes in the ceiling.

  Didn’t Benny say that James was dead set against the sale of the company? And then he’s run down on his bike? And then Benny turns against the sale and this happens?

  Is Aaron in control of the company now? Does he get the money or something?

  “What happened to you?” I ask Benny. “You have to wake up. You’re right here—I can feel you.” It’s true. I can feel him. He’s so close.

  I look up at the clock, thoughts racing.

  Could Aaron be responsible for this accident? Is it possible Aaron pushed him into the traffic
? I feel this grip around my heart just thinking of it. The horror Benny must’ve felt. The pain.

  And how did he even get in here to see Benny? He’s not family! Did he bribe an employee? Will he be able to get back in when I’m gone? Will he return in the middle of the night and finish the job?

  It feels crazy to think these thoughts, but I can’t stop. It all just seems obvious now.

  Benny was going to meet Aaron when this very mysterious accident happened.

  Why? He’d resolved to call him and tell him the bad news—not meet him in person. Did he call Aaron and tell him he’s nixing the sale? Did Aaron convince him to meet somehow? And then...

  Am I being paranoid?

  Benny’s main nurse comes back in.

  “You have to let me stay with my husband,” I say. “I feel like he could be in danger.”

  “He’s being monitored closely,” she says. “If anything happens to him, he’s got the best care in the world.”

  Not what I mean.

  “I need to stay,” I announce. “I’m not leaving.”

  “I’m sorry, you don’t have a choice.” She’s checking the machines, hitting buttons on her handheld device. “They’ll get security.”

  “They let Aaron in and he’s not even family. So obviously the rules are not that ironclad.”

  “Your husband is in good hands,” she says. “He’s safe.”

  I grab Benny’s hand. One of his favorite Spoon songs is playing. “I need you to wake up,” I say to him. “I need you to wake up, Benny!”

  The nurse gives me a wan smile and leaves.

  At five minutes after seven, they still haven’t kicked me out, though they’ve certainly made plenty of announcements about visiting hours being over. Maybe they’re giving me a little extra time.

  When the door opens next, I’m sure it’s them coming to drag me out, but instead it’s Aaron.

  “Visiting hours are over,” I say to him. “And you’re not family, anyway.”

  “If visiting hours are over, what are you doing here?” he asks.

  “Staying.” I squeeze Benny’s hand. I turn up the music. Lou Reed. Another of his favorites. “Come on, baby.”