Page 27 of Prosecco with My Professor
“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 P&L 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.
