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“We might understand a thing or two about that,” Cal smiles, the sympathy painfully clear in his eyes.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I murmur. “I know you lost your parents too.”
He nods, his expression remote and sad for a moment. “But the important thing is you kept your promise.”
“I did,” I smile. “But only by the seat of my pants. I was literally on the verge of being kicked out after I returned from my internship in Honduras, but by some miracle I got a notice that a scholarship I had forgotten about had just come through. Just in the nick of time. Can you imagine that!”
“That’s amazing,” Cal agrees. “Did you just overspend in Honduras? I have heard of a few people losing their asses in real estate there.”
My cheeks heat up. For a moment I am vividly aware of the difference in our backgrounds. He is imagining a real estate deal at the time in my life where I had just moved out of atrailer park.
“Not exactly,” I continue, trying to formulate an answer that he will understand. Somehow I need to translate the language of day-to-day poverty into words that make sense to a person who has never been poorer than just-barely-billionaire.
“Ernestine and Nigel—the people I lived with during my internship—they needed a working prototype of the solar drone. They had the raw materials, but not the cash to get it made.”
“You paid for the prototype?” Irving interrupts.
I squinch my eyes closed in embarrassment. “It cleaned me out,” I admit shyly. “I totally underestimated, and then we didn’t even get the investment. If I hadn’t already had a return ticket home, I would probably still be there!”
Irving’s green eyes glitter with the candlelight. He slowly shakes his head.
“I didn’t know that,” he says softly.
“Well of course not. Why would you?” I shrug. “Anyway, it’s totally embarrassing and I don’t like to talk about it. The moral of the story is, sometimes you very nearly ruin your life and the scholarship fairy cuts you a break!”
I laugh at my own joke, painfully aware no one else is laughing.
“Okay, isn’t that funny?” I ask tentatively. “Well, isn’t it?”
Cal watches Irving carefully. Irving stares out at the horizon.
“Irving?” I ask.
He turns to me finally, his expression carefully controlled.
“I’m just really glad it worked out for you.”
“It was really lucky,” I say, watching his reaction.
“Some would say that,” he avers.
“Irving?” I ask carefully. “Do you know anything about this?”
Cal leans forward in his chair, clearly intrigued. Finally Irving spreads his hands out.
“In the course of my research into the investor proposal, just regular background research on personnel, I became tangentially aware of your situation.”
“My situation?” I repeat, not believing what I am hearing.
“I didn’t know about the prototype,” he continues. “But I did know about your financial situation. And I felt strongly—I still do—that you were too talented to lose out on school over a situation that, frankly, I could fix without suffering at all. So why should you suffer?”
My cheeks redden.
“He wasn’t trying to insult you, Opal,” Cal adds softly.
“Then why lie?” I blurt out.
Shame fills me, and I bite my lips closed. I feel defensive, exposed. Judged.
