Chapter 38
Ishould fight for William, but he doesn’t even want me to come over. Boundaries beware. That should be enough of a sign that we don’t suit. I don’t want to schedule appointments with my boyfriend.
The door opens. Tessa is home.
“You’ve got paint all over your face.” She walks up and peers at me more closely. “Have you been crying?”
I nod.
“Why? You’re not worried about the press again, right?” she asks.
“William and I broke up.”
“What? Why? But he was here this morning waiting for you. When you were out with Peter.”
“Why didn’t you text me?”
“He said not to tell you. He was here for about a half hour, waiting and looking at your paintings.”
“How did he say not to tell me?”
“Like, ‘Don’t tell her. I’ll catch her another time.’”
“Did he seem like he still liked me?” I ask. “Yesterday, he said he doesn’t think we’re going to last long term because we are too different.”
“Oh man.” Tessa whistles. “No. I should have told you this before, but I didn’t think it would have such consequences.”
“What?”
“Thijs and I were in your room, behind the coatrack, on the beanie bag. He was about to play one of your guitars for me. Nice move—to dare him to play for me.”
“And?” I ask.
“Someone came in, so we childishly decided to be quiet and eavesdrop. It turned out to be William, followed by Peter. Peter said that he wanted you back. He said he was going to be up front about it to William. He said he was the best person for you—that you and he could be this power art couple and take the art world by storm.”
“He did not.” My blood boils. “I don’t need Peter to take the art world by storm. I’m going to do that on my own. Or not at all. As for a partner, what I need is someone who loves me for me and who is there for me no matter what I do. That’s not Peter. That’s William. What did William say?”
“He said that he didn’t think you needed Peter and that was for you to decide.”
“Then why did he break up with me?”
“I didn’t think he would. That’s why I didn’t immediately tell you. But Peter sounded very sure of himself. And I told you that you guys looked very comfortable on the couch together. William probably mulled it over and thought he should give you a clean slate to choose. Maybe he wanted to do the rejecting before you rejected him.”
“Yes, he said that I’d already shown I had doubts by spying on him and Kiyoko. It’s not like we don’t have issues, but every couple has issues.”
Tessa glances at my collage. “Ooh, that is so cool with the flower petals. Are you experimenting with a new approach?”
“No. That was my breakup collage. But now it’s going to be my get-back-together collage. But first I need to call Stewart.”
Penelope introduced me to Stewart, and now he does all my accounting, such as it is.
“Stewart would not be the first person I’d call for romantic advice, even if he is a sweetheart,” Tessa says wryly.
“I want to talk to William in his language.”
“What language is that?”
“Accounting.”
“This I want to see,” Tessa says.
Stewart picks up on the first ring. He’s eating dinner at home. I explain to him that my boyfriend is an accountant, but he just dumped me, and I need to make a grand gesture to win him back using accounting principles.
The silence at the other end of the phone is full of doubt.
Finally, he says, “I’m not sure how to do that.”
“No, you don’t need to do that. I will figure it out. Can you just explain some key accounting concepts to me?”
“Right now?”
“Yes,” I say. “This is a crisis. An accounting love crisis. Is there any accounting concept that says you need to succeed on your own merits?”
“Uh … no, not that I can think of,” he says.
“That’s fine. I’ll figure that out.” I am undeterred. “What are some key accounting principles?”
“You mean like the concepts of accrual, consistency, conservatism, matching, and business entity?”
“I definitely don’t want conservatism. That won’t help me, but what’s the matching one?”
“Conservatism is important,” he says. “Revenues are only recognized when there is a reasonable certainty that they will be realized, but expenses are recognized sooner when there is a reasonable possibility that they will be incurred. Financial statements tend to end up more conservative because of that lower threshold to book expenses.”
“Yeah, I’m not quite sure how to spin that romantically in terms of our relationship.” I go back to that other thing. “What’s matching?” Across the street, a delivery guy locks his bike to a pole.
“The expenses related to revenue should be recognized in the same period in which the revenue was recognized.”
“That is not the romantic concept I was hoping for. I need something more about we match and so we should sail off into the sunset,” I say. “How does matching work with conservatism? What if there is revenue that is not yet a reasonable certainty?”
“Do you want me to explain that?”
“Actually, you know, I think I can use the conservatism concept: he’s recognized the expenses or the losses, but we still have a reasonable possibility of successes/revenues because we’ve gone through the pain of the losses. And if I tie that with matching, he should at least stick with me long enough for those successes to be recognized.”
There is silence again at the other end.
And then Stewart breathes out. “Wow. I know I’ve said that your mind is so different from mine, but it really is. That’s an amazing translation.”
“It works?” I ask.
“For these purposes.”
“Excellent. Give me some more.”
“There’s the consistency concept—that accounting policies are consistent from one period to another.”
“Okay, that’s useful.”
“It is?” Stewart sounds mystified. “There’s also the business entity concept. Business is treated as a separate entity that is distinct from its owner, and hence, distinctions should be made between personal transactions and business transactions.”
“Oh, I like that one a lot.”
Stewart laughs. He’s got this raspy laugh like it isn’t used often. He’s really such a sweetheart. “I’ll have to remember to bring that up on my next date.”
Stewart is warming up to the task. “There’s the materiality concept—that material risks and other information that would influence a decision should be disclosed.”
“Oh yes,” I say. “That’s useful too.”
“And maybe what you were looking for with matching is expressed by dual-aspect accounting?”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“This concept signifies that every business transaction involves a twofold aspect: (a) the yielding of a benefit, and (b) the giving of a benefit,” Stewart says. “But maybe you don’t want to characterize your relationship in that manner.”
“It does make it sound like a zero-sum game rather than expressing the mutuality of the benefit,” I say. “But still, this is super helpful. Thank you so much, Stewart. I’m going to go read some annual reports and see if I can get any more insights.”
“Don’t you think you should just tell him you love him? Won’t that be enough?” Stewart asks softly.
“I hope so,” I say. “But I want him to know that I mean it.”