We passed our time in a blur of unproductive meetings. We met over meals and wine. We got many detailed accounts of the harm Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos might inflict on Gus in the future and why they were not to be trusted.
On a Wednesday Gus asked me to meet him for lunch at the clubhouse. The Mediterranean air was warm on the terrace. If you looked past the golf course and its perimeter of pale condos you could see a slice of bright blue sea in the distance. By noon the pastel polos and Bermuda shorts filled every table.
Gus and I both ordered the caprese sandwich, mostly because we liked the channel-cut fries. I had begun to memorize the necessary French restaurant phrases—Une table pour deux (Table for two). L’addition s’il vous plait (Check, please). Un verre de vin blanc pour moi, merci (A glass of white wine for me, thanks)—while Gus thought that if he just spoke English with a French accent it was the same as speaking French. The waiters already knew that he took his Coke Light with ice and no lemon and that I liked Dijon mustard with my fries, so we didn’t need to say much anyway.
Gus looked perturbed. “Lauren is having cat problems,” he said, gleeking a tiny spurt of Coke Light through his tooth gap.
“That gray cat?”
He sucked down the last few drops of his drink and waved to the waiter for a refill. “Do you think maybe it’s a spy cat?”
I coughed to keep myself from laughing. “What’s a spy cat?”
“I was just thinking that thing that looks like a growth on the side of its face might not be a growth at all. Maybe Cook and Bezos implanted a camera in there,” he said, stony-faced.
“I don’t know. That seems . . . extreme,” I said.
“These guys are ruthless. They even got to my wife. Why do you think I got divorced?”
“You divorced your wife because of Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos?”
“I divorced my wife because she was a spy. Like that cat.”
Our food arrived. “Bon appétit,” the waiter said casually. Gus opened a little glass bottle of ketchup and reached for his knife.
I forked a fry and dipped it in mustard. “I think the cat was here before we got here. I’ve mentioned it to Fleur in the property management office a few times. She said they keep the cats around to control the mice.”
“Well, I told Darren to keep an extra close watch on The Backpack just in case.”
Gus’s knife made a pinging sound as he thrust it in and out of the ketchup bottle.
My phone beeped, and I paused to check it. A text from Rousseau. “Wish you were here,” he said.
“Stop teasing me,” I typed back. “I’m at lunch with Gus.”
Gus held a corner of his sandwich, ready to take a bite. “How about Paris, the launch? Everything going okay?”
I silenced my phone and shoved it back in my pocket. “Well,” I said, “it’s hard to get anything done when everyone has to agree.”
Gus cleared his throat. “That’s part of being a good manager, Halley,” he said.
I stared at my plate. “That’s the thing though. I’m not actually a manager. I’m only a Level 2. I’m more like . . . a notetaker. I can’t force people to agree, but I also can’t make any decisions.”
“Well,” he said, waving to the waiter for another Coke Light, “I’ll leave it to your judgment. But you’re responsible for outcomes, so you’re going to have to find a way to do what needs to be done. Don’t let us down.”
It was the kind of advice that wasn’t helpful at all. I didn’t say anything. The sun burned hotly on the back of my neck; I’d been afraid to attempt a trip to a French pharmacy, so I didn’t have any sunscreen.
Gus held his sandwich up as if he was speaking into a microphone. “Halley, let me tell you something. You are going places. If you can make this project a success, you’ll move right up the Findlay ladder, I promise you that. You’ll be a manager in no time.”
It was like he knew exactly what I wanted, exactly what I needed to hear.
“Really?” I said.
“Really.” He took another bite of his sandwich. “So I know you’ll do whatever you have to do to be successful.”
“I will,” I said.
“Good. Now, I’ve decided I want to give the speech at the launch event in the booth. This is my project and I want to be the one to roll it out. So put me on the agenda for the launch event.”
“Okay.” I wrote it in my binder.
His phone rang. He glanced at the number, then jumped out of his chair. “Gotta go,” he said, tossing his napkin on the seat. “Do you mind signing the check?”
“Okay.”
He activated the phone, and I heard him whisper “ciao bella” into the mouthpiece. I waited for the bill and wondered what that was all about.
I checked to see if my own phone bore a reply from Rousseau. It did. There on the screen: “Come on. Just let me be in love with you.”
I tucked the phone back into my pocket, slightly more gently this time, as if it had become an avatar of him. As if he was secretly mine.
We all took seats in Gus’s living room. He set a new pack of our favorite Speculoos cookies on the coffee table, and we tore into them as if we hadn’t just eaten a few minutes ago.
“Max, you go first,” Gus said over the cellophane din.
“Thanks, Gus,” Max said. “I’m going to Brussels for a couple days, then to London, and then to Berlin. I’ll be meeting with sales managers. I leave on Sunday.”
Lauren looked at Max with a sly half-smile and bit into a cookie. “I’m going too,” she said.
Max snickered. “That’s right, I almost forgot. Lauren is coming.”
She rolled her eyes.
Darren looked up from his binder. “While you’re in Brussels, Max, could you drop in on Simon Phloss? Gus and I spoke with him yesterday and he has some ideas that might help us with the sales training. I started working on the—”
“Darren, my boy,” Gus said, “would you mind getting us some wine? I could really use a glass.”
Darren hopped out of his seat, put his binder down, and jogged away to the kitchen. We heard the opening and closing of cabinet doors, the thunk of the wine bottle uncorking, the thwash of the pour.
Gus leaned back in his chair. “Okay, Lauren, do you have anything to add?”
“Well, while we’re traveling I’m meeting with product managers to get some help understanding the data, so I can incorporate it into the sales training.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Gus said.
Darren returned with glasses of wine for everyone.
Gus looked up. “Darren, do you mind grabbing the napkins?”
“Yeah, I was just about to do that,” Darren said. He disappeared again and returned with a stack of white cloth napkins.
Gus sipped his wine. “Okay, Halley, what’s happening with you?”
“I’m still trying to establish the theme, then I’ll start working on the booth.”
“Why are we getting a booth?” Lauren asked. “Shouldn’t we have a pavilion?”
“They don’t have pavilions at DEVO,” I said.
Max straightened. “Maybe they can construct one for us. Find out if they can build us one.”
I made a note in my binder.
“How many podium talks are they giving us?” Gus asked.
“None,” I said. “They’re giving us a luncheon symposium.”
Gus clicked his tongue. “No,” he said, “we want podium talks. At least two.”
“Two?” Max jumped in. “I think we should get six. We have a lot to present.”
“Yes, six,” Gus said.
I made a note.
“I have a question,” Max said. “Can we put the launch meeting at a Hilton? I’d like to get the points.”
I made a note.