Chapter Two
Caviar is disgusting, Richard thinks, not for the first time. It tastes, well, fishy, and he can’t quite get the voice chanting eggseggseggs out of his head. Baby fish, that’s what he’s eating. He can’t help but wince as the beads burst in his mouth and hopes to God that the man sitting across the table doesn’t notice. Mr. Calver is paying for this, after all; it might be considered rude if Richard spat half-chewed unborn fish all over his lap.
The restaurant hums with quiet voices, the table next to them just near enough that Richard can hear an elderly woman telling her partner about the time she went surfing and saw a stingray do a back-flip, which is vastly more interesting than whatever Mr. Calver is using his monotonous voice to explain now. Richard can barely bring himself to look up from his dinner; he knows the man opposite him has got a large piece of – well, something in between his teeth, and he also knows he won’t get this deal if he starts laughing his ass off.
So, he just nods along, making agreeable noises in what he hopes are the right places, deciding to give up on the caviar and move to the smoked-sturgeon cheesecake. It’s not half-bad, for a desert made of fish. He occupies himself with making little patterns with the sauce, first a smiley face, then a smudged cat, then a shoal of fish to make up for the ones he’s just eaten.
“- What do you think, Mr. Shepherd?” Calver’s voice filters through the steady stream of nonsense in Richard’s head, and he snaps his gaze up to meet the others man’s.
“…Uh, yes, definitely,” Richard tries, nodding as if enthusiasm will make up for complete ignorance of the subject matter, “of course.”
“That is good news,” Calver nods. “I’ll notify my colleagues.”
“Yes,” Richard flashes a smiles as fake as Calver’s hair. “So – so just run that by me again?”
“Well, it’ll require some more negotiations, of course, but if you’re happy to follow our lead on this, we’d be glad for your support – it’ll make us both very rich men, I’d wager,” Calver smiles, like they’re not already sitting in the most expensive restaurant in New York and checking their diamond-encrusted Rolexes. Richard resists an eye-roll.
“Okay,” he nods, trying to think of something witty to say, but coming up with nothing. The prospect of the merger should make him jump for joy – God knows that’s what his mom will do when she hears what a great success her little boys made of her company – but he can only muster a weak smile as he swallows down another forkful of sturgeon cheesecake.
“Fantastic. We’ll have you flown out to Chicago this Friday, seal the deal,” Calver says around a mouthful of duck.
They sit in awkward conversation for the rest of the meal; Calver likes to talk a lot about his LA mansion with its two pools and its perfect view of the Hollywood sign, boasts about his swim-wear model wife; what does it matter if she left him a year ago. Richard tries his utmost to look interested and avoids mentioning the fact that all the money in the world can’t buy Calver a more interesting personality or a voice that doesn’t make Richard want to throw himself under the next Aston Martin he sees.
After scraping his tiny desert plate clean, Richard and Calver shake hands and make their way out of the restaurant, juggling phones and briefcases and appearances. He’d like to say it’s the only meal like that he’s had, but they occur almost weekly nowadays, the same bored luxury and false smiles just in different restaurants, different cities. He’ll say goodbye to Calver only to meet one of his many clones the next month.
His PA is over the moon, as usual – she chatters excitedly through the phone at him, telling him all the great things he’s achieved simply by eating fish eggs and talking crap, but he can’t help but smile when she goes on about the hotel she’s fixed up for him. She’s new to the business, and it’s refreshing to see someone so excited about chocolates on pillows and free champagne. Especially the champagne. He reminds himself to keep her away from it before they end up in the newspapers again.
Something stronger than champagne wouldn’t be bad right now, he thinks, as he slumps into the backseat of his car and greets his driver with a half-hearted grin. He should be happy, that’s what this was about all along, to eat Michelin-starred food and sign million-dollar contracts, this is happiness, right?
It doesn’t quite feel like it, though, as he stares out of the window at the people on the street, the people who aren’t being driven from place to place by men in designer suits, the people who are laughing with friends or arm in arm with a lover. There’s really no time for friends when you’re country-hopping in search of cash – there’s really no time for anything much.
He sends a few emails and drafts a few more, taking his eyes off the outside world to bask in the glow of his tablet, notifications flooding in every so often to remind him how popular he is. He thinks about phoning his mom, wonders if he can remember enough of the conversation to relay it word for word like she’ll want, and decides he needs some more time to rehearse. He can call her in the morning, after what could be a glamorous night on the town but will probably turn out to be him toppling out of sobriety by himself in his hotel room. Then again, there’ll probably be some Friends reruns on somewhere – maybe it won’t be such a terrible night.