Page 19 of Mostly My Girlfriend
4
Five yearsago
Julia
“Are you kidding me with this?” I looked around the abandoned building situated in a nowheresville town in Nebraska that we’d had to drive two hours from Lincoln to even find. There was nothing but cornfields surrounding the complex for miles.
We were standing outside a chain link fence that had a lone sign reading KEEP OUT.
“Can’t you see it?” Ethan asked.
“The building?” I pointed to the large factory in front of me. “Yes, it’s quite large.”
“I mean the potential. Jets, Jules. Beautiful, fuel-efficient jets that will revolutionize the entire airline industry.”
My head fell back on my shoulders. “Ugh! Ethan. Not this again.”
“Yes, this again,” he said. “I’m committed to this, Jules. You need to get on board.”
“You can’t make me stand by and watch as you throw away a billion dollars on an industry you can’t possibly compete in. We’re talking about going against Boeing and Airbus. Not to mention all the government regulations and the issues with the major airlines.”
“They’re vulnerable right now. I can feel it. Now is the time.”
“You have a successful, thriving company. You’ve already revolutionized the medical industry. You’ve saved private insurance and the government untold amounts of money because of the breakthroughs you’ve made with your software. You’ve amassed more wealth than anyone ever has at your age. Can’t that be enough?”
He looked at me like I was crazy. “Uh, no. Have you met me? Ethan Moss. Visionary genius.”
I took a deep breath and tried again. “Ethan, you can’t possibly think this will work.”
“I bet that’s what Elon’s VP of operations told him when he said he wanted to make electric cars.”
“Yeah, and I think the jury is still out on that one if he ends up having a nervous breakdown. I don’t want you to have a nervous breakdown!”
“Come on, let me show you.” He pulled on the gate in the fence. There was a chain holding it closed but there was enough slack to let him create an opening and slip through. There was no hope for it. I knew Ethan too well. When he got into this kind of mood, the only thing to do was humor him.
I followed him inside the compound. There was a massive parking lot next to the building, which told me that at one time it had been a busy enterprise. I pulled out my phone and looked up the address.
Farm equipment. That’s what had been made here until the popular company moved the base of operations to Mexico. Which must have sucked for all the people in this area who weren’t farmers, as the factory had to have offered the only solid-paying jobs.
He pulled open the door, which oddly was unlocked, although I couldn’t imagine there was anything left inside to steal. And someone would have to come a long way for some old office furniture.
The building looked like a typical factory. Huge ground floor that was surrounded by what appeared to be offices on a second level. And a catwalk so anyone in the offices just had to open a door to look down and see what was happening. I followed Ethan up the stairs to the second level, grateful I’d worn jeans and boots for traveling instead of my normal office attire as the place was covered in Nebraska cornfield dust.
He’d told me only this morning that we were heading for Nebraska, but I’d learned to keep a change of clothes in my office for just these occasions.
As Ethan’s number two person at Phoenix—the name he’d eventually settled on for his company—I was expected to be prepared at all times and for any occasion.
A sporting event, a charity ball, negotiations with leaders from foreign governments. There wasn’t anything we hadn’t done in the last three years.
So wear-something-durable-we’re-leaving-in-an-hour was not an unusual way for me to start my day. This wasn’t even the firstI’m-going-to-build-jets-heretrip we’d taken. But it had been over a year since I’d last talked him out of this idea, which had made me believe we were in the clear. I should have known better.
He opened the door to an office that was on the north-facing side of the building. It was empty except for a dusty desk and two metal folding chairs. The view outside the large windows: more corn fields.
“Ethan, we’ve talked about scalability. Government contracts. FAA regulations. Every time I show you what a potential waste of money this will be, you agree with me.”
“This time it’s different. It’s not about how much money we’ll make or lose. It’s bigger than that, Jules. It’s about the future. Our legacy.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “Ourlegacy?”
