Fourteen
The first thing I did when I woke up was roll over and call Dylan. Since there was a five-hour time difference, it was already after lunch, her time.
“What?” she asked me when I let her get a word in edgewise.
And I outlined what I wanted to do, how the only person besides me I could ever work for was Dane, but that I really didn’t want to do that for the rest of my life—work for my older brother since he was an architect and I was very much not.
“Use full sentences,” she pleaded with me.
“I want us to give our business another go.”
“But, honey, we already tried to have our own company.”
“We gave up too easy, D,” I told her. “I mean, I always figure that—”
“You’ll fail,” she told me.
“Yeah.”
“I know you do. Somewhere along the line, you actually started believing that Jory’s so stupid crap.”
“But I’m not, and you’re not. And I think if it’s just you and me, no one else’s voice in the mix … and we hire a couple of people this time,” I said, smiling into the phone.
“Why are you screwing with me when you know I want this so bad?”
She did? “You do?”
“Of course I do.”
“But you never said anything.”
“Because what would be the point? Just to make you feel bad?”
“God, I am stupid.”
“But you’re not stupid like you don’t know what the hell you’re doing. You’re stupid like you have no confidence, and you should because you’re amazing when you try. The problem is, you so seldom actually try.”
“And you wanna go into business with a guy like that?”
“I totally do. I trust that guy with my life.”
“Why?”
“Because I know he’ll do everything in his power to make sure we succeed.”
“I love Aubrey,” I told her.
“I do too,” she agreed, “but she’s totally loving her new job at the art gallery, and she only does it three days a week now that she’s married to Rick.”
I had introduced my friend Aubrey Jenner to her husband a year ago. They had gotten married three months later.
“Would it be okay, you think?”
“I do.”
It was seamless when I talked to my best friends.
Dylan had followed my jump easily. I was thinking about our business, which Aubrey Jenner had been a part of, but me saying that I loved her had meant that I really didn’t want to go back into business with her.
The “love” conveyed the unspoken but. The but said that this time, it had to be different.
And because Dylan was Dylan, when the train veered off track, she didn’t miss a beat.
“So, she’s not gonna be pissed if we don’t ask her back?”
“Maybe,” she sighed. “But I think that was some of the problem last time. There were too many of us trying to make choices, decisions, about everything, and it didn’t work.”
“Nope.”
“You and me—”
“Yep, you and me,” I agreed. “And Fallon, right?”
“Yeah, Fallon too.”
“Because he was my safety net.”
“Yes, he was.”
“And that was pretty great.”
“Yes, it was.”
“So, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“What do I tell those nice people who just hired me?”
“But they didn’t actually hire you yet,” she reminded me. “I mean, they promised to, but you haven’t signed anything.”
True.
“Tell them you can work for them on a consulting basis and that they only have to pay you when you deliver an account, but don’t have to give you a salary.”
“Oh.” I thought for a minute. “They might actually like that.”
“You and Fallon would be independent contractors, dear, and a lot of people like it.”
“So, they wouldn’t even have to pay us medical benefits or anything.”
“Nope.”
“Why would anyone not be down for that?”
“I have no idea.”
“What if Fallon isn’t down for it?”
“You won’t know unless you ask.”
“I want him to be in.”
“So, ask him.”
“Shit. Fallon’s gonna tell me to screw myself.”
“Or,” she said thoughtfully, “maybe Fallon would like the option of working with you when he wants, but not when he doesn’t, and if he wants to come work with us … I’ve always had a lot of respect for Fallon since we all started out at Barrington together.”
“You have?”
“He has a flawless reputation.”
“He does?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were crushing on Fallon?”
“Because you’re my gay boyfriend and I didn’t want you to get jealous.”
“But Fallon can’t be a partner.”
“He can if he brings his own clients and collateral to the table. The thing with Aubrey was that we paid her as an employee, but we treated her like a partner and gave her a voice in the company. We went from two to three with no infusion of funds. She never invested anything but her time.”
“That was a big deal.”
“Yes, but maybe if she’d had to buy in, that would have bought us more time, bunny.”
“You’ve thought about this.”
“I have.”
“You hate being where you are.”
“Yes, I do.”
“I just don’t know if I can do what I hate at a new place, even if it’s with Fal. It’s like hanging curtains in hell, you know?”
“Yep, I totally get it.”
“So, what, I should call him?”
“Call Fallon. If he needs me to go see him, I will.”
“You will?”
“Hell yeah.”
“I really love you,” I sighed.
“I know.”
“Do you think there’s anything wrong with me?”
“Nothing permanent.”
I thought about that.
“You’re the only person I know who’s been flipped off by an ambulance driver,” she said.
“Which has what to do with what we’re talking about?”
“It just makes you, you.”
“I thought he was gonna park.”
She started laughing, and I hung up and called Fallon Strauss.
“Hey, Jory. Are you—”
“Could you let me talk to you and not say one word until I’m completely done?”
“Oh God—”
“Please, Fal.”
He sighed deeply, but he agreed.
As a rule, I could talk really fast when I wanted, and breathing became unnecessary. I started with the fact that my life was sort of currently under construction and ended, twenty minutes later, with how I had to ditch the bad parts and build on the good.
He was a good part, and Dylan thought so too.
“Let me get this straight,” he growled at me. “You want me to jump into the deep end with you simply on faith and conviction and hope that hard work and a good reputation will be enough to carry us?”
“Pretty much.”
“Jor—”
“Will you just talk to Dylan before you make up your mind?”
“I—”
“Please, Fal.”
“Is this what it’s like, living in your world? Like a goddamn roller coaster?”
What was I going to do? Lie? “Yeah, a little.”
“A little?” He was incredulous.
“Please, Fal, I’m ready to really try this time.
I mean, I was last time, too, but last time, when we hit a bumpy patch, I was like, Yeah, okay, throw in the towel, because I figured it was me and I was gonna fuck up anyway, you know?
Better to just have the exercise in terror be over, me being a grown-up and all. ”
“And now?”
“Now I know what I’m doing, and I have a way that I wanna treat people that I think they will respond to.
I don’t want my ethics dependent on the bottom line of money anymore.
I want to do the right thing by folks all the time, and if I run my own company, I can, and I think that will be really good. I just—”
“Jory—”
“It’s kind of your fault, Fal.”
“Mine?”
“Yeah. You see me. Only Sam and Dane and Dylan and Aja really see me, you know? There’s, like, five of you in the whole world who don’t think I’m a total fuckup.”
“Oh God.”
“And Shane, right?” I teased him. “Shane digs me, right?”
“Yeah, he kind of—”
“And my friend Evan and his boyfriend, Loudon—them too. They see me.”
“Jory—”
“Doesn’t Shane want you to be your own boss?”
“Well, yeah, he always says that—”
“Pretty please with sugar and honey, see Dylan.”
“Sugar and honey?”
“Fal—”
“Fuck!”
Oh, yes, I had him!
“Today. Will you see her today?”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“Fal?”
“When?”
“Sit down and have a drink. I’ll call you right back.”
“I’m such an idiot! Why do I listen to you?”
“ ’Cause it’s better when we’re together, Fal.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do.”
He groaned loudly, and I hung up and called Dylan back. I could hear from how breathless she was that she was getting excited.
“You’re so happy, D.”
“I’ve just been waiting on you to wake up.”
“You could’ve shaken me.”
“Nope. You had to find the confidence yourself. What did it?”
“I’ve been thinking about it for months, but yesterday … yesterday, when I was in the ocean all by myself, I felt like I was nothing, you know?”
“And you wanted to be more.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Yeah,” she agreed.
“I mean, I’m not living with some delusion that me running my own business will realign the planets or bring about world peace or whatever, but I think maybe if I was happier with me, then I wouldn’t be looking for Sam to be perfect or everybody else.”
“If I was happy at work, I wouldn’t be such a bitch at home.”
“What did your husband say? How does Christopher feel about you and me back in the saddle again?”
“He thinks it’s about damn time.”
“God.”
“I have money put away, J.”
“Me too—some.”
“And the rest?”
“See what Fal says. You gotta go see him.”
“Where is he? I’ll leave now.”
I took a deep breath. “We’ll have to get another loan.”
“No,” she told me. “This time, we take the help that everyone offered the last time, but that our pride wouldn’t allow us to accept.”
“Christ.”
“We were idiots.”
Dane had been really hurt that I had not asked him to invest in me when I opened my own business.
“Yes, we were,” I said with a sigh. “I’ll talk to my brother.”
“I’ll talk to mine,” she told me.
“God, we’re really gonna do this, that fast.”
“Please, your whole life happens this fast. That’s the fun of living the Jory way.”
“The Jory way?”
“Yep, on the edge of your seat, holding your breath, leaping with your eyes wide open—that’s what it’s all about. But you gotta have the balls to see it through this time, Harcourt.”
I nodded.
“I can’t see you!”
Shit. “Yes!”
“Okay,” she exhaled, “I’m ready to jump.”
And bet her life on me and maybe Fallon Strauss’s too.
“Oh God.”
“Don’t throw up yet. Tell me where Fal is.”
And I did, and even if he said no, we were doing it—The Jory and Dylan Show, redux.
Before Fallon could say hello, I told him that Dylan was on her way.
“I’m excited to see her,” he said with a sigh and that was good to hear.
I called Dane when I got off the phone with him and just vented after he said, “Hello?”
“Breathe,” he commanded me.