Page 32 of Just Not That Into Billionaires

I take this moment to give Aaron a pleased look. Surely he sees the wisdom of the plan now.

But he’s frowning. Even his mustache seems to turn down at the edges. Aaron is a lot more invested in nailing down this Protech deal than I am. I’ll have other paydays, but it’s unlikely that he’ll have other paydays anywhere near to this level.

Not that I don’t want the deal. This company was built to be led by two friends with complementary skills and now it’s just me; Aaron’s only legal support. We gave him a chunk of the company early on when we were too poor to pay him, a decision we definitely regretted over the years.

I look at her ridiculous traditional Swiss dress or whatever it is that she has on. Where did she even get it? She’s lucky it worked out, that’s all I can say.

I twist up a bite of linguine, remembering things I hadn’t thought of for years. Those late-night cast dinners, post-performance, the giant group of us at a long table. She’d flit from cast member to cast member, laughing, irreverent, dark hair cascading over her shoulders, having deep conversations here, telling a silly story there.

The cast at Beau Cirque viewed putting up the show as a punishing and exhausting endeavor, but to Francine, it was a walk in the park, and she’d be running around after every show, trying to get people to go out dancing or exploring. She never asked me to go out, except once as a confusing joke.

She’s poking me. “Benny, Benny! Tell them.”

“What?”

She’s grinning. “He does this. Lost in thought. Cogitating,” she says, eyeing me, maybe wondering if I remember.

Of course I do—she once accused me of daydreaming, and I’d felt embarrassed and informed her that no, I wasn’t daydreaming, I wascogitating. There was no end to how pathetic I was in those days. I’d use stupidly big words. I didn’t know better.

“You must never say he’s daydreaming. He doesn’t like it. Cogitating, bitches!”

Juliana smiles. She likes Francine. People always do. The Beau Cirque staff would clamor for her attention. I remember just rolling my eyes and shaking my head at the whole thing. It was so annoying.

“We have our baby names picked out,” she says. “It’s okay if I tell them, right?”

Over her shoulder, Aaron looks aghast.

I’m not exactly pleased. I cast her a warning glance because, Igor and Monique? These people aren’t idiots!

She tilts her head questioningly, like she’s actually my wife or something. “No?”

I shake my head minutely.

She settles a hand on my arm. “That’s enough. He doesn’t want to tell.”

“We won’t use them, promise!” Barbara exclaims. She’s had too much to drink, but also, Francine has a way of pulling people in and making them feel like they’re in an enchanted bubble with her. Like that last night.

Something grinds in me.

“I’ll tell, I’ll go first,” Barbara says in her Texas drawl. “Katarina and Arthur.” She sits back happily as people praise the names. Katarina is a bigger favorite than Arthur, but Francine likes Arthur—she tells the group that it reminds her of Artie Shaw, the jazz clarinetist. If there’s one thing I learned in my summer in Vegas, it’s that most dancers have a deep knowledge of the history of music. It’s part of their training.

She turns to me, beseechingly.

No—just no. While Monique is a believable name, nobody in their right mind would name their kid Igor. It was supposed to be a funny thing just between us. “I’d like to keep them to ourselves,” I say.

She studies my eyes in the beat of silence that follows. “Okay, then,” she says softly. “Benny is an intensely private person,” she adds. “My very own oyster.” Suddenly I don’t know if this is for show, or if it’s a little bit real. All I know is that I’m feeling chaotic.

“You bring him out of his shell,” Juliana says. “I can tell.”

I lose myself in my linguini. The Brazilians are complaining about not being able to get tickets to any of the shows they wanted to see, including the big Reno Sweeney revival, and my high-achieving wife offers to snag them premium seats at a matinee. It turns out she knows the star. Of course.

“Have you seen it?” Juliana asks. “It would be fun if you and Benny could come along.”

I shove at Francine’s foot under the table. Hopefully my communication is clear: no, we will not be accompanying them.

She looks over at me and then smiles sweetly at Juliana. “I hear it’s really an amazing show.”

I shove again, just to reiterate...no. I’d stick needles into my eyeballs before I’d sit through a three-hour show and she knows it.

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