Page 3 of Ghost of Ex-mas Past
In the five months since I’ve opened an office in New York, I’ve seen some pretty weird things. Two weeks ago, I saw a bike messenger get hit by a taxi. He jumped up unharmed, screamed, “I am god!” and sprinted down the street, leaving his bike behind with the flummoxed cabdriver.
So, basically, New Yorkers are used to some bizarre shit.
However, the man by my side keeps me from lashing out at the universe. Arlo, who’s been my mentor for almost nine years, has his hand on my shoulder and squeezes once, as if he knows how pissed off I am.
It’s a short walk to my new office in Two Bridges. Arlo and I enter the building, ride the elevator, and pass the approximately twenty employees that make up the New York office of my company, Rivrse, in silence.
Finally behind the closed door of my office, I sink into my chair, face in my hands.
“Fuuuuucccckkkkkkkk.”
It’s quiet. Or, at least, quieter than what I wanted to do when we left ImmUniverse.
“I know it’s not ideal,” Arlo says. “But it’s a good sign that they haven’t backed out entirely.”
ImmUniverse has just decided that they need more time to do their due diligence, and we’ve all agreed—begrudgingly on my part—to push the sale of Rivrse to ImmUniverse back till January.
“I feel like I’m being punished for making a smart financial decision,” I complain. We recently signed a deal with a Korean phone manufacturer. Over the next five years, it’ll double sales of our proximity sensors. I know it was a good deal, and Arlo and I discussed it ad nauseam.
“I know,” Arlo says, voice full of sympathy and patience. He’s got a stake in all this too—not only has he supported many of my projects, most of which haven’t gone as well, but he’s brokering the sale. While he mentors former university students (like me) and sits on the board of a VC firm, most of his income is from helping start-up founders (also like me) exit their businesses. “But the contract is good. ImmUniverse will review the terms and see that too. They’ll be glad that you’ve diversified your income in the international market.”
I hope so. I’d been working on this new contract since before I had decided to sell my business.
“Okay. I just wanted this to be done before the holidays so badly.”
Arlo leans forward, steepling his fingers. “I know. I could see on your face how disappointed you were. And I bet they could too. But you’ve got to remember that if they think you’ll do anything to get the sale to go through, it doesn’t matter how strong your valuation is or what comes up in due diligence. They’ll offer less. And I know you don’t want that.”
I want both. The whole point of selling Rivrse is the money. I just bought an apartment here in the city, and I want to buy my parents a new house and let my mom quit her job.
In the boardroom of ImmUniverse, I saw part of my dream crumble.
In some Christmas that will never come to pass, I announce at dinner that I’ve sold Rivrse and am taking time off to pursue the next thing I want most in life—a family.
It isn’t just my parents sitting at the table. It’s their best friends and the couple I consider my second parents, Erik and Jody. They love me like a son, and seeing the four of them beam at me in pride would be so satisfying.
Okay, well Erik and the moms would beam. My dad would probably make an impressed grunt and slap me on the back.
And then, at this fictional dinner, there would also be Jody and Erik’s four daughters—three of whom are like sisters to me.
But that fourth one...
That fourth sister is the one I let get away.
Bea.
I make good money now. My savings account is, by most measures, huge. I’m living in the same city as Bea for the first time since we graduated high school.
I won’t ever have to worry about money the way our parents did. I won’t ever have to say the words Bea said our senior year of high school when we talked about college: “I can’t afford it.”
My kids won’t ever get shipped away to their grandmother’s house while their parents fight over money troubles.
If I can close this deal, I’m set up for the next phase of my life—love and family...maybe even with the one I let get away.
3
Bea
A few weeks later,I arrive home from the last pre-holiday workday. I kick off my shoes on a sigh and walk into the living room. My roommates, Brin and Marco, are sitting very close together on the couch and jump when I walk in. They have identical guilty looks on their faces, and Iwouldthink they’d been, I don’t know, making out or something, except there’s a laptop on Marco’s lap, which he slams closed.
