by Oliver Rill
“I wanted to wait until September and then invite our little group to Florida. But it would be really nice if you could come earlier.” I suggested.
“I’ve got so much going on at the moment. And then there’s the bicycle wheel to deal with, that I was telling you about. But in September, when the others come, I can tag along with then.”
“Ok. If you want to do that, that’s ok.”
“Are you going to Greece this year?” She asked.
“I’m going to try. I’ve got a lot to do, so maybe for two weeks. I’ll have to see how things pan out. But I do miss Sifnos.”
“And how are things going over there?”
“Oh boy. I am really earning money, more than I thought I would, more than I ever thought possible. And the airline is really developing. I’m really happy with how it has gone so far. I would like more passengers on the Berlin flight, if I am honest, but otherwise, it’s great.”
“Just don’t tell anyone that you have so much money.”
“I’m going to have to come clean in September, mom. I’m going to invite you to Fort Myers and the house there is massive!”
“I thought you lived in Los Angeles?””
“Well, I do. It’s just that it’s cold in winter and it just worked out like that.”
“You don’t just buy a house on a whim.”
“I wanted it, because, well. I like the warm winters and I save on tax in Florida too. And that’s no insignificant sum.”
“And will you have room there for us all? I could go to a hotel?”
“There are seven guest rooms and even a guest house with another four rooms. I think we’ll find a small corner to tuck you into!”
“Oh my goodness! Who does all the cleaning?”
I had to laugh. “Mom! I’ve got a cleaning company that comes in. I’ve got a man who looks after all that.”
“Couldn’t you just say that you rented it?”
“I don’t know that that would do any good. A house like that would cost at least a thousand a day to rent. Don’t you think that the really close friends could cope with knowing that I’m doing ok? What do you think’ll happen? Do you think Martin’ll kidnap me and demand ransom?”
“No. They will all think that you’re bragging. And maybe they’ll be a bit jealous. Or resentful because you don’t give them any.”
“Not give them any? When I was unemployed, no one gave me anything! You supported me and Marie paid for my travelling. And at least I’m inviting them to stay cost free. They can’t ask more than that. Maybe you, Dad and Marie could. But no one else.”
“Oh, Oli. I don’t need anything. I just want to know that you’re doing ok.”
“Just keep it in mind. You don’t have to watch the pennies. You can have anything you want. If you want an electric bike, I’ll buy you one. Don’t worry about asking, just do it. Or if the journey seems too expensive, just go for it!”
“You should save a little too. You don’t know how long this good fortune will last.”
“Yes mom!”
When I flew back to L.A. Melvin let me know that Aaron had arrived and was in a hotel.
“So. My chauffeur lives in a hotel? How grand!” I said as I sat in Melvin’s office looking over the figures.”
“We need to talk about how you’ve got it all planned out.”
“You mean where I stay?”
“Yes. Do you think it’s worth Mr. White renting an apartment here?”
“By Mr. White you mean Aaron? I didn’t know his surname. Hmm. I’m going to be between here and Fort Myers. Mostly here though. I think he should have his own apartment.”
“Good. So he should rent one.”
“Have you spoken to Aaron about that? Can he afford one?”
“He’s got a reasonable salary. He should manage it.”
“Right. So now that means that I shouldn’t drive anywhere on my own, I guess?”
“Let’s just say the insurance requires that from us. That means you will be driven to events and meetings in any case. What you do in your free time is no-one else’s business, but we do ask you not to drive yourself and so not endanger the company, then too.”
“So I drive to work with Aaron and then I can go to the cinema alone, right?”
“Use Aaron all the time and since we don’t follow you after work, we won’t know how you get to the cinema or wherever you are going privately.”
“Ok I get it. Thank you Melvin. One more thing, I was thinking of putting on a big party to celebrate one year of business. Can we put together a budget for that? Can you let me know the most I can spend?”
“Well it depends on the number of people you’re inviting.”
“I guess between 500 and 1000. Give me two budgets.”
“More than $150 per guest is hard to explain.”
“Hmm. I wanted to really push the boat out.”
“As your chief of finance I have to set a limit at 75 to 150 thousand.”
“Okay, Melvin! You’re a hard man, but fair. I really appreciate that and I’ll keep it within budget. 150 for 1000 guests.”
“When were you thinking of doing it?”
“At the end of October, I think. That was when we started.”
I found myself in Rebecca’s office wailing about the turn of affairs.
“He won’t give me any money!”
“It’s your business, isn’t it? But you have to decide for yourself if you think Justin Timberlake is worth a million dollars or not.”
“A million?” I gasped.
“Well, what do you think?
“I thought it might be around ten thousand.”
“Dream on!” Laughed Rebecca. There were several airplane pictures and adverts that we had had printed either for external use or for use in the onboard magazine. Newspaper stacks appeared here and there in a little bit of creative chaos, but on the whole it was tidy, just messy enough to let the visitor (me) feel they could trust her, even if she did mock them, as she had just mocked me.
“What would my favorite band, Incognito want?”
“I’d have to ask.”
“And Boy George? Can you ask how much he would want, too? I’d love to invite Donna Summer, but she is no longer with us. I don’t think Ocea would be able to make it anyway. And if she did, it’d be over a million, don’t you think?”
“How many people do you want to invite?”
“Between 500 and 1000.” Rebecca rolled her eyes and laughed out loud.
“And you want to engage Timberlake for that? William and Kate’s marriage had more people than that. Is this supposed to be a promotion event or just a birthday tea with friends?”
“How many do you think I should invite then?”
“Have a word with Mark. He’s bound to have ideas about which customers you should invite. But in any case, I would definitely be thinking bigger. 20,000 guests at least. Then you could get your bands on board.”
“20,000. Wow.”
“Hotels, travel agents, events companies, internet portals, shipping companies, firms, business partners. The list goes on and on.”
I went straight to Mark in his office. Mark had gathered a small army of sales folk around him and I asked him for his opinion. But he also thought more rather than less.
“I don’t think Rebecca is far wrong.” He said.
“Could you get with Rebecca and work it out? I want to know who we want to invite and then think about where we can hold it and what we can offer people. I would like to bring in two house DJs from Berlin and I’d like a celeb or two, well three would be best who can go onstage with two or three songs during the evening. I would like to get Incognito in on the act too, if I can. Maybe Bruno Mars? I don’t know if we can get him? Ocea? Grace Jones?”
“Ah here you are. Grace Jones would want 50 thousand. I wanted to suggest her.” Rebecca came to join us.
“We would have a budget of three million by a party of 20 thousand guests. That would work! Ok. Let’s
book her then. I’ll chose three of her songs”
“Bruno Mars wants a half million! That’s too much!”
“How about Depeche Mode? They want 100.”
“Ocea? Half a million again – at a minimum!”
“Ok we’ve settled on Grace. Boy George won’t cost more than ten, we’ll go for him too. Then Incognito. Depeche Mode is a bit depressing. Try to get Incognito for 100, then we’ll have 160 thousand. Both my DJs together will come to around ten, which brings us up to 170 thousand. If you can think of anyone for 30, let me know. Will that work as a program?”
“I think Boy George and Grace Jones together are a bit gay.” Rebecca said. “How about Faithless? Or Simply Red?”
“Faithless would work. Grace Jones, Faithless and Incognito. That sounds like some line up!”
“Awesome! Let’s hang on in there. One Saturday at the end of October!”
I was ecstatic! I rushed over to tell Matt what we were planning and his eyes lit up. I rang Superdandy straight away.
“Du leiber Gott! Have you looked at the clock?”
I had of course completely forgotten the time difference and that Berlin had a time difference of around eight hours. “You won’t care about being woken up for this booking! Flight, hotel and you perform for – wait for it – $5,000!”
“Whaaat? Are you crazy?”
“Hang on, the best is yet to come. Grace Jones, Faithless and Incognito will be joining you on the stage. You’re on before them, after them or in between.”
“Whoa! Pinch me someone! Are you for real?”
“I sure am!”
“And who’s responsible for this terrible state of affairs? They don’t go together.”
“I wanted it to be a bit eclectic so everyone had a bit of something they liked. Something else though, Cesco is going to be there too.”
“Na, of course, you’d invite him. It’s great! I am really excited about it.”
“We’ll send you a contract to sign and send back. We’ll pay for your flight and three nights in a hotel. One before, one after and the night in question as well of course. If you want to extend your stay, you’ll have to pay anything further. That’s ok, isn’t it? Oh and by the way, you can use my guest rooms if you want.”
“Awesome, old man! I’m looking forward to it!”
“I’d love it if you two get together beforehand and agree how you’re going to handle it. I really need this to work well. If you could really get with the artists that would be great. I’ll send you the music list, but that’s then confidential, so keep it under your hat.”
“Is your company putting the show on?”
“It’ll be our first birthday! Everybody, just everybody will be there!”
“Ok, we’ll get with it. We’ll make sure everyone rocks from one piece to the next. I’m looking forward to it, Oli. Thanks for thinking of us. Send me the contract so I can block off the time.”
“I will. I’ve got to get going now. Sorry to wake you!”
I made the same call to Cesco, who suggested some changes.
“No. Just as it is. No changes to the planning, I’ve had my professionals look at it.”
“Ok. I’ll get there at the end of October and stay a week.”
“Brilliant!”
“We can get your Boy George in within the budget too, then we’ll have four acts.” Rebecca reported on the telephone.
“That’s cool. I’ll make a song list and then we can fine-tune. Food, drinks, venue. Actually, I think it’d work better in the open air. How about Venice Beach? Rope it off and keep it between six p.m. and midnight, then the residents will be able to get their beauty sleep. What do you think?”
“I think it might be better in a hangar at LAX airport. It would be closed off, right at the airport so easier to get to for everyone.”
“Hmm, what about the noise from the planes and then there’s security? The atmosphere at the beach would be better. No I’m not keen on it.”
“Ok, I’ll check with the city authorities. We’ll have to hire tables and chairs.”
“Oh God, Rebecca! Just get an event manager or something. This is going to be too big to handle ourselves and we aren’t really set up for it. We’ll give them the criteria and then only have to worry about the important things. The event guys can sweat the small stuff. Otherwise we’ll forget something, after all, we don’t do this for a living and we’ll end up with egg on our face.”
“True. That does sound like a plan.”
Aaron found an apartment and he picked me up each morning to drive me into work. He came with me when we flew to Florida at the weekends, too. Since he was party to everything that went on in my life, we became quite close. I often made calls in the car, he came with me to meetings, he could see when I was stressed and how I was coping with it all.
However, in L.A. he didn’t really gel with the pool gang, made up of myself, Aristo, Daniel and Matt. Aristo wasn’t always there. Often he managed to get a date and ducked out. Daniel mostly wanted to just stay in and veg in front of the TV, so Matt and I often found ourselves alone. Matt began to see his old friends again and sometimes so even he would disappear for the evening. I was never invited to these meetings because of course, Matt was still not gay.
Around the middle of June I released Aristo for his holiday. He had populated all the routes with staff, and was impatient, so I said I would follow on. In truth, I was quite jealous. I missed Sifnos and my friends on the island. I would so have loved to have jetted around the island on a scooter. I missed it.
“I think you should be planning for next year as far as plane purchases and slots go. We’ve already spoken about the advertising budget with Rebecca and the rest is up to you.” Melvin informed me as he came into my office with a folder under his arm.
“If I knew how the end of the year looked, I’d feel better”
“We can make a forecast. Unless of course another 9/11 happens, you can’t plan for those sorts of events. But what’s eating you? You aren’t usually so reticent. Were you worried about taking on the whole shebang? No. You just jumped right in.”
I leafed through the folder he had brought in and started to sign where I needed to.
“You’re right, Melvin. So what’s it going to look like at the end of the year?”
“Profit-wise you mean? I reckon on around 350 million. Of course you are going to find things a little more difficult and you do need to take that into consideration in your plans. JB Homes is going to pull back and we’ll have to work with the banks more than we have done so far.”
“Would it be better to buy planes rather than lease them?” I leant back, placing the pen on the desk with deliberation.
“As long as we don’t grow too quickly. Interest rates are low and so it is a good time to invest in the fleet. However, we don’t want to tie up all our capital and have no cash at all. Or be under pressure from the leasing company for one thing or another. We want to have enough of a cushion to keep us floating in hard times.”
“It would be good then as security to get a plane released from the leasing contract? Do you think?”
“Planes don’t count as security. Buildings and cash do. If the plane crashes, your money’s gone. The only benefit to buying a plane is not having to pay rental. But as I say, the interest rates are nothing at the moment.”
“And I have to take on the ten percent profit share?”
“You poor thing! I could really feel sorry for you!”
“To be honest, the 35 million … What am I supposed to do with all that? It’s almost obscene to earn that much.”
“Explain that to the children in Bangladesh. I didn’t write your contract. It’s going to be paid out according to what’s in there and whatever first world problems you have, you’re on your own. You could always ask the bank for a second account if that one is full.” I wasn’t going to get any empathy there. First Melvin said the business needed cash and reserves and then when I ask for a smaller share o
f the profits, he won’t do it.
“Ok. I don’t really appreciate you making fun of me. I’ll do the plans for next year and maybe take a holiday. A bit longer than the normal two weeks. I’ll let you know.”
Melvin’s visit had left me in a bit of confusion. In truth, I wanted to talk it over with Matt, but couldn’t. We had never really spoken about the amount of money I earned. It had never been an issue between us. I gradually realized that I had a chauffeur, and even though I thought that was a bit over the top before, now it began to make sense. And Matt and I … He earned well and so did I. The question of who would pay for the steaks or the drinks never came up. We spent most of the time at mine and that was ok as far as I was concerned. I needed to work out whether I wanted to expand the relationship with Matt to include my personal financial situation. And I had to think about the expansion of the firm.
While I was sitting in my office pondering this, I decided that I couldn’t make the decision alone. I needed Matt’s input. He had found all the good routes, I had to discuss with him the direction we wanted to take in the future.
“Hey Matt! Come into my office.” I called into the receiver. “Make it snappy!” I added.
“Oh God! What’s happened?” He burst in the door.
“Nothing, I was just joshing you!” I grinned. “Do you remember we were always talking about going to Santa Barbara?”
“Do you want a spa weekend?” He raised his eyebrows.