In Five Years(53)

It’s a ten-seater, and I take the one in the rear, by the window. I lean my head against the glass. I said yes to this trip without considering what it means. It is, of course, an answer to Aldridge’s original question. Yes. Yes I’ll take on the case. Yes, I’ll commit to this.

“You’re doing the right thing,” David told me last night. “This could be huge for your career. And you love this company.”

“I do,” I say. “I just can’t help but feel like people here need me.”

“We’ll survive,” he said. “I promise we’ll all survive.”

And now here I am, flying over an endless mountain range in pursuit of the ocean.

We’re staying at Casa del Mar, in Santa Monica right on the beach. My room is on the ground level, with a terrace that extends onto the boardwalk. The hotel is shabby chic Hamptons meets European opulence. I like it.

We have a dinner meeting with Jordi and Anya tonight, but when I reach my room, it’s only 11 a.m. We picked up half a day on our way across the country.

I change into shorts and a T-shirt and a sun hat—my Russian Jew skin has never met a sun it particularly got on with—and decide to take a walk on the beach. The temperature is warm and getting hotter—in the mid-eighties by lunchtime—but there’s a cool breeze off the ocean. For the first time in weeks, I feel as if I am not simply surviving.

We go to dinner at Ivy at the Shore, a restaurant practically across the street from Casa del Mar, but Aldridge still calls a car. Kelly is in town to see another client, so it’s just Aldridge and me. I’m wearing a navy shift dress with lilac flowers and navy espadrilles, the most casual I’ve ever been in a work environment. But it’s California, these women are young, and we’re by the ocean. I want to wear flowers.

We get to the restaurant first. Rattan chairs with floral backs and pillows pepper the restaurant as diners in jeans and dinner jackets clink glasses, laughing.

We sit. “I’m going to insist on the calamari,” Aldridge says. “It’s delectable.”

He’s wearing a light asuit with a purple paisley shirt. If you photographed us together, you might think it had been planned.

“Is there anything we should go over?” I ask him. “I have the company stats memorized, but—”

“This is just a get-to-know-you meeting, so they feel comfortable. You know the ropes.”

“No meeting is just anything,” I say.

“That is true. But if you try for an agenda, you often get an undesired outcome.”

Jordi and Anya arrive in tandem. Jordi is tall, in high-waisted pants and a cowl-neck sweater. Her hair is down and wet at the ends. She looks like a bohemian dream, and I am reminded, for not the first time, of Bella. Anya wears jeans, a T-shirt and a blazer. Her hair is short and slicked back. She talks with her eyes.

“Are we late?” she says. She’s skittish. I can tell. No matter. We’ll win them over.

“Not at all,” Aldridge says. “You know us New Yorkers. We don’t know anything about your traffic patterns.”

Jordi sits next to me. Her perfume is heady and dense.

“Ladies, I’d like you to meet Danielle Kohan. She’s our best and brightest senior associate. And she’s been a huge boon to your IPO evaluation already.”

“You can call me Dannie,” I say, shaking each of their hands.

“We love Aldridge,” Jordi tell me. “But does he have a first name?”

“It’s never to be used,” I tell her, before mouthing: Miles.

Aldridge smiles. “What are we drinking tonight?” he asks the group.

A waiter materializes, and Aldridge orders a bottle of champagne and a bottle of red, for dinner. “Cocktails, anyone?” he inquires.

Anya gets an iced tea. “How long do you think this will take?” she asks.

“Dinner, or taking your company public?” Aldridge does not look up from his menu.

“I’ve been a big fan of yours for a while now,” I say. “I think what you’ve done with the space is brilliant.”

“Thank—” Jordi starts, but Anya cuts her off.

“We didn’t do anything with existing space. We created a new one,” she says. She eyes Jordi as if to say—lock it up.

“I’m curious, though,” I say. I aim my question at the both of them, equally. “Why now?”

At this, Aldridge looks up from his menu and grabs a passing waiter. “We’d like the calamari immediately please.” Aldridge winks at me.

Jordi looks to Anya, as if unsure how to answer, and I feel a question answered before it has been raised. I swallow it back down. Not now.

“We’re at the point where we don’t want to work as hard as we have been on the same thing,” Jordi says. “We’d like the revenue to be able to turn our attentions to new ventures.”

I feel the familiarity in her speak. The measured, calculated words. Maybe it’s all true, but none of it feels authentic. So I push.

“Why give away control of something you own when you don’t have to?”

At this, Jordi busies herself with her water glass. Anya’s eyes narrow. I can feel Aldridge shift next to me. I have no idea why I’m doing this. I know exactly why I’m doing this.