by Terry Fallis
By then we were on the second ring. He shook his head again and kept his finger poised over the button.
“You can’t take it. I could barely understand you when my ear was practically inside your mouth.”
I don’t know what made me do it. I really don’t. Perhaps love for my newfound brother? More likely a complete and precipitous suspension of rational thought.
I grabbed the phone from his hand. He made no move to take it back. The third ring had just finished and we were headed for the fourth. I closed my eyes, took two deep breaths, returned to the moment, and hit the green button.
“Matt Paterson,” I said in my best Matt Paterson voice.
“Good morning, Matt. It’s Stephanie Mosel, but you already knew that, didn’t you?”
“Well, I know your protocol, so yes, I was expecting your call and I’m certainly glad you made it,” I said.
“Well, I could be calling with bad news,” she said.
“True, but I can’t help but think you have others to make those calls for you,” I replied.
I glanced at Matt and then looked away fast. His face was white and registering primal, sasquatch-sighting shock.
“Gold star for you, Mr. Paterson,” she said. “We’re a go for our meeting tomorrow. Four p.m. I have to be at Heathrow by six to catch a plane.”
“And by plane, you really mean your own Gulfstream G280,” I said.
“That’s two gold stars, Mr. Paterson. I like an entrepreneur who does his homework,” she replied with a little laugh. “We’re wheels up at 6:45 so we’ll have at least forty-five minutes together before I’ll have to dash, so make them count.”
“We’ll be ready. Or rather, I’ll be ready,” I replied. “I’m hoping by 6:45 you won’t just be wheels up, but cheque book out, as well.”
“Ha! You can leave that part to me. See you tomorrow at the Four Seasons, Park Lane. You’ll be met in the lobby and brought up to my suite.”
“Thank you, Stephanie. I’ll be there in the lobby on time. I’ll be the one in the red sombrero.”
“Ha! No need for the hat, though it would be an amusing sight. We know what you look like,” she replied.
“Right then. And thanks again for the meeting,” I said. “I know time is money, so whatever time we have together, I’ll make sure it’s time and money well spent.”
“Until tomorrow, then,” she said. “Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
I hit the red button to end the call and then collapsed on the bed. I heard Matt furiously scribbling on his pad. When I opened my eyes, he was holding his words in front of my face.
Bloody brilliant! How did you do that? I was listening to…myself!
He then bent down and whispered something I couldn’t hear or understand, though I did catch another hard k sound.
“Sorry?”
He leaned in even closer to my ear, like Mike Tyson on Evander Holyfield close, and whispered. “Fucking brilliant!” was all he said.
I just lay there, eyes closed, hyperventilating.
Matt tapped my leg. When I opened my eyes again, he pointed to the “How did you do that?” phrase on his pad. He then embellished his query by lifting up his shoulders and hands and shaking his head in disbelief, the perfect physical manifestation of “How did you do that?”
“Matt, that’s what actors do. We act. We assume someone else’s character. We impersonate people. I just impersonated you, a role for which I seem to be quite well-suited.”
Matt then scrawled the word “SHY!” and turned the pad so I could see and pointed at my chest.
“Yes, I know. But that’s a whole different thing,” I tried to explain. “I’m shy. But you are not. So when I’m playing the role of Matt Paterson, I am not shy. I’m you. That’s what it means to act.”
He opened his mouth again, but I couldn’t hear him. All I got was one syllable. I think it was a hard “k” sound, but I wasn’t sure.
“Pardon?”
Matt leaned down to my ear yet again and whispered, “Fucking brilliant. You nailed it, er, you nailed me.”
—
Matt, who really did look terrible, spent the day at the condo going over and over his pitch, but only in his mind. He didn’t utter one word all day to save his voice for the big meeting the next day. I got a little deeper into my acting by performing those important lines in the pitch that I thought he could punch a little more. It was kind of nice always having the floor and never being interrupted. But Matt, I think impressed with my thespian prowess, listened intently and nodded as he heard my subtle key line delivery suggestions – a pause here, heightened eye contact there, lowering the volume and slowing the pacing for the big finish. My silent captive audience and I worked every line in the entire presentation for most of the day.
Calls from CTO Isabella and CFO Michael came in now and then as they monitored Matt’s progress. I was convinced that by uttering not a word for the entire day, he’d be able to speak by nightfall. At least that’s what Wikipedia’s Laryngitis entry promised, the last word on the condition. We waited until about nine that evening to assess his progress. I stood before him as he opened his mouth.
Not a sound was heard beyond the faint rushing of air from his mouth.
“Did you just try to say something, or were you just practising opening your mouth for when you do try to say something?” I asked.
Matt looked crushed, which effectively answered my question. He tried for a few minutes and managed to croak out a few lines that sounded slightly less melodic than Linda Blair’s possessed voice in The Exorcist.
“Wait,” I said, holding up my hand. “That’s enough. You’ll make it worse. Well, it would be hard for it to be worse, but you won’t improve it any by talking.”
Matt flopped back on his bed, where he’d spent most of the day. He was not happy.
“Kit.”
“Sorry?”
Matt motioned for me to lean down, so I did.
“We’re fucked,” he whispered, his breath tickling my ear.
“Not yet we’re not. Can we not just postpone the meeting for a week?”
He shook his head and tried to speak.
“I know, I know,” I cut in. “She’s mercurial and has a protocol.”
He nodded.
“Well, we’ve got nineteen hours till the meeting. I can’t believe you won’t have improved enough to make yourself understood by tomorrow afternoon.”
I was wrong.
By eight the next morning, he reported his temperature as 103 degrees. He alternately huddled under his covers shivering and stood on his deck in next-to-nothing, sweating profusely. He felt and looked miserable. By noon he was worse and had still not produced a sound that even remotely resembled his voice, or any human’s voice.
“You have to cancel,” I said. “You can’t do the meeting. Not today.”
Matt shook his head for quite a long while. By this time, he was using an app on his iPad that turned his texting into a woman’s monotone voice with an English accent. He typed for a few seconds and hit the Play button.
“No way. We cannot cancel,” the woman’s flat voice recited. “She makes the rules. We blow off this meeting and we blow off the investment. It’s over.”
“I know, I know,” I replied.
Matt nodded. Then his expression changed. He looked up at the ceiling for a moment. He appeared to be deep in thought. Uh-oh. No. And then he started nodding again and smiling and mouthing what I thought was the word “yes” though he produced no sound of his own. He typed and hit Play.
“I have an idea,” his iPad proclaimed.
Shit. It was my own fault. I’d brought this on myself.
“No, you do not have an idea! You have no ideas! Do not go there,” I jumped in. “Do not even think about making a plan to consider perhaps contemplating going there. Do not.”
More typing. Play button.
“It’s our one shot. It’s the only way.”
And we were of
f. The debate raged. I was somewhat put off arguing with an iPad that sounded vaguely like a supremely bored Helen Mirren. At a few heated points in our discussion, I found myself directing my counter-arguments towards the iPad. It was strange.
An hour later I was weakening and wavering. Two hours later I was actually considering it. Three hours later I was wearing Matt’s clothes and a friend of his was cutting my hair, staring from Matt’s head to mine and back again, her scissors flying.
Matt was right. In light of Stephanie Mosel’s well-earned reputation, it was the only way to salvage at least a shot at securing her critical investment. I was well beyond nervous and anxious. I was scared, but if I wouldn’t do this for Matt, my own twin brother, then who would I do it for? In the end, deep down, very deep down, I think it’s possible I wanted to do it as much as I felt obligated to do it.
By noon, Matt’s voice still showed no signs of returning any time soon. We made the final call and then spent the next two hours undertaking final preparations. That meant that Matt struggled to stay awake as his fever really took hold. He couldn’t help himself. He’d be in the middle of explaining something to me and then he’d have to lay his head down and drift off to sleep for a few minutes. He’d wanted to bring Isabella and Michael over to help me prepare, but I demurred. I was much more comfortable alone with Matt.
When he was on his back and out of the play, I read several documents and articles he’d gathered for me that articulated his vision for the company and his ideas on social licence and digital public engagement. Then he’d rouse himself and we’d work through the pitch a few more times. Finally, we spent the last hour before I had to leave working on the questions he expected Stephanie Mosel to pose. With about thirty-five minutes until Isabella was to pick me up to drive me to the Four Seasons, I stood and presented to Matt one last time. Throughout my performance, he was smiling and nodding, and pumping his fist. I didn’t think Stephanie would be responding the same way.
When Isabella buzzed up from the lobby, Matt stood and made a last-ditch attempt to use his voice. Nothing but air. I picked up my laptop for the platform demo as well as the aptly named leave-behind document I was supposed to, you know, leave behind with Stephanie. I was ready. Terrified but ready. Petrified but ready. Paralyzed but ready.
Matt hauled himself out of bed and put his hand on my shoulder as we walked to his front door. Then he faced me and gripped my upper arms in his hands. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Finally, he just mouthed “Thank you.” Then he hugged me and patted my back. I’m not sure if he noticed I was shaking.
The Four Seasons Park Lane was the most luxurious hotel I’d ever seen. Being in a completely different world seemed to help me shed my own persona and slip into Matt’s. It was acting. I was an actor. It was time to act. When Isabella pulled up at the front entrance in her tiny Ford Fiesta, I left my nervous nauseated self in the front seat and stepped into the beautiful lobby as Matthew Paterson, confident, poised, articulate, and thoughtful entrepreneur. At least, that’s what I kept telling myself. It was 3:55.
“Mr. Paterson,” the well-dressed young American man said as he approached.
“Yes. You’re Robert, aren’t you?” I said, or rather, Matthew said.
“I am,” he replied, looking surprised. “How did you know that?”
“Your photo is on the website.”
“Right! Well, good to meet you. We can go right up, Stephanie is ready.”
The word “suite” hardly did justice to the palatial luxury of the rooms mercurial investor Stephanie Mosel occupied on the top floor of the Four Seasons Park Lane. I’d never seen anything like it, though Matthew possibly had. So I kept my awe to myself.
“Matthew Paterson, I recognize you from all the YouTube videos I’ve been watching,” she said. “I’m Stephanie Mosel.”
She looked older than in her online photos. She was dressed in a simple but elegant blue suit, and her blondish hair looked as if it had been carefully coiffed moments earlier. For all I knew, it had been. I hadn’t seen his departure, but Robert had disappeared.
I shook her hand and beamed, as Matthew would have.
“Stephanie, so nice to meet you in person, finally,” I said. “And yes, I am Matt, and I’m currently reviewing in my mind all the YouTube videos you may have suffered through.”
She laughed.
“Don’t worry. If I’d seen anything amiss, you wouldn’t be here now.”
“Right. Of course,” I replied.
“Sit down, please,” she said, indicating one of two plush couches in front of the large but inactive fireplace.
I sank into the couch facing her and put my laptop and our leave-behind document on the glass-topped coffee table between us. I noticed with some interest, even surprise, that I was calm in my new body and breathing normally.
“Okay, then. I’m here to listen,” Stephanie said. “We’ve got about forty-five minutes before I must dash, so let’s make the most of the time we have. The floor is yours, Mr. Paterson.”
I made the split-second decision not to stand to present. Given the couch-facing-couch configuration of the room, I thought it would have looked too contrived and artificial to stand and present across the coffee table. But I sat up, leaned forward, and made solid and sustained eye contact. Abby would have been proud of me.
“Thank you. I’m so grateful for this time,” I began. “The roots and future of Innovatengage lie in a commodity that is now as critical to the global industrial economy as oil prices, wage levels, and interest rates. Securing social licence has become central to doing business on this continent and on yours. To drop directly to the bottom line, we have found a way to scale the all-important process of public and stakeholder engagement so that it reaches a much larger audience, yields more meaningful insights, and often breaks down the adversarial dynamic inherent in the search for social licence. Our online platform helps public- and private-sector organizations get on with building the major projects that will yield continued economic growth and higher investment returns. That is why I’m here, and, I imagine, it’s why you invited me.”
I stayed on track. I clung to the script like a shipwrecked sailor to an overturned lifeboat. I made it through all three sections of the pitch without stumbling. I seemed to remember all the nuances I’d suggested to Matt when he’d been rehearsing. I focused not just on the lines, but on my vocal inflection, tone, pacing, and volume as well. I knew how long my presentation was, so I didn’t feel the need to rush. I often gestured with my hands, the way Matt did, animating my sentences. Again like Matt, but very much unlike me, I smiled through much of my monologue, but not so much that it was psycho-creepy. I held eye contact with Stephanie throughout, except when forecasting what the future might hold for Innovatengage and how the search for social licence might evolve in the coming years. Only then did I allow myself to look past her to some far-off point in the distance. Well, I thought it was a nice touch.
Because she’d given me the floor and had not interrupted, my presentation felt more like traditional theatre. I knew my character and my lines, so I inhabited the former and delivered the latter with complete focus. But when I finished and she started asking questions, it suddenly morphed into an improvisation exercise, though we’d worked hard on anticipating her concerns and queries. I felt my heart rate rise though I’m quite certain she didn’t notice. My pulse quickened not so much out of anxiety, but more from excitement. I liked improv.
She’d ask me a question. I’d recognize it as one for which we’d prepared, or at least a version of one of them. I’d nod thoughtfully, look briefly upwards, apparently deep in cerebral machinations, and then I’d deliver an articulate response Matt and I had carefully crafted hours earlier. At one point, Robert materialized in the room, nodded at Stephanie, and then disappeared again.
“I know the answer to this question, but I want to hear your version,” she said. “Why has social licence suddenly become such a big deal? Used to be when yo
u got regulatory approval, you could bring in the backhoes and bulldozers and get going. What’s happened?”
I paused, though I didn’t need to.
“The idea is to minimize the investment required to build projects. Our experience is that the cost of managing and eventually overcoming well-organized opposition, dealing with work interruptions as activists handcuff themselves to equipment, pipelines, old growth trees, etc., is higher, much higher, than taking the time up front to understand and, to the extent possible, involve, accommodate, and assuage public, community, and stakeholder concerns. Give them a say in how you do what regulatory authorities have already said you can do. Beyond saving money, and often time, in the long run, it has the added benefit of being the right thing to do,” I said.
I paused again before continuing.
“The term social licence may be new, but what it represents has been sought by builders for as long as we’ve been building railroads, power stations, and sewage treatment plants. We just have a more effective means now of securing it than we’ve ever had before.”
“Understood. And that may be true right now, but what about five or ten years from now?”
“Well, Stephanie, given the climate change imperative, volatile oil prices, the move to solar, wind, and other power-generating options, I simply cannot foresee a time when cultivating social licence will not be a growth industry, year after year. And a premium is paid to those who are first in the market. We’re ready to be first in with a much bigger footprint than we have now.”
Not bad. We knew that one was coming. But of course, it’s difficult to anticipate every question.
“Okay. I admit it. I’m very impressed. I like what I’ve seen from the research our due diligence already turned up. I like what I’ve heard from you today and I think your take on social licence is bang on,” Stephanie said. “As you know, it’s not uncommon for a group of angels or a VC to demand a thirty-five or even forty per cent stake to fund a start-up. If I proceed, I have no intention of demanding such a high level of share ownership in Innovatengage for my money. Why do you think I feel that way?”