“I’m sure that’s true,” Marcus says. “One is lovely and one is hot.”
Milazzo interrupts our conversation by flipping on his PowerPoint presentation. The ten-foot screen at the front of the room fills with the initials PLC, Private Label Credit, the people who produce credit cards for individual stores and extend high-priced credit to the people least able to afford paying them back. They’re taking their company public and I’m going to be late for a playdate.
The meeting goes on for seventy-five agonizing minutes and I watch each one of them slip by. The head of each division of PLC elaborates on their success and potential. They wrap it up and I am the first to rise, ready to charge the door, until I hear Milazzo say, “The road show starts tomorrow in the South.”
“Sit down, Mama,” Michael whispers, “you’re in for a long night.”
The South is my territory.
A road show is a marketing trip involving bankers, potential institutional investors, and the top management of the company coming public. These face-to-face meetings are more effective than conference calls. Investors are given time to question, and hopefully trust, the companies they will invest millions in. These shows are put together as soon as the Securities and Exchange Commission gives the thumbs-up to the reams of documentation each company supplies for its IPO. Sometimes there’s only several hours’ notice before the trips begin. In these instances, to speed thing up, the mode of travel is often private jet. I’m told to meet the Private Label Credit group at Teterboro Airport at 7 a.m. the next morning. We’ll be gone for two days.
What this also means is that I have to actually set up the meetings for tomorrow. The clocks tell me it’s 6:35 p.m. My playdate has begun. Money managers in Atlanta will be going home and I somehow must make them want to meet with us in the morning and I have to make this happen before they leave. My insides chug like a washing machine as I speed-dial all the southern numbers on my turret, hoping for an answer. My peripheral vision catches the sight of Stone tucking in his shirt, picking up nothing but his iPhone, and heading for the door.
It’s after 7:12 p.m. when I’ve managed to wrangle a few meetings for the morning and I try to leave. The CEO of PLC, a short, rounded man in a double-breasted suit, asks me to join management for dinner as they are all from Cleveland and have nothing going on tonight. I suggest instead we take a ride through Midtown together. We can at least talk in the car and I’ll walk home from whatever restaurant they’re eating at.
“I have to pack,” I say feebly, not mentioning the other human issues involved in my getting out of town by tomorrow morning.
I call Caregiver and relay my changed plan. In the background I hear squealing children.
“These kids are overtired and going nuts and I need to go home,” she snips at me.
“Isn’t Bruce there?”
“Yeah, he’s like the wine sommelier to these mommies. He’s gotten them all drunk and I’m the only one paying attention to their kids.”
“Hey, you won’t believe this,” I start.
“It’s hard for you to surprise me.”
“I have a business trip. It starts tomorrow morning.”
“And you’re telling me now because you know I have no life?”
“We are both lifeless.” I try to be funny. I’m not funny. “Seriously, I just found out.”
Caregiver launches into a tirade about her not being able to drop everything when I need her to. She does this in a judgmental way and I can’t deny her venting. I deserve every word but wish I had a partner to share the punishment with.
When she finishes, I give her more material for her examples of crappy mommy anecdotes. I let her know that I believe it’s only a two-day trip but could be three. There’s a moment of silence on the other end, a pause to reflect on yet another mind-blowing revelation about me.
Caregiver informs me that I can’t rely on her to help any more nights after 6 p.m. I promise Bruce will be there, having no idea what he has scheduled for the week. I just know he will have to drop everything and do this for us.
“I understand,” I tell her, conscious of my pounding heart.
For a moment I suspect she’s going to quit. If she did, my life would fall to pieces in just one moment, instead of hanging tentatively together by thread that feels no sturdier than a fishing line. The one thing I have going for me is that my children have wormed their way into her heart and that I pay her very well. These are the only reasons she stays.
? ? ?