2. Will
Chapter two
Will
Will
a private jet? feeling okay about this? see you tonight, yeah?
Mia
I’m okay, I think. I tried to talk to mum about it, thought she might know something, but she didn’t say anything about it. But I did get a classic Lisa Davis pep talk, and I bought a new dress, so that’s something.
“I’ve ordered for you,” Chloe announces the second I arrive. As usual, Chloe is perfectly dressed. Today she’s wearing a prim gray dress, black tights and a white blazer. Her straight dark hair is loose down her back.
“Gosh, sorry I’m so late.” I offset my sarcasm with a grin, scratching at my short beard. I’d been so focused on getting a report out for one of my clients that I didn’t leave the office until five minutes before we were supposed to meet, so I had to rush to get here. “Yellow curry?”
“Of course I got you the yellow curry. Good day?” Chloe is usually early. If she doesn’t get food in her by six pm she will be unreasonable and hangry at quiz, so we always let her order for us rather than make her wait a second longer than she has to.
I pull out the chair next to Chloe and sling my work bag on the back. As I sit, I smile over at Mia. Every time I see that woman in the flesh, my heart melts. And other things threaten the opposite. I’ve been in love with her for years and I’m not sure she even knows it. Maybe it’s better that way, then my feelings don’t get in the way of our friendship. She's sitting opposite Chloe, next to Steph. I gratefully sip the lager Chloe ordered for me and try to catch up on the conversation.
“I’m just saying, no reasonable person ever gets to the point of becoming super rich,” Steph is saying, brow furrowed, hands splayed on the table. “Imagine you’re already rich, and you win the lottery. The five hundred million dollar jackpot or whatever crazy thing they have over in the US. You’re already rich, but you’re you, so what do you do? Do you keep it all?”
“That’s a lot of imagining,” Chloe says, rolling her eyes. “But sure. Anyone who lets themselves get to a billion is an asshole. Aren’t pretty much all rich people dickheads, anyway?”
She’s not wrong, but this is a very confusing conversation to join partway through.
Mia jumps in, her eyebrows animated in the way they always are when she plays devil’s advocate. “But you’ve got no obligation to, right? You made your money fair and square? Well…I’m not so sure about the lottery, but what about Bill Gates? He earned his money.” Chloe nods enthusiastically in agreement. “And what about some of those newer billionaires? Singers, whatever? Some of them give away heaps of money,” Mia continues.
“Have they made their money fair and square? Or have they exploited the labor of people who work for them, or their fans, or all those parents buying ￡500 concert tickets for their fifteen-year-olds?” Steph gestures around her as if the people in the Thai restaurant are being personally exploited by rich people. I swallow a laugh at the thought. Mia’s raised eyebrows over the table tells me I didn’t hide it quite as well as I hoped.
Steph stares me down. “Come on, Will, you know what they’re like. Half your clients are independently wealthy.” She’s not wrong; I’m a freelance business consultant, and I do work with wealthy clients, as well as regular people.
Steph is incredibly passionate about wealth inequality. It comes with the territory, being a struggling artist and all. Her dream is to make her living publishing illustrated children’s books, but it turns out, they alone don’t provide much of a living. Like me, Steph supports herself through freelance work. Hers is primarily with the government and councils. Turns out they have a surprising demand for illustrations. She isn’t blind to the fact that she’s doing very well for herself as a freelancer, which tempers things somewhat, but sometimes, if you ask me, her passion goes a bit too far.
I watch Mia on the other side of the table, biting her lip, as if she doesn’t want to make waves. God that’s hot. Not the not wanting to make waves thing, the lip biting. I can imagine that look in plenty of other far less PG settings. I ignore the stirring deep inside me, focusing instead on what Chloe is saying.
“I agree—I’ve never known a rich person who isn’t at least a part-time dick.” Chloe has a serious frown.
“I mean, you’d know, Clo," I jump in. She makes a face at me. Chloe works in advertising (much to the disappointment of her parents, who consider her accountancy degree wasted), and works with massive corporations. “Isn’t that just capitalism, though? That’s how it’s supposed to work; you sell a thing of value for more than it costs to produce. Profit.”
Mia nods enthusiastically at me, and my chest almost puffs up with pride. I love it when I impress her, especially when it’s with my brain, rather than something I do physically. She’s the smartest person I know, and it’s nice to sometimes surprise her.
“You know I hate capitalism as much as the next underpaid government worker, Steph, but it’s not like we can opt out of the system, can we?” Mia says, stirring her Diet Coke with a metal straw, her shiny hair slipping over her shoulder to cover her face. Now it’s getting to be regular people’s dinner time, the restaurant is starting to fill up, and get noisier. I never understand why restaurants don’t have more soundproofing to make it easier to chat.
“And there—that’s my point. These super rich people can . They’re rich enough that they could charge enough to break even, and their investments would still make so much money . They’re loaded. What’s a few more hundred mil to a guy who has endless amounts of money?” Steph asks. It’s hard to argue. Chloe and I both nod in agreement, though I notice Chloe is distracted, looking around for the server. She’s probably starving by now, or like me, she would welcome an interruption. Neither of us have the same tolerance for these conversations as Mia and Steph.
“Hang on, though,” Mia says, shaking her head, eyes unfocused as she thinks about it. “Wouldn’t that devalue the brand? Part of why people want to buy their stuff, or in the case of artists, go to their gigs or buy their paintings or whatever is that it’s exclusive; right? Make it too cheap and it loses the value.”
The server chooses this moment to arrive, and we are too distracted by our dinner to continue our debate.
We’re partway through the first round of quiz before Matt finally pulls up a chair, clapping me twice on the shoulder as he sits next to me. He’s so late, I finished the beer I bought for myself, and I’m halfway through the now-warm beer I bought for him at happy hour forty-five minutes ago.
“God, I hope we didn’t double this round,” Matt grumbles as he looks down at the answer sheet Mia has in front of her. There are more blank spaces on the sheet than filled-in answers.
“Nah, we doubled the next one; science,” I say. “Do you know this one, Steph?” I gesture toward the screen, which is displaying four pictures; we have to guess what the link is between the pictures and the song playing. On the screen is a skull and crossbones, a man’s mugshot, a herding dog, and a cartoon of a person smashing a frozen lake with a sledgehammer. ‘Boys’ by Lizzo is playing.
Steph’s forehead furrows as she narrows her eyes in focus. “It’ll come to me, I reckon.” She grabs the pen from Mia’s hand and jots down the matrix of clues, then writes ‘Lizzo, Boys’, underlining it. “I’ll keep thinking.” She thrusts the pen back to Mia.
While I think about the clues, I focus on Mia. She said earlier in her text that she was doing okay, but I know that woman is a champion at compartmentalizing, so just because she looks fine tonight doesn’t mean that she’s not panicking inside.
Traditionally, our team, the Quizzards of Waverly Place, does well in our weekly quiz. The bar we go to for quiz is truly awful. None of us would ever come here if the quiz wasn’t held here. The floor is perpetually sticky and the food is horrendous—inedible unless you’ve had a lot to drink, hence us getting dinner elsewhere. But the quizmaster is friendly and funny, and the quiz itself is pretty high quality, which is enough to keep us coming back. It doesn’t hurt that the bar is pretty much at the midpoint of our offices and homes, so it's pretty convenient for all of us. We come second tonight, earning us a ￡40 bar tab for next week.
After finishing their drinks, Steph and Chloe say goodbye while Matt, Mia, and I nurse our beers. This is the traditional end to our quiz nights; a couple of stalwarts who hang around late, drinking an extra beer or four and shooting the shit before heading home.
Matt fills us in on his meeting with the co-owner of his physiotherapy studio, Callum, which kept him late, before Mia announces she’s heading to the bathroom. The second she gets up, before she even walks away, Matt turns to me. “So—is now the time I can convince you about dating apps?” I groan, and wonder if I imagine Mia’s shoulders tense. She doesn’t look back. Matt and I have had this conversation so many times. He’s finally ready to date again (or really, hook up again), but after some disastrous first dates, which haven’t led to anything more, he’s decided a double date is a better idea.
“It’s not that I don’t want to date, I really think maybe it’s time. And god knows, pickups at bars aren’t working for me.” I run my hand through my hair. “It’s just, I think I want something more serious; you know? Are women even on dating apps?” I’ve been single for what, two years? Sure, there have been some hookups here and there, but I’m ready for something more. Someone I can come home to.
Matt picks up his pint. “I’m not the one to ask about what sort of women are on the apps, mate.” He grins. “But you’re not going to find them if you don’t look. Maybe it’s time to let go of her. Same again?” He gestures to my empty glass, and Mia’s nearly empty glass. My mind freezes for a second. I know he means Mia. And I know he’s right—she’s had ages to make a move, if that’s what she wants. It’s becoming clearer and clearer that she’s not interested in me as more than a friend.
“Go on, one more,” I say, sliding my empty glass over to him, not making eye contact. “If she doesn’t want hers, I’ll drink it.”
Mia returns from the bathroom while Matt waits in the short line at the dark bar, saving me from wallowing in my feelings about her. “Feeling okay about tomorrow?”
She shrugs, pulling at the collar of her black blazer. “I don’t know how to feel. How do you know how to feel if you don’t even know what’s happening?”
I grimace sympathetically. “I’m sure it’s going to be fine. You’re an absolute badass at work, Mia. You’re gonna be great.” I’ve overheard Mia taking work phone calls enough times to know she’s a completely different person at work. Full of confidence, a slight arrogance like she knows she’s much, much smarter than you; and she’s right, she is. I spin my phone on the table, trying to balance it on one corner. “You decided not to mention it tonight?”
“I don’t even know what I’d say. ‘Hey, this weird guy called me, and Steph, don’t be mad, but just for shits and giggles, I’ll be burning your five-year carbon allowance, for what I’m sure is a very good reason?” She drains her pint. I watch the last few drops of beer and foam slide to the bottom of her glass. She’s not wrong—out of all of us, Steph is the most likely to be unimpressed about the environmental impact of Mia traveling by private jet, though she’s not unreasonable about it. I’m sure she’d understand. I know that rationalization is not what Mia needs right now, though.
“I get your point.” I reach over and squeeze her hand. “Just call me tomorrow if you need to chat. I’m always here for you, you know that, right?”
She nods, a small uncertain smile creeping to her lips. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.” Her smile makes me smile. I live to make that woman smile.
“And you have to text me immediately if it’s some big Swiss mob plot or something.” I grin over at her, waggling my eyebrows.
“Hey, someone’s involved in a Swiss mob plot without me?” Matt says with an exaggerated pout as he plops our three beers onto the table and slides onto his seat.
“Mia’s just found out someone has a hit out on her.”
“Will’s right, I could die tomorrow, Matt, so it’s a good thing you’ve bought me this beer to try to even up your tab; isn’t it?”