“If they can ever harness it, energy from little kids and puppies could power the world.” I shrug. To be honest, today I’m as eager to share my news as Effie. But dinner awaits and I really don’t want to mention Anders’s proposal in front of Effie. She’d have me married off in an instant. When Mr Carter, a new male deputy head, started at her school, Effie slipped him my phone number and suggested he call. Apparently, Effie said, “She’s sort of pretty and not too fat.”
Thankfully, the happily married father of two teenagers still recalled life with little kids and managed to resist the urge to seduce me after such an overwhelming pitch. Meanwhile, I ruled out any future career in sales for my child. Following this incident, I had a little chat with Effie and made it clear pimping out her mother was inappropriate. But I’m not sure she was entirely convinced of its unworkability.
The children scarper after food, permitted one hour of cartoons before bath and bed. And finally, I can share my news with Dana. She’s loading the plates into her dishwasher when I say, “I got a proposal at work today.”
“Oh,” she says, suddenly interested. “Please tell me it was indecent?”
“The opposite. It was for marriage.”
Her head comes up. The plate goes down. “Marriage?” she echoes, brows together.
“Yep. Marriage. I was even more shocked than you.”
Her eyes narrow. “Let me guess. Rob the Rat Boy?”
I shake my head.
“Oh, oh. Steve with the man bun?”
“Topknot,” I correct. “Man bun is gender restrictive.”
“Whatever,” Dana shrugs. We’ve had previous discussions about whether Steve was flirting with me. I was hoping not. While I’m a full-on Aragorn, son of Arathorn, fangirl, it takes a special person to rock those locks.
Another shake.
“Whatshername, the finance officer? You’ve tired of waster guys and have finally decided to widen your options?”
“Nur?”
Dana nods. “No, I’m not built like that and besides which, she’s married with two kids. Carry on, though. Think of the least likely person.”
Dana isn’t one to back away from a challenge. Her eyes drop away as she concentrates. She tries one last time. “Anders?” she asks, straightening up to face me.
“Bingo!” I give her a double thumbs up. “Anders wants to marry me.”
“Your wacko boss?” She often refers to him this way. Sometimes I pull her up. Today, I’m too pumped to bother. “The very same.”
“Why? Wait.” She turns to the fridge and pulls out a half drunk, re-sealed bottle of white wine. She pours healthy measures into two glasses. After carrying them to the table, she sets them down by me and pulls out a chair opposite. “Now shoot. Why?”
“Because he finds me adequate.”
“Wow, adequate, huh? Did you faint at the praise?” She flaps a hand in front of her face, fanning herself.
“To be fair, I think the actual word was ‘tolerate’. And my ability to have babies also featured. He wants to be a father.”
“So, it was all about him?” Dana gets right to the point, as always.
“Not totally. He did describe all the ways my life would improve. And he offered to settle some assets on me so I wouldn’t have to worry if anything happened.”
Dana’s eyebrows disappear. “If anything happened? He’s already anticipating the end?”
I keep quiet at this point. I would like to defend Anders, because he is not the person she is building in her mind. Dana assumes this refers to divorce and I’ll have to let her believe it. But that wasn’t what Anders meant. As personal assistant to the CEO, I minute the meetings discussing our unpaid tax bill. I read the delay reports from the Development Team. I see the calculations for redundancy payments.
Cerium Studios has gambled everything on this next game. But it is already late. Anders is under pressure to release as soon as possible, but he knows a buggy game will destroy us. And when the game finally comes out, if the public doesn’t like it, Cerium is finished.
It’s a problem for all small game studios. We don’t have enough games in our portfolio to survive if a game tanks. Especially not, given the resources it has taken to bring this latest game to market. This time next year, we’ll either be ten times our current turnover, or we’ll be defunct. I believe the potential demise of Cerium is what Anders had in mind, not divorce, but I can’t defend Anders’s altruism without giving away company secrets.
“How very Regency. All very ‘your portion is small’, while my situation in life is so much better, isn’t it?”
