Chapter 13
The next fewweeks fly by. The first week of the term was hectic since I needed to stay ahead in my classes so I could take the weekend off to visit Baden-Baden with my friends. It was a nice break–we went hiking and to a nude spa, and they teased me a little about Santo, but Sara got most of the teasing when she told us she’d kissed her roommate.
Back in Rome, I throw all my attention into school. Second Chances Boutique, the furniture-flipping business I ran with Bruce, taught me a lot, but it was all so practical. Now I’m learning the theory.
I learn how to approach strategic partnerships—like when Second Chances partnered with a flea market—and what the hell a supply curve is—our pieces were always one-offs—and, in Santo’s class, we dig way deeper into familiar financial statements than I had ever been before.
But the classes are hard, and being in the room with Santo is even harder. Sometimes, his gaze snags on mine, and heat flashes through me. I don’t know if he feels it too—he doesn’t let it show if he does—but it makes me lose my breath, and if I’m not careful, my mind wanders back to that night.
It’s such a distraction and one I really don’t need.
Adding to that, Santo is easily the most engaging professor we have. Before getting accepted, I’d read some pros and cons of this program and one con that was mentioned often—not just at this school but at European schools in general—was that teaching styles differed from American schools. Professors would be more aloof, building less of a personal relationship. After reading the bios of the faculty here, I wasn’t surprised; they all write papers and books and do consulting and researching. Where would they find the time?
But Santo does. His lectures are popular. There are whispered rumors about how he mentored the guy who’s startup just had a record-breaking IPO on the Borsa Italiana or that one of his former students invited him to Stockholm when she accepted a Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.
My fellow students idolize him.
November first is All Saint’s Day, a national holiday in Rome, and because I’m eight and nine hours ahead of my children, I wake up to pics of them in costume, and I worry all day about them. After Zoe’s recent brush with drugs—though it was just pot and apparently it wasn’t her first time—and my kids being out partying in three different major cities, and dear god, what if something happens to more than one of them? Bruce can only be in so many places at once, and I’m an ocean away.
I don’t get a lot of schoolwork done. I don’t want to go all mama-bear on my kids since they are adults now. Plus, even if I asked them to let me know when they get home, odds are pretty good that they’ve been drinking and will forget.
So, the next day, in classes, I’m not fully firing on all cylinders when Santo starts on our last module of the term—Sustainability Reporting.
Specifically, I get tripped up on learning about the Triple Bottom Line. When I was working in the business with Bruce, we didn’t consciously think about things like sustainability as it relates to our bottom line. Our bottom line was the regular old single bottom line—profits. I used QuickBooks to run Profit and Loss statements, which Bruce barely looked at, but I really like the idea of a triple bottom line, considering the environment and the people instead of just profits.
Santo turns to the class after drawing a visual representation of a TBL and asks, “What steps can we take to improve how our business is doing in terms of taking care of our people?”
Hands go up and Santo calls on my classmates, who suggest paternity leave and medical benefits, with a few jokes at the expense of my home country. Analyzing competitive salaries and remote work and wellness benefits.
I think back to my time at Second Chances. We started with just Bruce and me but grew quickly as HGTV shows became popular. We opened up a storefront in Austin about ten years ago and celebrities like Chip and Joanna Gaines made remodeling and refurbishing trendy again. Then social media took off and our business pivoted to online orders.
By the time Bruce asked me for a divorce, we had ten employees working in our shop on furniture pieces, two buyers, and a team for the store, and revenue approaching ten million a year.
What did we do to boost our people?
I raise my hand. Santo’s eyes snag on me. My blush is creeping up. It’s not like I haven’t talked at all in class, but having all eyes on me is always intimidating. Austin is metropolitan and full of culture, but in this international, highly educated crowd, I feel like a country bumpkin.
“Em—I mean, Ms. Chance.”
Well, okay, now it’s definitely a full blush at Santo nearly using my first name.
I clear my throat. “What about holiday parties? And bringing your staff lunch?”
“Excellent,” Santo says, and I can’t help but smile. A few more people make suggestions and then he asks the same about the Environmental bottom line.
Hands fly up.
Santo chuckles and calls on someone behind me.
“Are you going to run an industry lab again this year?”
Industry labs are toward the end of the program where we do a two-week intensive dive into a specific company. I’d heard about Santo’s lab last year, which was by far the most raved about one. It took place at an electric super car company in Romania and in the end, the students’ initiative, led by Santo, had resulted in an award-winning zero emissions program.
Santo’s industry lab this year is going to be hard to get into based on how excited my classmates are.
“Industry lab programs will be announced at the end of the fundamentals terms.” A sly grin crosses Santo’s face. “And now back to the question at hand.”
The discussion moves on, and the class ends half an hour later, but as I’m gathering my things, Santo calls my name. “Ms. Chance, may I have a minute?”
“Sure,” I say, slowing. Shonda waves, her gaze darting between Santo and me.
When it’s the two of us left, Santo leans against the podium at the front of the class. “I’ve had the opportunity to talk one-on-one with many of the students here, as an advisor or giving them additional help with the course work, but you and I haven’t talked much about your course work or career.”
“Oh, okay. What do you want to know?”
Santo crosses his arms. “Why are you getting your MBA? Why here?”
Oh, I have an answer for this. Jade helped me prepare for my interviews during the application process. “In Austin, we have a lot of startups and tech companies. But there are also a lot of local, independent businesses, and with this degree, I’ll be able to?—”
Santo holds up a hand and gives me a crooked smile. “This is not a job interview. I want to know why you, personally, want to get an MBA. What makes this interesting to you, Ms. Chance?”
He wants the real answer, the one that made me leave my kids on another continent and take an enormous risk. I swallow. “My husband started a business when we had young kids?—”
“This is the husband who—” He cuts himself off, waving the question away and then gesturing for me to continue.
I flush, knowing exactly what he’s thinking about, but I start back up. “It was flipping furniture, buying old pieces and making them new again. He was great at it—at least, he was good at the furniture part. But it was a job he could do on nights and weekends to bring in more money, and he hit a certain point where he said he thought it would make more sense for him to quit his job selling insurance and do the furniture full time. He came to me with the suggestion, and I’ve always been good at numbers and computers, so with a breast-feeding baby and a toddler on one hip, I taught myself how to make a PL and showed him he couldn’t afford to quit his job—yet.”
Santo nods, listening closely.
“And it worked. I became the business side while he did the actual work. But it was his name on everything, and even when we started really making money, it was his company.” I shrug my shoulders. “It didn’t matter how much of the success was because of me. When he told me he wanted a divorce, he was managing a workshop full of custom or luxury pieces, and I was running the storefront, the customers, and the books. He was surprised that I quit. He said he didn’t think I had a plan for work.”
Santo’s eyebrows draw down with concern. I know Bruce could have been nasty about the whole thing, setting the tone for our divorce to be all about money, alimony, and ownership of the business, but he didn’t. It wasn’t an awful divorce, and I was more sad for our kids than I was for myself.
“It sounds bad, I know, but he had a point. My only reference was Bruce or his employees. I didn’t have a formal degree. So, I set out to fix both.” My chin tips up reflexively and I brace myself for an inquisition.
Leaning back, Santo uncrosses his arms and grips the edge of the podium with his hands. A small smile plays on his lips, and there’s an expression that might be something like pride or admiration. Whatever it is, it makes me soften a tiny bit.
“And why here?”
“Do you remember my friends?” We both freeze at the mention of that night, but Santo gives a small nod. “One of them got a job in Madrid, and then it was like dominos. Another’s daughter got accepted into a study abroad program in Germany. One of them worked remotely anyway and had always wanted to live in Europe. That left me. I was looking at local MBA programs, but then one of my kids sent me a link to an international program—not this one, but after looking at a few schools, this one worked out the best.”
I raise my arms out from either side of my body. “So here I am. I wanted to prove to myself and everyone else that I could do this independently of Bruce.”
Santo stands. “My late father would have liked you.”
I wrinkle my brow in confusion, but Santo moves on. He asks more questions about my plans for my concentration and post-degree prospects, and when I leave, I walk away from the university, contemplating fate.
All the decisions—not just mine, but Bruce’s, my kids’, my friends’—they all ended with me here. And the same goes for Santo. Our wildly different lives converged, and Santo went from being a total stranger to a huge complication in my life.
I often wish that I’d never met him in that bar, that I’d never pepper sprayed him, and that we didn’t live right down the hall from each other. It’s complicated and messy.
But also, kind of amazing.