Page 134 of Caper Crush
“Someone came in, so we childishly decided to be quiet and eavesdrop. It turned out to be William, followed by Peter. Peter said that he wanted you back. He said he was going to be up front about it to William. He said he was the best person for you—that you and he could be this power art couple and take the art world by storm.”
“He did not.” My blood boils. “I don’t need Peter to take the art world by storm. I’m going to do that on my own. Or not at all. As for a partner, what I need is someone who loves me for me and who is there for me no matter what I do. That’s not Peter. That’s William. What did William say?”
“He said that he didn’t think you needed Peter and that was for you to decide.”
“Then why did he break up with me?”
“I didn’t think he would. That’s why I didn’t immediately tell you. But Peter sounded very sure of himself. And I told you that you guys looked very comfortable on the couch together. William probably mulled it over and thought he should give you a clean slate to choose. Maybe he wanted to do the rejecting before you rejected him.”
“Yes, he said that I’d already shown I had doubts by spying on him and Kiyoko. It’s not like we don’t have issues, but every couple has issues.”
Tessa glances at my collage. “Ooh, that is so cool with the flower petals. Are you experimenting with a new approach?”
“No. That was my breakup collage. But now it’s going to be my get-back-together collage. But first I need to call Stewart.”
Penelope introduced me to Stewart, and now he does all my accounting, such as it is.
“Stewart wouldnotbe the first person I’d call for romantic advice, even if he is a sweetheart,” Tessa says wryly.
“I want to talk to William in his language.”
“What language is that?”
“Accounting.”
“This I want to see,” Tessa says.
Stewart picks up on the first ring. He’s eating dinner at home. I explain to him that my boyfriend is an accountant, but he just dumped me, and I need to make a grand gesture to win him back using accounting principles.
The silence at the other end of the phone is full of doubt.
Finally, he says, “I’m not sure how to do that.”
“No, you don’t need to do that. I will figure it out. Can you just explain some key accounting concepts to me?”
“Right now?”
“Yes,” I say. “This is a crisis. An accounting love crisis. Is there any accounting concept that says you need to succeed on your own merits?”
“Uh … no, not that I can think of,” he says.
“That’s fine. I’ll figure that out.” I am undeterred. “What are some key accounting principles?”
“You mean like the concepts of accrual, consistency, conservatism, matching, and business entity?”
“I definitely don’t want conservatism. That won’t help me, but what’s the matching one?”
“Conservatism is important,” he says. “Revenues are only recognized when there is a reasonable certainty that they will be realized, but expenses are recognized sooner when there is a reasonable possibility that they will be incurred. Financial statements tend to end up more conservative because of that lower threshold to book expenses.”
“Yeah, I’m not quite sure how to spin that romantically in terms of our relationship.” I go back to that other thing. “What’s matching?” Across the street, a delivery guy locks his bike to a pole.
“The expenses related to revenue should be recognized in the same period in which the revenue was recognized.”
“That is not the romantic concept I was hoping for. I need something more about we match and so we should sail off into the sunset,” I say. “How does matching work with conservatism? What if there is revenue that is not yet a reasonable certainty?”
“Do you want me to explain that?”
“Actually, you know, I think I can use the conservatism concept: he’s recognized the expenses or the losses, but we still have a reasonable possibility of successes/revenues because we’ve gone through the pain of the losses. And if I tie that with matching, he should at least stick with me long enough for those successes to be recognized.”
