“You don’t know that,” Aaron said, worried now.
“You wait. Two and a half weeks from now, we’ll see how much I know.”
Aaron shook his head. “I did not come to lunch for you to feed me nightmares.”
“You wait,” Roland repeated. “We may soon be talking a four-year nightmare.”
Their conversation only heightened the clarity of Colin’s recollection. “The way the crowd reacted. It scared me.”
“It frightens me as well,” Roland agreed.
Colin related the conversation from his last meeting with Mira, the schism between her and Lucas. “The way she said that congresswoman’s name. Pelosi. Like it was poison.”
Aaron asked, “Ethan and his family are pro-Trump?”
“I have avoided asking,” Roland replied. “But I think, probably.” He shook his head. “Lucas is heartbroken.”
Colin asked, “Their relationship is over?”
“I fear so.” He continued shaking his head. “They’ve been close since kindergarten. Now this.”
“Butwhy?”
“Ask a hundred people, get a hundred different reasons,” Roland replied.
Colin knew he had to push that aside. “There’s something important we need to discuss.”
Roland attempted a smile. “More important than who will become our next president?”
“Business,” Colin replied. “It can’t wait.”
The table’s atmosphere brightened before he was more than a couple of sentences into his pitch. That was how he had viewed this lunch. He was pitching an idea and a vision both. He liked how they responded, the excitement his concept generated. It made the entire project seem more real, actually something he might achieve. He relished the way they drew him in, filling him with their enthusiasm as they ate and talked and planned.
For a moment at least, a single brief interlude there in the antebellum house in historic Wilmington, Colin found himself able to step away from the old shadows. And talk about a future he might actually claim as his own.
Finally, at long last, on the eighth of November, he was ready.
There was an exquisite sense of scaling new heights as he entered Dean Sykes’s office with Roland and Aaron. Colin did not even try to tell himself it was just another meeting, a minuscule step along the way. For the first time, he felt as though the summit was visible. Far in the distance, along a rocky path with a steep climb up ahead. But the fact that he could catch the smallest glimpse, name his objective, gave him chills.
The receptionist apologized that Dr. Sykes was running a few minutes late. She ushered them into the conference roomand asked if they wanted coffee. When the door closed, Aaron told Colin, “My esteemed partner should not even be here.”
“Nonsense,” Roland replied. “I have every right.”
“Tell him to leave,” Aaron said. “He will only muddy the waters.”
“I am trapped inside the case of the century,” Roland said, studying a pair of shoji screens adorning the side wall, displaying a lake and a fisherman casting a net. “I need a break. Court is adjourned for the day. The halls of justice are too burdened with election day fever to get any work done.”
“Hardly a proper reason for him invading my legal space,” Aaron said. He thunked his briefcase on the table, popped the catches, and drew out a pair of files. “As your legal adviser, I must insist you kick out the interloper while there’s still time.”
Colin swiveled his chair in tight quarter-circles, infected by the same excitement as the attorneys. “The appointment with Electronic Arts is set?”
“Ten o’clock tomorrow,” Roland said.
Aaron looked horrified. “Don’t youdaresuggest you intend to show up there as well.”
“Can’t,” Roland said. “Depositions.”
Aaron gave a mock sigh of relief. “Remind me to send the judge flowers.”
