I zone out five minutes in. My pen spins between my fingers, my ankle bouncing under the table.
Rava keeps nodding and smiling once in a while.
I stretch my legs just enough to nudge his under the table. He flinches. Doesn't look at me.
So I lean forward and whisper, "Bet you rehearsed your nod for this meeting."
He turns his head slightly. "Grow up."
"But then who would keep you awake?"
He doesn't answer. So I sit back.
…
Rava's in full presentation mode now.
He's actually good at this blah blah blah thing. I hate it, because he doesn't even notice how everyone hangs on his every sentence. "We need a stable model," he's saying. "Quality control. We need... predictability."
Predictability. Cute.
I yawn. Loudly. He ignores me.
But his left hand, the one holding the clicker, grips tighter. I look at his profile and think about how that word doesn't suit him at all.
He's a walking contradiction.
Predictable is the last thing he is.
"But predictable doesn't always mean good," I say, mostly because I'm bored and also because I like poking him. "Sometimes it just means you're playing it safe."
Everyone freezes a little, probably because they know what happens when I open my mouth. And they usually don't like it.Well. They never like it. But I'm used to it. And they will have to get used to it too, since they dragged me in here.
Rava turns his head toward me with that please-don't-start look. "Safe keeps the business running," he fires back. "People want to know what they're getting."
"Or maybe people want something they've never had before," I say. "Something that actually makes them look up."
He clenches the clicker in his hand again.
Poor thing is pissed.
"We can't rely on 'something different' every time," he says.
"We need consistency, Giovanni."
"Consistency... or routine?" I ask. "Because those aren't the same thing, Rava."
"We're talking about hotels, Gio," he snaps. "Not whatever you think this is."
"Sure, Rava," I say.
He gets it. He inhales, trying to hold himself together. "Some things need to stay stable to work," he says. "If you shake them too much, they fall apart."
I lean in. "Or maybe they fall apart because they're already weak," I answer. "And you're just scared to admit it."
Rava looks at me with a straight face. "We're doing business here," he says.
I smile. "Thisisbusiness, Rava," I tell him. "You just hate when someone pushes you."
