“Yes?”
“It’s, uh, Leo. And Alice.”
“Welcome,” Teddy says, his tone changing into something a bit more cheerful, but still no less formal. “Thank you both for coming. Even though you didn’t RSVP.”
“Oops,” I say as Leo jabs the button again.
“Are you planning to let us up?” he asks, and as an answer, the buzzer drones loudly and the lock on the door clicks.
“Maybe the money’s finally made him eccentric,” I say as we trudge up the four flights of stairs. When we reach the top, it’s to find the door to number eleven propped open with a chair. Inside, Teddy is standing in the living room in a neat black suit and striped green tie. He’s wearing glasses, though he has perfect vision, and there’s a pencil stuck behind one ear. He looks like someone playing the part of Businessman #2 in an old movie.
He also looks incredibly handsome.
“Sorry, was this supposed to be a formal presentation?” Leo asks, half-joking, but Teddy looks him over with a serious expression, taking in his sneakers and jeans.
“I suppose that’ll do,” he says, like some sort of robotic butler.
I glance over at the living room, where three blue binders are sitting on the coffee table, as if in preparation for a standardized test. Beside each, there are two neatly arranged pens and two sweating glasses of water on coasters. There’s also a blank whiteboard propped on an easel in front of the TV and a fat black marker resting in the tray below.
“What’s going on?” I ask, turning back to Teddy, who gestures in the direction of the couch in an overly grand and strangely formal way.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he says, though there are only two of us in the room with him. “Shall we begin?”
Teddy is clearly in his element.
Here in this living room that appears to be doubling as a boardroom, beneath this odd costume of his—the crisp suit and proper mannerisms—he’s all shiny-eyed intensity and barely concealed enthusiasm.
“As you know,” he begins, looking at us from over the rim of his fake glasses, “I’ve recently come into a lot of money.”
“Yes,” Leo says with a groan. “We know.”
“Can you please take off those glasses?” I say, squinting at Teddy. “They’re kind of distracting.”
He pulls them off with a sigh, twirling them between two fingers. “And I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with it.”
“Quite the burden,” Leo says, looking pointedly around the room, which is littered with Teddy’s recent purchases: an enormous LED TV, a brand-new sound system, a portable grill, and an authentic-looking samurai sword.
“I realize,” Teddy says, following Leo’s gaze, “that I haven’t been the world’s most responsible person so far. And I know you guys think I haven’t been taking this seriously enough.”
He pauses, as if hoping one of us might disagree. But when nobody says anything, he continues.
“Look,” he says, raking a hand through his hair. “It took me a while to figure this out. There’s no way to prepare for this sort of thing. When someone hands you a pile of money, you expect it to be all rainbows and lollipops.”
“In fairness,” I say, jabbing a thumb at the kitchen, where there are several boxes of bulk candy stacked on the counter, “you did buy an awful lot of lollipops.”
Teddy smiles ruefully. “You know what I mean.”
“I do,” I agree, meeting his eyes.
“What I’m trying to say is that I don’t exactly know what I’m doing. But I know I want to be better. I don’t just want to be Teddy McAvoy: millionaire. And I don’t want to be famous for not doing anything. I don’t want to be the guy everyone’s friends with because they want something from him.” He bows his head and fidgets with his tie. “And I don’t want people coming back into my life just because of the money. I didn’t expect all that. I didn’t sign up for it.”
“Teddy,” I say softly, but he shakes his head.
“I just…I want all this to mean something, you know?” His eyes find mine again, and this time it takes a few seconds for him to look away. “I want it to count.”
On the wall behind him there are dozens of pictures in mismatched frames, a literal museum of his childhood. Looking from left to right is like watching a slide show, seeing Teddy grow into the version standing before us now: broad-shouldered and square-jawed, more serious than he was just a few months ago, with some of that old swagger gone, replaced by a sincerity that might’ve seemed out of place before all this, and that makes me love him even more.
“The thing is,” he says, “I think I’ve been looking at this the wrong way. Like it was this crazy prize I won. But it’s not. It’s a gift, yeah. But it’s also a burden. And I’m not saying that to be dramatic. Or because I want any sympathy. Because I don’t. It’s just that sometimes it can be really hard. It’s like—it’s like pulling a huge rock around. All the time. And I don’t want to do that anymore.”
