Dan finally quit crying, but it was still hard to breathe. He felt an overwhelming desire to run away. But where could he go? He was already as far away from the source of his misery as he could be on Earth—and the fear was just as great here. Desperately, he looked around the room for some source of comfort. The TV would have the news. So would the radio. His phone? Oh, god no. The liquor bar? I’m drunk enough already, he told himself. His stomach felt sour.
His computer? He glanced at it, then recoiled. The news stories. The analysis. The blogs. And worst of all, the messages. Sympathetic, offering to help, secretly triumphant, asking for comments.
And Annabelle. There’d be a dozen emails from Annabelle. All sympathetic and falsely up-beat and telling him she believed in him, that they’d get through this like they had everything else. It was too much to stand…
Almost before he knew what he was doing, Dan was standing in his suit, wet shoes, and damp overcoat and knocking softly on Lisa’s door.
The door partially opened and she peeked around its edge. He didn’t say anything, but just stood in the hallway with his hair hanging down on his forehead and tears slicking his cheeks. Lisa didn’t speak either, but her eyes darkened as she looked at his face and hair.
She stepped back and pulled the door open. She was wearing only a camisole and panties. Behind her, he could see the glow of a computer screen and an open ironing board. He sighed with relief as she reached out, took his hand, and gently drew him into the room.
v. 4.4
The Public House sports bar at the entrance to Pac Bell Park had been rented for the eTernity IPO celebration party. The cab dropped Alison off on the empty street out front, where she could see that the restaurant, tiny beneath the looming black bulk of the empty stadium, was jammed with her reveling fellow employees. She took a quick glance up at the bronze Willy Mays, then breathed deeply, steeling herself before she headed through the doors.
Linda from contracts administration saw her first. She was so excited to see Alison that she couldn’t speak, but she did manage to hand her a t-shirt that read ‘I was part of the eTernity IPO… and got a hell of a lot more than this t-shirt.’
It took a moment for the rest of crowd to notice Alison’s arrival. As she took off her blazer and pulled the t-shirt over her silk blouse, she could hear the first rumbles of recognition. Then somebody shouted, “It’s Alison!”—and all hell broke loose.
An hour later, she was sore and exhausted from hugging more than one hundred-fifty people, half of them drunk—including one woman who squeezed her a little too intimately—and all of them shouting their excitement and thanks into her ears. So far, she’d managed two sips from a margarita that Nguyen from accounting had managed to order for her, had been lifted off the floor and spun around in three hugs from large men she barely knew, and—in a moment the eTernity employees would talk about for years, if only to illustrate how much fun she used to be—had been lifted up onto the bar by two more male employees and asked to address the room.
Drunk and newly minted millionaires and near-millionaires proved to be an easy audience. Every sentence she spoke and every gesture she made drew cheers. Though she set out to say something memorable and even sincere, in the end she settled for the usual clichés: This is your big day. ETernity’s success is yours, not mine. This is just the beginning. The best is yet to come. Etc.
The crowd’s roar was undiminished with each drink and each sentence. Even in an alcoholic haze, everyone in the room—even those in their first job and too new to eTernity to benefit much from stock options—knew that this was probably the single most important day of their entire career, and they were intent on making it memorable and as protracted as possible. Sensing that their personal connection to Alison Prue might be important in years to come—if only as a cocktail party anecdote—they tried to hold onto her presence as long as possible.
Eventually, she managed to convince the men to help her down off the bar. As the crowd grew maudlin, one employee after another—many with faces slick with tears—embraced her again and swore their loyalty to the company and its long-term success. More than one employee, each thinking themselves original, said through sobs to Alison, “I’m with eTernity for eternity.”
Finally she made her way back to the front door to retrieve her blazer from the still-starry eyed Linda. She backed out the door, saying her goodbyes to a half-dozen more people. Once out the door, Alison turned and started walking across the plaza towards the street, pulling on her blazer as she went.
“Boss!” shouted a familiar voice behind her. She turned to see Armstrong Givens, decked out in a shawl-collared tuxedo and silk scarf. She laughed and waited for him to catch up. They embraced, and Alison stepped back and looked her COO up and down. “Very dapper,” she said. “I don’t know how I missed you in that sea of t-shirts.”
“I remained seated during the endless standing ovation.”
“What?” she demanded with a smile. “You’re not thrilled by all this?”
“More than you know, Alison,” he said seriously. “This is, after all, my second IPO. I failed to sufficiently appreciate either the first one or its… rewards. Since God and NASDAQ have decided to bless me for a second time, I intend to drink this one to the last drop.”
“We did it, Armstrong.”
“Yes, we did. And not least because of our brilliant and talented CEO.”
Alison blushed for the first time that day, and made a small curtsey. “Thank you. But I meant what I said. We all did this one together.”
“Yes we did. And no doubt for the last time. I hope you understand that after today, everything changes.”
She nodded. “Yes. I know.”
“No you don’t,” said Givens. “Not really.” He gestured towards the restaurant. “Nor do they.”
“Do they all really believe what they’re saying in there?”
“Pretty much. Yes.”
“Should I believe them?”
“Oh heavens, no.”
Alison nodded. “Good night, Armstrong.”
He kissed her on both cheeks. “Good night, miracle girl.”
v. 5.0
Annabelle was stirring bolognaise sauce in a pot on the stove. Dan stood in the kitchen doorway, bottle in one hand and corkscrew in the other. “Shall I uncork the wine?”
She didn’t look up. “Fine.”
He nodded, forced a smile in case his wife noticed, then turned and headed into the dining room. He pulled the cork, then took a quick swig out of the bottle. Not knowing what else to do, he sat down on the couch and stared hungrily at the hors d’oeuvres waiting in a tray before him on the coffee table. He thought about making a drink, but the bar was in the kitchen… and the last thing he wanted to do was go back in there.
No, he’d keep with the established program and wait for Annabelle to bring in his usual Bombay Sapphire martini with an olive in a frosty glass. The prospect of having her take this extra effort for his benefit—something he’d never noticed in the past—made him uneasy. He sensed that everything happening tonight was being tallied in a permanent emotional account somewhere.
Dan felt very alone—even abandoned. There was the strained relationship with his wife and the growing troubles with his daughter… and even Cosmo had sent him a message saying that he would not be attending the annual meeting tomorrow, and for Dan to host the meeting himself.
Has it really been a year already? he asked himself. Most of the annual meetings before it ran together in his mind, but he remembered last year’s as vividly as if it had taken place a week ago. A year ago tonight he’d flown to Validator’s ranch—and had missed this annual private dinner with Annabelle. Now he wished he could have swapped that night with this one.
He knew his wife felt that way, too. It wasn’t just her anger; it was also her distrust of their daughter. A
nnabelle had kept Aidan under lock and key ever since she’d had been picked up by police in a public park near her high school in the company of a suspected drug dealer. There was no evidence she’d done anything illegal, but the cop had recognized the family name and drove Aiden home, rather than to the station. Aidan had denied everything, of course, and accused her mother of not trusting her, being a terrible mother, wishing her father was home because he’d believe her, etc.
To her credit, Annabelle hadn’t bought any of it. She grounded Aidan indefinitely, even driving her to school in the morning, picking her up in the afternoon, and calling her at break-time and lunch. Aidan was furious and did her best to make life in the house a living hell. But Annabelle refused to break.
As relentless and steely calm as she was with her daughter, Annabelle conversely made no attempt to restrain her anger and resentment with Dan. The days when he was home from the road, the Crowen house was like an armed camp: Aidan slamming doors, screaming at her mother, and threatening all manner of self-destruction once she was set free; Annabelle answering her daughter through gritted teeth, then retreating to the kitchen or bedroom to bang dishes or cry; and Dan caught in the cross-fire, blamed by both sides, and plotting his escape with yet another business trip.
And now it was time again for the Validator annual meeting. There was no question that Dan would be home for it. There would obviously be no sales meeting this year. And as the event approached and he hadn’t heard from Cosmo, Dan assumed he wouldn’t be fired, either. But most of all, there was Annabelle’s insistence that their annual dinner go on as planned, if only to maintain some continuity in their home life—despite Aidan’s attempt to sabotage it.
But Annabelle seemed to realize too late that to have this dinner, she would have to let Aidan out of the house to spend the night with a friend… and Aidan made no secret that she planned to take full advantage of her temporary freedom. From the moment Aidan had left the house with a triumphant smirk on her face, Annabelle had been on edge… and obviously fighting to resist a desire to call every ten minutes to check up on her.
“Dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes,” she said flatly as she appeared in the doorway, still in her apron, with a martini glass in each hand. “I’ll have to go in a few minutes to put in the pasta. And I’ll have to turn the meat then, too.” She handed Dan his glass and pointedly took her own place on the far end of the couch.
He smiled wanly and reached out with his glass. “Another year, another annual meeting.”
Reluctantly, she tapped her glass against his. “Let’s hope it’s your last… unless you’ve found you prefer life on the road with your young assistant.” Taking a long sip, she sat back and stared at the far wall.
Dan looked at the same spot. “I don’t think that kind of talk is called for, do you?”
“Only if I’m wrong,” she replied. She turned to stare at him. Her eyes were puffy and her face drawn. “Am I wrong, Dan?”
“Of course you are,” he said, still avoiding her eyes. He already hated himself for what he was about to say. “I can’t believe you’d even make such an accusation. Especially tonight. I think you’ve been stuck alone with Aidan for so long that your imagination has run away with you.”
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s pretend that’s the real problem. Just exactly whose fault is it that I’ve been left here alone with our troubled daughter?”
Dan finally turned to look into her eyes. “Do you really want to go over this again?” he asked. “Do you think I don’t understand my responsibility in all of this? Christ, Annabelle, you’ve reminded me of it every day I’ve been gone, in emails, texts, phone calls, and any other way you can think of to reach out and kick my ass. I haven’t heard a friendly word from you in two months. Do you really think I haven’t got the message?”
“Given your behavior, apparently not. I told you I needed you to be here. That I needed your help with this. And instead, you’ve betrayed me.”
“I’ve done nothing of the sort,” he said, stalling. “I warned you not to let Aidan get to you like this. It’s affected your thinking. You’re not yourself.”
“And you are?” she demanded. “I told you Aidan was heading for trouble, and that we needed you here. And you didn’t believe me.”
“And I still say that you’ve over-reacted. I stood by you, of course. That’s my job. But there’s no proof that Aidan’s been anything but a typical teenager testing her limits.”
“Do you really believe that, Dan? Or is this how you rationalize the selfish decisions you’ve been making lately?”
He put down his drink and leaned back on the couch, folding his arms. “Okay, fine. Do you really want to spend our special evening making accusations and fighting?”
Annabelle downed her martini and stood up. “All right. We’ll just make believe that nothing has changed. I’ll get dinner on.”
v. 5.1
Dan awoke, still dressed, in Aidan’s bed. He didn’t know how he’d gotten there—only that he had stopped counting after the third martini and that Annabelle had gone to bed crying. Having found their bedroom locked, he had managed to navigate his way to the nearest bedroom and fallen into the bed.
Now it was late morning, and his head was throbbing. He rolled over on his back and looked up at the posters and magazine clippings taped to the wall. The teen idols were slowly and inexorably being replaced by brooding actors, alternative rockers, and, most disturbingly, images of inked, pierced, and branded men and women from pages of tattoo and biker magazines. The images were so ugly at this time of the morning that he threw his right arm over his eyes and snoozed.
Eventually, the door opened and Annabelle shook him awake. “The office called,” she said. “They need you in by eleven to do the walk-through of the meeting. That only gives you ninety minutes. I went ahead and cooked you breakfast. It’s waiting on the kitchen counter, so you probably better eat it first before it gets cold. There’s coffee too.”
When Dan flung back his arm and squinted open his eyes, she added in a voice without emotion, “I’m leaving. I’ve got errands and a luncheon. Good luck today.” And she was gone.
His hair was still damp when he passed Donna’s desk, where she was talking on the phone. She said “Hang on a sec” to the receiver, punched the Hold button, and looked up at him. “Good morning. The latest draft of your speech is on your desk for your approval.”
“Changes?”
“A few. There are some new estimates of market size. And they changed the earnings per share by two cents.”
“Up or down?”
“’That’s all they said.”
“Then it’s down. Tell them I’ll be down in fifteen minutes.”
He closed the office door and sat heavily at his desk. After rubbing his face for a few moments, he dug the bottle of ibuprofen out of the side drawer and tossed down two more to join the three he’d taken at the house. As the pain behind his eyeballs began to recede, he picked up the speech text and thumbed through it for the changes, all printed in red. The financial predictions had once again been downgraded—the third time in so many drafts.
It’s never going to end, he told himself. This must be what it’s like to slowly bleed to death. You keep assuming it’ll stop eventually. But it doesn’t. And though you try to stay on your feet, eventually you’re on your knees. And then everything goes dark and you fall flat on your face.
He stood, pulled on his suit jacket, and folded the speech, putting it into his inside breast pocket. But not yet, he told himself. For now, we’re still standing.
v. 5.2
It wasn’t until one of her new marketing directors stopped her in the hallway and asked if she’d watched the Validator annual meeting that Alison realized she’d forgotten all about it. She’d already read the analysts’ predictions a few days before, and when the news came that Cosmo
wouldn’t be attending, she figured nothing important would be announced—and let the date drop from her mind.
It was only on rare occasions now that she even thought about her old competitor. Validator Software just didn’t seem to matter that much anymore. Six months before, when eTernity was still trying to catch its giant competitor, tracking Validator’s every move had been an obsession for both her and her team. But now that eTernity had stolen the industry momentum from Validator, Alison rarely felt the need to look back. All that mattered now was to consolidate those gains and keep moving.
“So, did you hear about the meeting?” asked the marketing exec. He was wearing a triumphant grin.
“No,” she said. “Any important announcements?”
“None. In fact, the big story is that there were no important announcements. By the sounds of it, the shareholders were expecting something, anything, to restore their faith in the company. When Dan Crowen didn’t give it to them, all hell broke loose.” The marketing exec laughed. “I mean, seriously, there was almost a mutiny.”
“Really?” Alison would have once shared the schadenfreude of hearing about one more piece of misfortune to fall on her competitor. But with her own first shareholder meeting just a few months away, she felt a twinge of sympathy for her counterpart. “How so?”
“Well,” said Marketing Man, “people were audibly groaning during Crowen’s presentation, watching him put up one revised downward revised number after another—and especially when he got to the end without offering a single solution other than what the company was doing already.”
“That’s because he doesn’t know what to do. Cosmo put him in a box and there’s no way out. All he can do is hold on and try to get the new system going before the company falls apart or he gets fired. He can’t go back. All he can do is crawl forward.”
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