Page 102 of The Grumpy Billionaire

“But you’re both trying to get at something true,” she says.

“What possible truth is in a chair you can’t use?”

“The deeper truths of the subconscious. Impermanence.”

The “cubist crostini” arrives just then; it’s cut into abstract, geometric shapes, and there’s half of a hard-boiled egg set randomly on the plate; it’s made to look like an eyeball through the creative use of capers and other small foodstuff. Our “melted clock nachos” feature cheese and toppings that appear to be melting off the chips.

When Stella asks the waiter to exchange her weirdly twisted fork for a new one, she gets an even larger fork with more twists. This goes on for a while until she grabs one off of a neighboring table.

As if that’s not enough, the waitstaff calls out the word “fish” at random times.

I stir my gin and tonic, which has turned a shade of brown due to the melting ice cubes. “You know this is taking five percent off my progress.”

ChapterForty-Four

Stella

I tellhim about a new client I got off of LinkedIn over our somewhat mediocre surrealist pasta.

“I’m going to pull together a freelance team for this project. A lot of the top creatives didn’t go back inside after the pandemic. When you think about it, you can get better creative work outside of the creative agencies.”

“That’s interesting. Are you thinking about running that as a business?”

“No, just for this project. I could never actually run a company. Can you imagine the organizational demands? The detail orientation it would take?”

“So what? You have a strong vision for things. I think you’d be brilliant at it.”

“Have you met my untied shoelaces? Would you like to meet my financial record-keeping and budgeting system? Oh, wait, I have none.”

“You could learn it. You could hire some of it out.”

I could not adore him more right now. Not just for tolerating this restaurant, but for thinking I can do these things. I’m so used to people thinking I’m inept. “It’s just not in my wheelhouse. It’s not me.”

“And your evidence for that is…”

“Well…” I dunk the baby arm around in my glass, trying to come up with an answer. A time I tried to be an organized, together person and failed. Did I ever try? “Evidence, you say.”

“You developed a successful career,” he offers. “Before my letter.”

“In a smallish city,” I say.

“It was a successful career.”

“Maybe so, but I didn’t need any kind of organization skills for that. They would point me in a direction and say, make something entertaining that communicates this message. And I would generate ideas. I was like a wind-up monkey that generated and implemented ideas.”

“So you have no evidence.”

I’m about to laughingly say something about losing my keys, but I stop short. I’ve spent the better part of my life trying to prove to Charlie and my parents that I’m not that irresponsible, inept girl. It’s almost like they’re in my head. Maybe organization isn’t my strong suit, but why am I trying so hard to convince Hugo?

“You’re no wind-up monkey.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

We brainstorm different ways I could market my services. Hugo wants desperately to help—he really feels bad about what he did, but I’m starting to wonder if it wasn’t a blessing in disguise—not just because it led to us being here, but what if I could run my own show?

Hugo comes up with some good ideas when the staff isn’t bugging us by bringing random things, or a huge ceramic checkmark when Hugo asks for the check.

He rolls with it all, and I sit there working overtime to keep his violent rejection of the flawed orb in sight.

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