Chapter 37: Dell
The inn starts to empty out at dusk. Arianna and I watch them head out, car by car, from a porch swing at the front of the building.
“Look at the dresses,” Arianna says. “Look at the hair!” She seems stunned by all the elegance and beauty walking by. She has no idea she has them all beat.
“I didn’t even get to see the gown Paul-Simon and Michel chose for you,” I say.
Arianna feeds Grace her last bottle of the evening. She’s been sleeping better, long stretches of six hours. Even on the plane she only woke once.
“Well, she’s out,” Arianna says, setting the bottle between us.
“No sailor burp?” I ask.
“She’s doing better on this formula,” she says. “I’ll pat her a little but try not to wake her.”
Another problem solved. I assume others will arise. This teething thing everyone talks about. It sounds abominable. Walking. Falling. Nursery school. Her first boyfriend.
I’ll kill him. Murder him with my bare hands if he so much as touches her.
“What’s got you so worked up?” Arianna asks. She gestures to my balled-up fists.
“Nothing,” I say. “I arranged for dinner in our room. Might as well make it a nice night since we’re missing the big soirée.”
“That sounds wonderful,” she says. “I feel like we’ve been on the run for days.”
She hesitates, then asks, “So if the Duke doesn’t know about you and the Duchess, why did he kick you out?”
“He wanted me to buy a business he had plunged into fatal debt. I refused.”
“So just business?”
“Just business.”
A young woman with a white apron steps out. “Your dinner is in your room when you are ready,” she says.
We stand up. “Thank you,” I tell her.
I take the baby from Arianna. We head up the back stairs.
The room looks magical, just as I asked. White lights are strung throughout it. The window is open wide to the approaching night, the breeze blowing the curtains. A table is set nearby, two chairs and candles.
“I thought this might be the best we can do since we’re miles from anywhere and have a baby,” I say.
Arianna turns to me. Her sundress whirls in pale yellow. It makes her look like a goddess. The curls she meticulously straightened at the hotel in Paris this morning have fought back and won, framing her face with tendrils.
“It’s beautiful!” she says, slipping into a chair. “Oh!”
I set the baby in her bucket on a small sofa in the corner of the room. It’s definitely no suite, with little space for walking around. But it’s not an impersonal hotel either. The walls have blue and gold wallpaper. The frame around the window is hand carved.
Women like these details, I know. Especially someone like Arianna. She appreciates everything. I want to give her things that make her feel that joy.
I pour each of us a glass of wine.
Arianna’s face is awash with happiness. “This is the best night I’ve had in a while,” she says. “Everything looks perfect.” She picks up her knife and fork. “And I’m starving!”
I am too, but not in the way that she means. The candlelight kisses her skin, accentuating her cheekbones, catching highlights in her hair.
The shadows are deep across her collarbone, down in that cleavage of the sundress.
But she’s gotten determined to keep herself away. I should respect that. I will respect that.
I drag my attention to the food. Prime rib. Roasted potatoes. A salad made of just avocado and tomatoes. It’s all delicious. The food. The company. The view.
There is a harmony here with Arianna, the baby sleeping in her little bucket, her tummy free from the pains she once felt. I’m content. It’s unfamiliar. Suspect. After chasing dreams all these years, why would I feel it now? I haven’t acquired any tricky new company. No new start-up I have purchased has gone public.
And yet. I feel it. A release of that ache I felt after leaving Alabama. That need that drove me to get out of there, away from cleaning up after dirty grounds at greyhound races.
Away from my father. His constant reminders that I would come to nothing, be nothing, do nothing.
“Hey,” Arianna says. “You okay?”
I adjust my expression. Obviously my boardroom face is not fooling her tonight.
“I’m fine. How is the food?”
“Swoonworthy,” she says. “I just want this moment to freeze. I could stay right here for at least a year.”
“And let your child spa run itself?” I tease.
She laughs. “They can handle it. They’re good people and I have plenty of them.”
“You could probably increase profits if you cut back on your staff,” I say. “Sounds like you might have a few more than you need.”
She stabs the air in front of my face with her fork. “No. No. No. My spa is not about profits. Sure, I want to support myself, but I don’t want anyone who works for me to feel like they don’t have time to nurture the children in their care. They can’t be overburdened. I won’t let them burn out. I take care of them. They take care of the babies.”
“All right,” I say. “So what made you choose this model over the capitalist one?”
She stabs a bit of avocado and twirls it on the plate. “I wasn’t nurtured. My power parents left me to be raised by nannies.”
“Were they horrible caregivers?”
“Some were. Some were good. It was hit or miss, and I don’t want that for these children. My spa is expensive to hit the right demographic. And I have amazing staff so I can keep their lives from being like mine.”
“But your day care ends at kindergarten, right?”
She frowns. “Yes.”
“So then they have to make their own way.”
Her shoulders droop a little. “They do.”
“So why not expand? See them all the way to adulthood. Elementary. High school. The whole experience.”
“It’s tricky,” she says. “There’s accreditation. There’s space. I can’t expand easily. Real estate is rare and expensive. I have to be in the right location to reach the right parents, but then I’m locked into spaces that are too small.”
“Surely Manhattan isn’t the only place where rich kids get neglected. Expand somewhere else. Try your model where space isn’t an issue, and work on the other pieces. Accreditation. Reputation. The business model.”
Her eyes flash. “It’s a big dream.”
“All dreams should be so big,” he says.
She tilts her head. “What about your dreams? What made Dell become a cutthroat investor and collector of start-ups?”
I take a sip of wine. “I don’t talk about my past. But I do like where I am now. I can go for any opportunity I see. Airlines. Professional sports teams. Entertainment conglomerates.” I lean forward. “If I want it, I can get it.”
She sits back, eyeing me curiously. “What does Dell the human need?”
I’m done tiptoeing around this particular issue. I set down my glass and eye her steadily, piercingly.
“What I need right now is you.”