Page 10 of A Fae in Finance
“But did you guys close the deal?” Corey asked, his face brighter than usual. Corey had once said “investment banking is sexy” in a meeting and meant it. Since Corey didn’t appear attracted to any of our colleagues and had never referenced a romantic partner of any kind, I wasn’t sure where he got that from.
“Oh yeah. One-point-three million fee,” Levi crowed.
“Nice,” Matt chimed in from the other side of the aisle.
I ate a bite of chewy brown goop, staring at a report on my computer and trying to erase that conversation from my head. In our operational model, the logistics of scaling one gnome under a tree into a faerie factory flattened into revenue and expense lines.
“Levi,” I said, “do you think you’ll have a chance to help me with this model soon?”
“Sure,” he said, not looking at me. “What’s the issue?”
“Well, they don’t really have a business plan to scale, so I don’t think the numbers make sense.”
“Miri,” Levi said, in the tone he reserved for me. “We don’t worry about the assumptions, remember?” He separated each word, like he wanted to make sure I could digest them. “It’s notourproblem if they can do it or not. It’s the investor’s problem.”
This wasn’t true, and as I had recently taken my licensing exams, I probably could have pointed Levi to the relevant regulation stating otherwise. But it absolutely wasn’t worth arguing with him.
“Sorry, I forgot,” I said, staring at the computer. I hit F2 and started auditing the model, because we had to get it out to the client before we went to dinner.
Not that Levi or Jeff cared what I did regarding our client. Levi didn’t really engage with them, and Jeff hated them passionately.
I took another bite of grain mass and squeezed my eyes shut. It was going to be a long day.
At seven thirty p.m., Jeff came out of his office to talk to me. No one had given me details about when we’d be going to Faerie, or how we would get there, but I’d learned not to ask questions.
“Hey, Miri,” he said, standing over my chair. I spun the chair to look up at him and immediately regretted it. He was slightly too close for me to stand up, his knees almost touching mine.
“Hi, Jeff,” I said, staring into his nostrils. He glowered down at me, like a stilt walker at a Ren faire who’d just tripped over a stroller.
“Let’s get in the car.”
I glanced at my own shoes and almost bumped my head into his stomach. “I wanted to wear sneakers,” I said, unsure if I was asking for permission or stating a plan.
“Wear sneakers, I don’t care,” he said, leaning an elbow on the divider at the edge of my desk. I watched it tilt precariously. “They’re magical creatures, Miri, they don’t know about fashion.”
I didn’t know about fashion either.
“Okay.” I spun back around—Jeff still standing behind my chair—and slid my shoes off. I waited for him to move, but he didn’t, so I had to toe around under the desk for my sneakers without sliding back into him. After a few seconds, I found them and hitched myself into a backbend to get into the shoes without moving the chair.
“Let’s go, Miri,” Jeff said.
Assuming he’d moved, I twisted out of the seat and bumped into him. Jeff grabbed my arm to steady me. “Jesus, balance much?”
I frowned up at him. He let go and led the way out into the elevator bank, talking. I grabbed my computer, shoved it in my backpack, slung the pack over my shoulder, and followed him.
By the time I caught up, I’d clearly missed a few sentences.
“But anyway, the thing about clients is they’re always right, but they’re never right. You shouldn’t ever seriously listen to a client, but you should always agree with them.” He jabbed his finger on the down button, so hard his nail went white.
“Oh, interesting,” I said, following Jeff into the elevator. He stood in the middle of the car, facing the back wall, so I inched left around him and leaned against a side wall.
“The client will have a lot of opinions, but you don’t need to pay attention to them. But if they ask why you didn’t do something, you just say you’ll circle back to them on that. Then you can forget about it. That’s what I do,” Jeff said, in a distressing stream of consciousness. I wondered if the elevator would move. I wondered if Jeff intended to lean against a wall at some point. “Also, it sounds like they’re sending a car for us,” Jeff added, when I only nodded in response.
“Faeries don’t drive,” I said, staring at the television screen blinking stock market updates in the right-hand panel. The elevator began its descent.
“Clearly they do, Miri, and don’t contradict me tonight. It looks bad.” He straightened his tie. I glanced down and saw he was still wearing his nice shoes. I wondered if Jeffdidcare what the Fae thought of him.
Faeriescan’tdrive, I thought.They’re not allowed to in New York.New York State wouldn’t let faeries on anything faster than a moped, ostensibly because of concerns that the pure metals in vehicles would weaken them, leading to drowsiness while driving.
