Page 11 of Things We Tell Ourselves

“Yeah, it was in the email they sent us with the plane tickets.”

Camille shuts her eyes. She’s not going to give herself a hard time. Today has already made her feel like enough of an idiot. Camille reaches for the remote off the nightstand.

“Alright, I’ll hold the fort down. Call me in the morning after you hire the pothead.”

“Goodnight,” Evelyn says over the running water; Camille can hear her smiling.

“Night.”

She sets her phone down next to her and raises the blinds. Camille stops them a few feet from the ceiling, offering a ten-foot view of the night sky overlooking Los Angeles.

In her head, she plays the way Leah’s son looked down at her when he said, “it was a pleasure to meet you,” over and over. Camille stares out at the twinkling city lights until she can’t hold her eyes open any longer. Her dreams of beautiful views with pools quickly take a turn for the worse when her mind replays the Toronto meeting.

“We worked hard for this,” Evelyn says in the fourteenth-floor conference room inside the Flexinburg Group building, her words more for Camille than herself. “They are going to walk in here, and we’re going to blow them away.”

The conglomerate, Flexinburg Group, is situated on the eastern side of Toronto, Ontario, and is made up of five subsidiaries. The Flexinburg Group began as a modest media manufacturer, broadening its sights to just about every money-making facet in the greater Canada and United States territories. The Lichtenstein brothers are one of the newest partners. They spent the last decade focusing primarily on the medical side of manufacturing and distribution, with over three decades of experience between the two of them.

“What if I say something stupid?” Camille asks, staring at the engraving on the conference room’s glass door. Be great or go home. She was intimidated by it when the assistant brought them to the room, but now she tries to draw strength from it.

Camille wishes she could have half of Evelyn’s confidence. It helped that Evelyn was born to parents with established careers in real estate. Camille’s parents weren’t even married when they found out they were expecting. Everything her parents owned, they worked hard to earn. Her mother’s cancer diagnosis took a lot out of them, mentally, physically, and financially. All of that suffering, just for them to lose her in the end.

Evelyn was right about one thing: she did work hard. Camille put herself through nursing school. She accepted a full-time job that landed her with the idea that became Oxygen Recycler. But in the end, she had Evelyn to thank for making the idea in her head a reality. She was the one from the savvy business family with the money and connections that landed them in Toronto. It was Evelyn’s efforts that brought them to the big leagues.

“You’re going to be fine,” Evelyn tells her. “They called us, remember? No one begged them to fly us up here. You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to. I have all of the numbers memorized and expected sales based off of the interest we’ve had with the prototypes we sent out. There’s nothing they can throw at us—I’m prepared for anything.”

Camille takes a deep breath, glancing at Evelyn, who’s staring at the glass door. Camille recognizes her expression. It’s the same look she had when Camille first went to her with the idea. She only gets that look when she’s focused on something. When the wheels are turning, people tend to think she’s zoned out when in reality she’s zoned in.

Camille quickly spent the ten thousand Evelyn’s father gave them to create the first Oxygen Recycler prototype. The self-cycling oxygen machine used the air around it to process and store an easily portable, six-pound cylinder. The majority of Camille’s patients were renting third-party oxygen machines that required religious tank exchanges meaning her patients needed to keep track of their oxygen use and call when they were getting low.

Evelyn used the same expression when Camille came to her, out of money and feeling hopeless.

Less than a year later, the licensing and product were ready to go, with several major hospitals and nursing homes in the greater Dallas area participating in the Oxygen Recycler trial phase. The results were five out of five stars with an emphasis on ease of use. Now all their newly formed company, Integrity Heights, L.L.C needed was the right people to believe in them.

A tall woman in a deep red pencil skirt and billowy black blouse swings the door open.

“You must be Ms. Lee,” she says to them as she reaches out for a handshake, her eyes going to Camille. “I’m Gwendolyn Ashton. You can call me Gwen.”

“Nice to meet you,” Camille smiles, giving her hand a brief shake.

“And you must be Ms. Sykes.”

Evelyn looks up, coming out of her trance to shake Gwen’s hand.

“I’m so happy to meet you both,” Gwen says. “I wanted to come in before Derrick to let you know that I was blown away by what you’ve managed to achieve. We get people just trying to get their foot in the door with little more than an idea, but to see your prototype making waves in Dallas, and two women entrepreneurs at that…” Gwen shakes her head, searching for the words. “It’s great to see,” she says finally.

“Thank you,” Camille says. The woman’s excitement is contagious enough that her nerves subside. “We couldn’t stop jumping up and down when we created the first functioning prototype.” She looks over at Evelyn, expecting her to be just as giddy, but she frowns across the table at Gwen as if she’d just insulted them rather than complimented.

“Who’s Derrick?” Evelyn asks.

“Derrick Paul,” Gwen says, losing a little of her vigor, “he’s the associate who will be meeting with you today.”

Evelyn’s frown deepens. “But our meeting is with the Lichtenstein brothers.”

“Oh, well, good for you,” Gwen says, her brow raising. “They only join in when it’s a serious deal on the table. When I sent your info to Derrick, I hoped it would turn into something.” She leans in, placing her hands on the table. “Between you and me,” she says quietly, “I’ve been here for years, and it’s rarely ladies they bring in. I mentioned it to a colleague of mine once,” she straightens, pursing her lips in annoyance, “he told me that it’s not in a women’s disposition to be an entrepreneur.” A smirk spreads across her face. “But you two sitting here proves him wrong.”

“He sounds like a jerk,” Evelyn says.

“He is.”

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