I dump an entire container of bath salts into the bathwater. I scrape a chair across the floor next to the tub and prop open my computer to flick through my in-box while I soak the lower half of my body. I slip into water that is too hot, loving the punishing heat, and feel a frantic race to relax, wishing I could get that part of my day finished too.
My in-box pings open. I see not the 30 or so expected messages, but 370. And the subject line of each is something about CeeV-TV. I open the first message, something congratulatory, the next asks for some balance sheet information, the next simply a thank-you for the idea . . . and so on. I google, I read, I swallow. Suds are getting up to my shoulders and I lean farther out of the tub. I notice my hands are shaking and I hastily shut off the jets and stop the water. CeeV-TV has an offer on the table to be purchased by YouTube, which is really a part of Google. It must have happened while I was on the airplane, and by late afternoon my BlackBerry was dead and my iPhone sat unchecked at the bottom of my briefcase. CeeV had about a $900 million market valuation when we first had talked of it, which is simply the number of shares outstanding (90MM) multiplied by the stock price of $10 per share. When I mentioned it to a few hedge fund clients, they were able to buy it around that level. The amount agreed upon in this deal is $30/share, meaning clients who bought it when I told them to would have tripled their money in only two months. And it wasn’t a Feagin Dixon deal—it wasn’t a banking deal at all—it was an Isabelle McElroy idea: something that made sense back when Bruce told me he liked their platform and thought they were unique. I simply looked up their financials and made just a few phone calls to people in that industry and spoke about it casually to my clients. A few got as excited as I did and bought some. Tomorrow they’ll be ecstatic with me.
Even better, since FD wasn’t the banker for CeeV, I was able to invest for myself and put quite a bit of our personal savings account into the stock. How much? I can’t exactly remember but it was a lot. I can’t breathe: it’s a big car, it’s a different nanny—or it’s no nanny, it’s sitting with the PA Ladies at preschool chapel, it’s something close to $3 million. I redial Bruce. He lifts the phone and hangs up on me again.
I jump from the tub, covered in stealth bubbles, and run naked to my phone. I call Bruce again from a different extension of the hotel phone. When I hear him lift, I scream, “We’re rich, we’re rich!” but his fingers are too fast, and again I hear dial tone. “Screw you,” I mutter, but I’m smiling into an obnoxiously gilded mirror in front of me while soap bubbles slop everywhere off my body.
I dance, I jiggle, and the housekeeping staff that promises to have the worst timing in the world is knocking on the door, probably to turn down my bed and put chocolates that nobody eats on my pillow.
“Not tonight,” I yell as I run for the robe, afraid they’ll barge in anyway. The knocking continues. I knot up the robe and head to the door.
“Yes?” I fling back the door, ready to tell my tale to the maid, ready to push twenty-dollar bills in her hand to just skip my room. The adrenaline from the last minute has given me super-strength and I open the door so hard it swings open, smacks against the jamb, and shuts itself. In that second of exposing myself, my face flushed, terry robe hanging in some state of openness, there, in friendly bright-colored shorts and a blue shirt turned up at the wrists, with his face more defined and handsome than fifteen years ago and sporting a grin, that same grin that melted me so very long ago, is Henry.
I stare at the closed door with Henry on the other side. I tighten the robe up to my neck and reach to fix my wet hair. I feel a mound of shampoo suds sitting intact like a Bishop Peak up there. My hand reaches for the knob, and pauses as I get hold of myself and wonder what my next move should be.
CHAPTER 15
The End That Was the Beginning