Page 26 of The Grumpy Billionaire

Instead I concentrate on unwrapping the Tums. I had Brenda re-up my supply this morning.

Stella sets down the pen and picks up a Post-it pad now, flipping through it as she describes her boss, Viola.

I’ll open the card tonight—it wasn’t a lie.

Most people leave me alone, and the few people I allow in my orbit know not to come at me with cards or gifts or emotional outpourings. They know that if they did that, they would no longer be welcome in my orbit.

It’s awesome.

If somebody had told teenaged me that when I grew up, I could reject 99 percent of all social obligations and interactions and get to spend my time on math, it would’ve sounded like heaven.

Though teenaged me would also want to be assured there was still fucking in the future…and would therefore be thrilled to learn that future me would know several ambitious, career-minded women in Manhattan who were down for no-strings hookups.

Stella exchanges the Post-its for a USB adaptor which she immediately begins to twirl.

The other upside of no-strings hookups? They are the opposite of distracting, the opposite of tormenting.

“You probably think I’m a screwup for not being able to land a job in my field.”

“Not at all.”

“I need you to know, I had a killer job with Zevin Media Group, this hot boutique agency in Soho. They were bringing me on as Associate Creative Director. It was a done deal.” She waits for this to sink in. It’s important to her that I believe the job was real.

Of course I knew it was real. All too real.

In the light streaming in from the window, you can see how her face has lost the baby-fat roundness she still had in her teens. There’s a majesty to her cheekbones, and she moves with poise.

“It was a done deal. They paid my relocation and everything—not cheap, right? And then the day before I was supposed to start, they’re like, ‘We’re going in another direction.’”

“That’s what they said?”

“Yeah. Another direction.”

“You probably wouldn’t have liked it there,” I say.

“I would’ve loved it! I hit it off with that team like fire.” She describes the elaborate interview process where they apparently started brainstorming a campaign.

How have I let this interaction with her go on for so long? What am I doing?

Now she’s describing her efforts to land similar jobs, and how people would be excited to hire her, and then the jobs would mysteriously vanish.

“And you can’t go back to the other places that offered you jobs?” I ask.

“Too late.” She sighs. “So now I’m applying for practically entry-level positions where I could not be more overqualified, just to stay in the industry, you know? And the same thing keeps happening! Which makes no sense. A couple of months ago I had my pick of great jobs, and now it’s like, ‘Sorry, we won’t touch you with a ten-foot pole even for assistant film editor.’”

I frown. Itisstrange.

She twirls the adaptor. “The more I think about it, the more I think there’s something strange going on, because why would Zevin Media pay for my relocation and then change their minds? My roommate and her friends think it’s suspicious, too.”

“Huh,” I say.

She stops twirling the thing and narrows her eyes. “Maybe it’s something with my background check. But no. They would’ve run the checkbeforemaking a job offer.” She resumes the twirling, moving it this way and that. “It makes me think I should do some sort of postmortem.”

“What do you mean?”

“Aggressively investigate why the job was pulled away at the last minute.” She flips the thing back and forth in a distractingly random pattern, now. “Go allLaw & Orderon their asses.”

I’m not a fan of that idea for a number of reasons. “I think you should leave it alone.”

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