I didn’t answer him. I just looked around the classroom. I figured that since my next bus wasn’t scheduled until tomorrow that I’d hide out in the building and sleep underneath a staircase once the janitors were done cleaning.
“My name’s Mr. Lowell, Jonathan.” He walked over to his desk and grabbed his briefcase. “If you don’t have any prior obligations, Mrs. Lowell is making pasta tonight and we have a guest room you can use for a few days while we sort this thing out.”
I looked away from Mr. Lowell and shook my head. I was ashamed of myself. I’d broken every rule of living on the run in a matter of minutes: I wasn’t supposed to talk to anyone. I wasn’t supposed to trust anyone. I was supposed to keep to myself until I arrived in New York—until I stormed into IBM headquarters and forced them to listen to my ideas. Yet, there was sincerity in this man’s eyes, and a national project with access to the best technology in the world was too tempting to pass up.
For an entire year, I used every free minute I had to work on Mr. Lowell’s project. In between soaring through my classes and working three jobs to cover the expensive dorm and food costs, I managed to help him earn a seven hundred thousand dollar grant to build more of his impressive L-tech laptop.
Right after he was officially awarded the money, he handed me an envelope that contained a twenty thousand dollar check, saying that it would help me pay the remaining part of my sophomore year’s tuition.
I was about to run to the bank and cash it immediately, but he snatched it back.
“You know what, Jonathan? You’re better than this.” He shook his head. “Tell you what, instead of this check, I’m going to give you something even better.”
“A bigger check?”
“Funny.” He snorted. “I’m going to be the first investor in your company. I’ll even host a dinner with my wife to get you other investors this weekend. I don’t think you need to waste any more time taking classes with people who aren’t as smart as you. You need to drop out and start working on your own company. I’ll help you in any way that I can for the first year.”
“What are you talking about? I don’t have a company, Mr. Lowell...”
And I want my check back!
“Statham Inc.? Statham Enterprises? Statham Industries! It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?” He slid my award check into his briefcase and picked it up. “Trust me, in five years, you’ll have the amount of this check times a hundred. As of now, it’ll just be my consulting fee.” He patted my shoulder and walked out of the room.
Chapter 3
Claire
Today was one of those days when I honestly felt like I’d wasted the best years of my life. I’d spent all morning watching the Lifetime channel, going through old photo albums, and listening to one of my other San Fran friends—Helen, talk about how she’d been nominated for “Lawyer of the Year.”
She went on and on about how the ceremony was going to be in Vegas, how they’d booked a celebrity for a guest speaker, and how she just couldn’t wait to lounge in a rooftop pool; all the nominees were entitled to the five star treatment, which included having their own penthouse suite.
Although I was extremely happy for her, I was also slightly jealous. Helen was thirty nine years old too, but unlike me, she seemed to have it all together: She had her own law firm, traveled somewhere new and exciting every month, and the stories she told me about her sex life made me wish I’d had more experience before tying myself down to Ryan.
As a matter of fact, anytime Helen, Sandra, and I had a ‘girls’ night,’ she always overwhelmed us with salacious stories about her newest lover. At first, I thought she was just doing it to brag, but after a while I realized that she was doing me a favor. She was making me see how pathetic my nonexistent sex life was, trying to help me get in tune with something called an “inner goddess.”
But, since I refused to date, I relied on vibrating friends to get the job done: They were effective, easy, and I didn’t have to worry about them cheating on me.
Once I was off the phone with Helen, I decided to do some work. I started looking over my associates’ latest slogan submissions and proposed ad ideas. I read through three of them and shut the folder, making an immediate break for my car.
I’m going to need some serious wine to get through this today...
I rushed over to the grocery store and made my way to the magazine section. I figured I would buy yet another set of magazines to show my associates the difference between good advertisements and bad advertisements.
I picked up InStyle, Vogue, Us Weekly, and stilled once I caught a magazine with “Divorce Edition” scrawled across its cover.
I picked it up and flipped through the pages, shaking my head at the stupid advice the so-called “experienced divorcées” were giving: “Forgive him and let it go! That’s the easy part!” “Try to schedule time for yourself to cry in private!” “Travel alone and see the world as soon as the ink on the papers dries!”