“Extensively.”
“Then I’ll take my chances.” She grabs a bag from the couch—small, structured, probably expensive but not ostentatiously so. “Ready?”
“Almost.” I nod toward the laminated card she’s still clutching. “May I?”
She looks down at it. Grimaces. “Oh. Right. I made a—it’s stupid. It’s a cheat sheet. For pretending to know rich guy things. But you’re actually a rich guy, so it’s useless, and I should probably throw it away.”
“May I see it?”
“You really want to see my disaster of a cheat sheet?”
“Very much.”
She hands it over. I study the neat handwriting, the bullet points, the color-coded sections. She made this at two in the morning, I realize. Probably wine-drunk and anxious.
“‘Ask about his yacht,’” I read aloud. “‘Nod thoughtfully at wine opinions. Laugh at unfunny golf stories.’” I look up. “You think I golf?”
“Rich guys golf. It’s statistically proven.”
“I don’t golf.”
“Do you have a yacht?”
“No.”
“Wine opinions?”
“Several. But I promise they’re not tedious.”
“See, you say that—” She gestures at me again, a motion I’m starting to recognize as her way of encompassing everything she finds overwhelming. “But you’re clearly wealthy and successful, and I hired you thinking you’d need the money, so why are you here?”
The question is sharper than she probably intends.
I consider the truth. That I’m bored. That I’ve been bored for decades. That her request was the first thing in years that made me feel something other than the slow erosion of time. That she was honest in a way people never are with me, and I wanted to understand why.
“Curiosity,” I say. “Your request was refreshing. You asked for exactly what you needed without pretense.”
“Refreshing is a nice word for pathetic.”
“I disagree. Pathetic would be pretending you don’t need help. You asked for what you wanted. That takes courage.”
Something shifts in her expression. The defensive edge softens.
She takes a breath. “Look, I can’t afford you. Not at whatever your actual rate is. So if you want to back out—”
“I don’t.”
“But—”
“Poppy.” I hand back the cheat sheet. “I accepted because I wanted to. The compensation is irrelevant.”
“Money is never irrelevant.”
“It is when you have enough of it.” Weariness bleeds into my voice. “After a while, it becomes scenery.”
She’s watching me with those sharp eyes. Cataloging. I’m pretty sure I can almost see her filing away my phrasing for later examination.
“Okay,” she says finally. “Then let’s go be fake in love at an expensive restaurant.”
