Cash Out Read online

  “Hey,” I say, big smile, “your new guy’s eating a rat in the break room.”

  Fitzroy lights up. “Perfect. That’s perfect.” He looks up at me, eyes hopeful. “Are people freaking out?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “That’s great. We need to knock folks out of their comfort zones, Danny.”

  “Who is he?”

  He waves away the thought. “I have a question for you.”

  Beth looks away, tries to suppress a smile.

  “Okay.”

  Fitzroy snatches a sheet off the coffee table, stands up, and brings it in close, invading my space. It’s hard to focus on the drawing on the sheet—some rudimentary scribbling of a tiered pyramid—when I’m getting this up-close view of those bloodshot eyes, those dark teeth, that lifeless skin, that pink scalp with its odd collection of stray hairs and plugs.

  “What you see here, Danny, is a breakdown of the general population.”

  “Okay.”

  Fitzroy leans in, coffee breath hitting me hard. “Down here at the bottom of the pyramid are the morons. I’ve got it all labeled here so you can follow along.”

  Beth releases a short laugh, nearly a snort.

  “That’s the majority of the population, actually.” He’s saying it in an exaggerated, professorial tone. “And they’re hopeless.”

  He looks at me for a reaction, the sunken eyes bulging and twinkling as he gets near my ear, bringing the breath closer. Lord, that’s nasty.

  “And then, above the morons, we find the schmucks.” He exaggerates a turn toward me, still in that instructor voice. “If you’re a schmuck, at least you can say you’re not a moron.”

  Beth laughs again and looks away.

  “So the glass is half full, you’re saying.”

  “Exactly. Very good, Danny.” He bats the sheet with his index finger. “Then, above the schmucks, are the idiots.”

  “Nice.”

  “People take offense to the word idiot. But the truth is, Danny, you’re not doing that bad if you’re an idiot. You could be much worse.”

  I decide to say nothing.

  Fitzroy studies my face, mocks concern with bewildered brows. “Are you okay, Danny?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Don’t forget, Sharon has the sedan waiting out front.”

  “It can wait.” He studies my face. “You’re not mad or anything, are you?”

  I am getting mad. I mean, only Fitzroy would come up with a pyramid like this, and only Beth Gavin would find it hilarious. This is how they see the world, how they see me and the others here. But of course, I don’t want to register any kind of reaction, because that’s what they want—a reaction.

  “You have a little cut there.” He’s looking at it. “Above your right brow there.”

  “Oh, yeah. Just Harry, getting a little aggressive with his light saber.” I think of the shovel coming at my face, feel my body tense for a moment.

  “Looks like it’s bruising.”

  “Harry swings hard.”

  Beth has turned to her notes. Any mention of children usually repels her.

  “Okay,” he says, straightening up and shaking the paper in front of me. “So you have the idiots.”

  “I see.”

  “Which leaves us with the last group, at the top of the pyramid.”

  I squint at the sheet. “That little dot at the top there?”

  Beth laughs hard. Fitzroy shows his coffee teeth, giggling.

  “What does that say?”

  “Leaders.” Fitzroy is so proud of his little comedy routine, puffing his chest out, smiling so hard he’s showing gums. “These are the leaders.”

  I force an embarrassed smile. “Interesting view of the world.”

  He loses the smile. “Realistic view of the world.”

  I give him my subdued oh-yeah? look.

  “It’s that tiny group of leaders at the top that make the world go around, Danny.”

  “Hmmm. Interesting.”

  “Not interesting, Danny. Realistic.”

  “Okay.”

  Beth sitting there looking at me, her eyes gleaming.

  “So the question I have for you is, where are you on this pyramid?”

  I glance at Beth. She’s so calm and comfortable there on the couch, watching me with amusement.

  “I don’t know. Haven’t really given it any thought, Stephen.”

  Of course, I know where Fitzroy and Beth place themselves on the pyramid. I wish I could bring myself to ask them what happened to the missing layers—the liars, cheats, assholes. Not to mention all the honorable people.

  “Where are you, Danny?”

  I look at the ground, feeling my anger rise. “Well, I’m not a moron or an idiot or a schmuck.”

  When I look up, they’re exchanging glances.

  Maybe this is what I needed, this fucking pyramid routine to fuel my anger, push me into action. I turn to Beth, feel my face harden.

  “By the way,” I say, “why do you keep sending people like Janice my way? All these people who say you’ve told them I can do all this data-entry bullshit.”

  Beth loses what little color she does have. “Huh?” She wasn’t expecting this. “What? Janice?”

  I stare at her. “Yeah, Janice from Finance. She’s been bugging me incessantly about these data-entry clusterfuck projects, says I’m supposed to handle them.”

  Long silence. Fitzroy takes an exaggerated step back, looks at Beth like he’s saying, Interesting. You’re gonna take that from him?

  “Which doesn’t make any sense,” I add, “since I’m Stephen’s speechwriter and I’m sure you don’t think I should be taking time away from his needs.”

  Her face turns cherry-red. She says, “You said you wanted to do new—”

  “Beth, it needs to stop.” I look over at Fitzroy, his eyes bulging as he watches his usually amiable speechwriter giving Beth Gavin hell. “I’ve got more than enough to do with my real responsibilities, and I don’t need people coming to me for these time wasters. It’s wasting everyone’s time.”

  “I didn’t know what—”

  “Beth . . .” I try not to look mad, force my eyes to soften a little. I just need to seem firm and in control. “No more.”

  Beth looks away and mumbles.

  Fitzroy looks surprised, almost impressed. “Well . . .” he says, and pauses. “I like this side of you, Danny. You’re already moving up the pyramid there.”

  Whatever, asshole.

  Sharon pokes her head in, looks at Fitzroy. “You need to get to the jet center.”

  Fitzroy gathers his stuff, shuts down his laptop. “We’re witnessing the birth of the new Danny, Sharon.” He grabs his cell, slides his laptop into his briefcase, glances at the shell-shocked Beth. “And I think he’s rendered Beth speechless.”

  “While she’s speechless,” I say, grinning, “I wanted to let you know Sharon’s added me to the flight tomorrow.”

  He turns to look at me. “You’re coming to Tampa?”

  I nod and shrug. “It’s a new deck—I put some new notes in there, so I thought we should probably go over the speech on the way out. That way I can take care of all the AV stuff for you, too.”

  He makes for the door. “Excellent.”

  Beth says, “I can do that, Stephen. He doesn’t need to come for that.” Vintage Beth move.

  He never looks back, just says, “You guys figure it out.”

  I meet Beth’s squint and say softly, “I think we just did.”

  So this is the problem.

  People see me walking and talking with Fitzroy, imagine me whizzing around on the jet and all that. They see me in his office. They can almost see me and Fitzroy walking into some fancy European hotel lobby, encircled by a gorgeous security detail. They can imagine u
s crouched over his coffee table as I sketch out the latest crazy idea on a scrap of paper. They can see me sitting in on board meetings, where big decisions are made.

  The problem is, they haven’t a clue.

  I’m more of a parlor boy: a lackey who crafts speeches and ghostwrites op-eds, a guy who isn’t above anything when it comes to supporting the boss. The man wants me fetch him a coffee? No problem. The man needs slide-deck work that’s so irritating it would drive Gandhi to road rage? Fine, bring it. The man needs me to write up some thoughts on the future of the Internet and then recede into the shadows of the jet? My pleasure. I do that well.

  Then I go home in my fourteen-year-old econo car.

  Has the man ever asked me to join a FlowBid board meeting? Never.

  Do I care? Absolutely not.

  You see, I never was all that concerned about the prestige of the job. It was just a job I was qualified to do; it found me and promptly sank its hooks into my flesh. Not the other way around. Some people have a hard time understanding that. They’re usually the status and prestige fiends—the ones who are taken not by the fact I might be a straight shooter who does good work, but by the fact that I work with the living legend, Stephen Fitzroy. In this culture of status, pedigree, and overachievement, I confound them.

  Take George in Corporate Development, who stops me in the hall as I hobble back to my cube.

  He hollers, “What’s new in FitzroyLand?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Sure you do. You guys know all that stuff.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “They’re thinking about another stock split, right?”

  This is news to me—not that George would believe it.

  “Don’t know a thing, George.”

  He smiles but kind of grits his teeth, mumbles, looking me over. “Sure you do.”

  If it were simply a matter of George overestimating my involvement, I could forgive the man. But with this guy, it’s more than that. He has grossly overestimated his own abilities and emotional intelligence, which means that people like me must stand there and watch as his muscular ego ’roids out on a daily basis—veins popping, pecs twitching, eyes bugging, muscle grease spraying onto our faces. With him, the conversation always seems to settle on the same topics: how smart he is, how superior his education is, how successful his father is back East, how gifted and talented his son is. So it’s no surprise that he thinks I have the dream job he deserves—me, a state school kid, hanging out with Fitzroy, wasting the opportunity of a lifetime.

  “How are the boys?” he asks. “Your oldest having a good time in first grade?”

  Sure, I think. He’s majoring in planting tracking devices under station wagons.

  “He’s doing fine, George. I better get go—”

  “Well, you should see Maximo. I swear, he has his teacher stumped. I mean, he’s bored, really.” George is smiling at the ceiling, whispering, “I told the teacher Maximo was reading at the third-grade level in preschool. And now he’s in first grade. And math? The kid’s insane with math. I mean, he just needs to be challenged.” George blows a hard gust, frowns at the floor. “They just don’t understand him. Those aggression issues? Just ’cause he’s not being challenged.”

  I start to walk away. “Okay, George. I gotta—”

  He hollers, “Your little guy doing T-ball?”

  “Yeah, but I—”

  “You guys having fun?”

  I stop, take a breath, and turn. “Harry’s okay. He’s still a little apprehensive.”

  “Is he taking pitches yet?”

  “Oh, nah. It’s T-ball. The whole team is—”

  He waves his arms, stops me. “Maximo is a little beast out there. He started taking pitches in the first inning of the first game. You know, and this is T-ball.” George smiles at the ceiling again. “So some of the parents get a little worked up, say Maximo’s going to make the others feel like they should try taking pitches, too. Told me to cool it a little, stop bringing the private trainer to games.” He laughs. “But I really think the real issue is that everyone should know their limitations.”

  “Okay, George, I’ll see you—”

  “Or, I should say, their kids’ limitations.”

  “Yeah, I know. Okay—”

  “Reminds me of when I played ball at Yale. Where did you go again?”

  He knows the answer. He just likes to hear me say it.

  “State.”

  “Oh, right. Do they have athletics at places like that?”

  I start to walk away. “Okay, man. I gotta get ready for this speech.”

  “Hey, Dan,” he hollers. “You heard about Fitzroy’s new guy? He’s brilliant. Be sure to schedule some time with him.”

  My back to him, walking down the hall. “Okay, George.”

  He’s nearly shouting. “Smart, smart guy, Danny. He ate a rat at lunch.”

  One thing I’ve learned about folks at FlowBid—everything is about being smart. Hell, I admire smart; don’t get me wrong. Smart is good. But I really think it should be about more than smart. Shouldn’t it be about developing and executing great ideas? Shouldn’t it be about being decent? For that matter, shouldn’t it be about results? Maybe it bugs me that half these people, despite all their Web-hype luster and smarts, never quite figured out how to turn in even one quarter of profitability at the start-ups they came from.

  Hell, who am I fooling? At FlowBid, who’s thinking about profits when everyone is telling you how brilliant you are, how bright your future is? Who needs cost control when millions of users just keep pouring in? And who needs modesty and common sense when you have a never-ending supply of irrational investors pumping more and more money into your stock as they announce to the world that you’re a living genius—which only spikes the share price higher?

  I’m just reaching my cube when I hear a voice:

  “There he is.”

  It’s Tracy, the events manager who works across the aisle. Ever since she returned from maternity leave three weeks ago, she has worn nothing but black. Tracy would much rather stay at home with her newborn boy and three-year-old daughter.

  She sounds sad, almost muted. “Spend some time with the family this morning?”

  I stop, glance at her. “Sort of.” My crotch pinches in pain. “I’m a little under the weather.”

  “Kate can take care of you.” She lets out a little laugh. “Being home and all, she has the time.”

  I hear this all the time.

  “Not really,” I say. “Kate is pretty swamped with the boys.”

  She closes her eyes. “It’s not work to me. I’d stay home in a second, if I could.”

  What can I say to that? I bite my lip.

  “You guys are so lucky,” she says, shaking her head.

  God, I’m sick of hearing this. Fortunate? Sure. But lucky?

  Lucky for being at the right place at the right time, putting me just a few days from completing an insane cash-out? For sure.

  Lucky for being able to keep one parent home these past six years? No way.

  We didn’t get lucky. We made choices.

  We chose my beater Toyota over Tracy’s $65,000, fully-loaded Audi sedan with microclimates and leather seats. We chose our tiny house with paper-thin walls and old appliances over Tracy’s Menlo Park compound with copper roof gutters, two Nordic dishwashers, a rec room, a pool house, and a small fortune in Pottery Barn appointments. We chose camping trips to Mount Shasta and Big Basin over Tracy’s wintertime pilgrimages to the Maui Ritz Carlton and her monthly weekends at spa resorts in Sonoma, Big Sur, and Mendocino.

  “I don’t know how you guys do it,” she says, still shaking her head.

  I count to three, walk over.

  “Can you cash out? You know, sell your options and quit?”
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  She shakes her head, looks away. “I’ve only been here a year, nothing’s vested.” She looks up at me, pained. “By the time they vest, God knows if they’ll even be worth anything.” She pauses. “I’d rather just quit, be home with Holly and Spencer.”

  “But you can’t?”

  Shakes her head, real slow. “The budget doesn’t flush.” She pauses. “Jared just doesn’t make enough.”

  But Jared has a great job. Makes a lot more than me; I’m sure of it.

  “So lucky,” she whispers.

  I’ve heard all this before, but now I’m finally going to let it out.

  “I’m not sure it’s luck, Tracy.” I give her a moment. “I mean, what about cutting your expenses?”

  She acts like she didn’t hear me.

  “You know, what about your car? What if you sold the Audi? You could buy a commuter car for a fraction of the price.”

  Total silence.

  “Okay, then what about Jared’s race boat? Sell that thing and you could stay home for a year at least.”

  “Nah, Jared would never do that.” She sounds even more deflated than before. “Never.”

  “Then what about that vintage car he has in storage? Sell that.”

  “Nah, it’s like his baby.”

  I can’t stop. I don’t want to stop.

  “Okay,” I say, “well, what about the weekend house in Rio del Mar? Sell that thing and you could quit next week, stay home for ten years, and still have money left for the kids’ college.”

  She looks down, says slowly, “Nah, we’ve got so much equity in that house, there’s no way we can sell now.”

  “Okay,” I say, forcing the upbeat voice, “last suggestion.”

  She looks up at me, hopeful.

  “Sell the Menlo Park house. Downsize. Use the extra cash and reduced living expenses to make up for the loss of your salary.”

  “Nah, we love that house.”

  Who wouldn’t love that house? Sunset Magazine would love that house. That’s not the point.

  “Well . . .” I mosey back to my cube. “I think I’m out of ideas.”

  “See,” she mopes. “I mean it. You guys are so lucky.”

  And that’s when I realize it. I am lucky, very lucky. Just not the way Tracy thinks.