Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
Ben
Why didn’t I just hold fast and tell Avril I wouldn’t help her?
Then all this could have been avoided. I wouldn’t have a new roommate.
I would be able to focus and I wouldn’t be wondering if I could get out of this dinner I’m supposed to be going to tonight so I could get home and hang out with her.
What is happening to me?
Someone knocks on my office door and I look up, a frown of frustration on my face.
“I can come back later,” Patti says from the doorway.
I reset my expression to the effortlessly happy one that I normally wear.
“You caught me thinking. It doesn’t happen a lot.
” I grin, and she smiles back. We’re back to normal.
I’ve become really good at playing down everything about me.
My business is built on making sure everyone around me feels good, that they feel like the stars in their own show.
All I’m around to do is smooth, oil, grease. I make sure nothing goes wrong.
Patti takes a seat opposite me and we go through my call list. I’m the face of my business, but I employ a small, trusted team to help me support my clients. They don’t speak to the client, that’s all me. But without my team, I’d be lost.
“You had three emails from Jed on the San Francisco thing. You need to call him first. He’s freaking out because the investor is threatening to pull out unless they have signed contracts by the end of the week.”
I don’t react, I just make a small, neat note on the sheet of paper in front of me, half the size of the paper in a reporter’s notebook.
I never write down loads of detail. I assume anything I write down, either electronically or manually, could be read, shared, or traded. Therefore, my note simply says Jed.
One of the best things I learned at university wasn’t on the syllabus.
It was a workshop I had to pay for. Flyers had been posted all around campus about a course providing memory training.
There were various conspiracy theories going around about it.
Some said it was a cult trying to recruit vulnerable students.
Others said it was an MI5 recruiting session.
Others said it was pyramid selling. It cost fifty pounds, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be recruited as a spy.
Turns out, it wasn’t anything but what it said it was: a course on memory training.
But it’s the skill I’ve used most since I graduated.
In my line of work, it’s almost invaluable.
I don’t forget names or faces, I can map out connections visually in my mind, and I remember pieces of information about people that surprises them, and makes them trust me.
“And you really need to speak to Gerald. He’s spiraling if his emails are anything to go by. You didn’t respond to him yesterday.”
I don’t react, but I hear the implied question in Patti’s tone: Why didn’t you call him? That’s not like you.
The fact is, Gerald spirals regularly. But it’s true, I ignored three calls from him yesterday, which is completely out of character for me. I just wanted to tune out of work for a while. I was enjoying hanging out with Avril and I didn’t want the real world intervening.
The big downside to my job is that I never feel off.
I field calls in the middle of the night and I never know who I’m going to cross paths with when I’m out for a run or going to buy milk at the grocery store.
Which is a big reason why I don’t go to the grocery store to buy milk.
People buy into me when they become my client and they get access to me twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
I note down Gerald’s name and then, before she can tell me who’s next to call, I ask, “Who do I know in Boston commercial real estate?”
It’s a rhetorical question. I just need to think about it for a minute.
Patti, as my assistant, tries to write down as much as possible that comes out of my brain.
At first she did it because she said her memory wasn’t what mine was, and she couldn’t keep up with all the interconnections, but actually it’s been pretty helpful.
She’s basically built a database of everyone I know and everything I know about them.
A database that’s only in hard copy and is in a safe at the end of the day.
“Let me check,” she says, as I think about who might be useful in helping me to help Avril. Maybe it would just be easier if I agree to help her with her Boston hotel and then we could all move on with our lives.
Except my business isn’t like that. Memories are long.
It’s one of the reasons why I never mix business with pleasure.
If I work with you, your name might pop up a month from now or a decade from now as someone I worked with.
And I happen to know that no one ever has anything but nice things to say about me.
I’ve made sure of it. But with someone I’ve slept with?
It makes my crystal-clear waters very muddy. Which is why I never do it.
But Avril is determined to have me help her, and in so many ways, I want to help her. Part of me thinks the water is muddy now anyway. What have I got to lose? And maybe I wouldn’t know anyone who might be able to help.
I glance up from my notepaper to Patti, who’s giving me a quizzical look. “You want me to check the database?”
“Can you get someone to check out this address?” I scribble down the name of the building in Boston that Avril’s interested in.
“Sure,” Patti says, and I appreciate she doesn’t ask any questions.
“I want to know who owns it and anything else that might be relevant.” I’m being deliberately vague. It’s not because I don’t trust my team—I absolutely do. It’s more because I’m not sure what I want to know at this point. I’m not even sure I should have asked Patti to get the address checked out.
Avril Huntington is making me unsure of everything.