Chapter 27: Adventures

Thursday, September 11, 1986

I called Mom back at lunch and caught her up on things with CBS. She was thrilled, as I expected. We would be back on TV, this time in a sweet romantic context. I imagined they and Tony and Jean would tape the Rose Parade this year. Even if CBS sent us a master copy of the broadcast or our segments — and I suspected they would — having our own ‘as broadcast’ copies would be priceless.

It was amusing that none of us, including Camille and Francis, would see this in anywhere near a timely fashion. We would be an ocean away. It felt unlikely that there would be any press fallout from this, but — if there was — we would be hard to get in touch with.

I doubted Reagan would quote anything said here. Never say never, though!

Fortunately, this was the first session of Democratic Theory when there was really no Lynn-related drama. Oh, she was there, and further solidified her image in my head as being a bit of a cross between the ‘new wave’ look and the ‘goth’ look, but that was it. She was friendly, but nothing important came up. It felt like we were becoming friends, and in a natural way.

She and Jas were also becoming friends, which likely helped. I had to remember that the Lynn who had become friends with the overweight, nerdy, slightly inept (but also good with women, outside of romance) Steve might not feel as ‘safe’ with a trimmer Steve who was pretty good at romance. Would I appear to be a risk? Would Harry think I was a threat?

We hadn’t mentioned the open relationship yet. That could help, I suspected. It would bring up the topic of cheating and give both Jas and me a chance to make it very clear that we weren’t at all interested in doing that. But her being friends with my girlfriend was, in itself, a way of making my straying feel less likely.

Partly, it was fortunate because I not only had my classes, but I also visited all of my Monday-Wednesday-Friday class professors’ offices. Fortunately, Dr. Hawkins and Dr. Fowler were easy. They didn’t mind my being gone on the 26th, even if I was also going to be gone tomorrow. I hadn’t bothered to mention tomorrow’s absence before, since I knew there would be no exams then, but the 26th was at least potentially an exam day. It wasn’t for any of them. Our first exam in The Management Process would be on Wednesday, the 24th, while the first in Applied Microeconomic Theory was a week later, on Wednesday, October 1st.

Dr. Parkins, on the other hand, took two visits to find, and I only tracked her down about four forty-five. The 26th was an exam day for Advanced Business Analysis.

She had me sit down, then said, “I’m not upset about tomorrow’s absence, but I need to understand why you’re away on the 26th. Can this be excused in some way? It’s hard to justify a shift in exam dates, otherwise.”

“It can,” I said. “Officially, though, I need to ask you to talk to Dr. Dinkel, or at least to the department office. I have a non-disclosure agreement with the College of Business Administration for absences like this.”

“Well, that’s a first for me!” she said, chuckling a bit. “Let me give the office a call.”

She picked up her phone, dialed, then waited. After a few seconds, she said, “Hey, Peg. I’ve got a student here. Steve Marshall. He wants me to check on a...”

She paused.

“Well, I guess he does have an agreement! Can you tell me what I can’t discuss?”

She waited.

“Interesting! I’m going to have him stop by, just so we close the loop, but I’ll approve his absence after we discuss it.”

She hung up.

“You’re a corporate officer? That’s also a first.”

I nodded and said, “It’s a bit of a story, but yes. I’m on the Board of Directors of P.C.’s Limited.”

“I know the name,” she said, shaking her head. “Smart of you to have an agreement in place! I never would have believed such a thing without it.”

“I had to put it in place when the Board became a real thing. When it was just me and the founder, I deferred to him on everything. He’s running the show; I’m a student. Doesn’t matter that we’re only a year apart in age. But when we hired a president and COO, he joined us on the Board, and suddenly voting was, at least in theory, a thing.”

“Makes sense. Would this meeting have anything to do with what we’re covering in class?”

I shook my head. “Maybe peripherally, but this is more about support and quality, I think.”

“That’s too bad.”

“On the other hand, I’ve got lots of insight into the sorts of data we talk about. But, mostly, I don’t want to dig into it yet,” I said.

“Could you tell me why?”

“Imagine your reaction played out among my fellow juniors,” I said. “That’s why this is under wraps. I think the clock’s running on this, but I’ll let it run as long as possible. Until — and unless, since it’s hardly a done deal — anyway, until there’s an IPO, my name is less likely to turn up. When we get there, though, I’m guessing it’ll be news that two out of three corporate officers are in their early twenties.”

“That would be fairly material!” she said.

“It’ll probably be two of ... I dunno. Five? Odd numbers make sense. Anyway, I don’t think we’ll get anyone to back the IPO without some more seasoned people on the board.”

“I was about to say that,” she said, nodding. “Obviously, you’re doing something right, though.”

She looked at the clock.

“Let’s table this,” she said. “I’m not going to put you on the spot in class, both because I can’t but also because it would be lousy of me, since you’re trying to stay under the radar. But I’d love to see some side work on that data. Given what I think I know of their growth curve, it has to be fascinating.”

“It really is,” I said, nodding. “Believe me, when we invested two and a half years ago, we expected great things. But Michael has still greatly overachieved.”

She looked at the clock again, then said, “I have to ask. How did you wind up in a position to invest in a company at ... eighteen?”

“Seventeen,” I said. “We actually had to do it via my girlfriend — now fiancée — Jasmine, who was eighteen. She’s still the manager of our LLC.”

“Interesting, in itself,” she said.

“Anyway, Jasmine and I were hit by a drunk driver a few years ago. No serious injuries, but that minimizes how bad it was. She came much too close to being killed or badly injured. The settlement wound up ... complicated ... but both of us came into a fair bit of money. Michael was having some serious cash flow issues. I trusted him, and it wasn’t going to devastate me if I lost everything I put in, so ... off we went.”