Now it was time to change the subject. “So, listen, I have a question for you,” started Jeff, picking up a handful of peanuts and lining them up on his napkin.
“Shoot.”
“When you need to get somebody in line with your way of thinking, what do you do?”
“You’re kidding me. I thought you were the PR whiz.”
Damn. Lack of sleep was causing Jeff to lose his touch. “This really isn’t a PR sort of question. It’s more a question of mankind,” said Jeff, popping a peanut in his mouth and chewing thoughtfully.
“Or womankind?”
“I don’t think we need to be gender-specific here. I’ve been thinking about this. I mean, PR is my business and all, but there are more important things going on in the world, and I need to pay attention to them.”
“What’s her name?”
“You know, it really ticks me off that you have such a low opinion of me that you think if I’m having issues, it has to be about women. I have thoughts. Deep thoughts.”
“Usually involving sex.”
“You don’t see my sex life thrown out onto the Internet like some cheap Playboy movie of the week,” Jeff reminded him.
Andrew’s face closed off. “That’s not fair.”
It probably wasn’t, but that never stopped Jeff. Last fall, Andrew and Jamie’s affair had been loosely fictionalized all over America in Andrew and Jeff’s younger sister’s sex blog. Gotta love technology.
“And it’s not fair that you don’t give me credit for deeper character virtues. You think all I have on the brain is women and sex.”
“What did you do last night?” asked Andrew.
“I was at a club.”
“By yourself?”
“There’s lots of people at clubs.”
“The night before?”
“I don’t think that matters.”
“Another club?”
“Maybe.”
“And did you get laid on either one of these two nights?”
Ah, moral dilemma. Jeff could admit the truth—tell his brother that he’d been celibate for the past three months, except for the one night of sex with Sheldon that he couldn’t remember. That’d be the answer from a man with deeper character virtues.
The alternative would be to lie about his current sexual endeavors, or lack thereof, because Andrew would never believe that Jeff wasn’t hitting the sheets with somebody—anybody, for that matter.
“Duh. ’Course I got laid,” said Jeff, rolling his eyes.
“I rest my case,” replied Andrew, raising his glass.
“You tricked me!” exclaimed Jeff, using his inherited acting skills to fake indignation.
Andrew gave him The Look.
Jeff blew out a breath.
Now that was out of the way, too.
On to the one question that had been burning in Jeff’s brain.
“Listen, I need to ask you a hypothetical question. What would happen if there was a merger between Con-Mason U.S.A. and Summerville Consumer Products?”
Andrew whistled. “No shit?”
“I said hypothetical.”
Andrew stared up at the ceiling, lips pursed. Andrew thought this was his thinking look.
Jeff called it the Stick-Up-My-Ass look.
“Okay, Con-Mason—Chinese. Summerville—rumors of new product development.” He looked back at his brother. “All in all, big. Very, very big. But what does Con-Mason get out of this?”
Sheldon. “My lips are sealed,” answered Jeff. “So this would be huge? Worth lots of money?”
“Many zeroes, Jeff. More than you can count.”
That’s what Jeff was afraid of. Time to cut off moronic heroic notions before said notions rose up to bite him in the butt.
“So, when are you going to propose to Jamie?” asked Jeff, expertly steering the conversation into friendlier waters.
Andrew’s face turned a whiter shade of pale. “That’s a big step.”
“Chicken?”
“No, it’s just that a man needs to think of his life strategically. One step at a time. You start with your business goals, get those in order and then move on to personal ones. Jamie and I will end up married, but I want to get the new firm right up there in the top two.”
“You mean the top ten?”
“Uh, no, the top two.”
“And then, after many years have passed, and you’re both old and gray? You try and get down on one knee to propose, but by this time you’re arthritic in not only one, but both knees, and she has to help you up. What if she’s not going to wait for you, Andrew? What if she’s not going to wait for you to achieve your goals?”
Jeff knew that Jamie would wait on Andrew forever if necessary, but Jeff thought it’d be more fun to put the fear of loneliness into his brother. Jamie would thank him for it later.
“Of course she’ll wait until the firm is ready. Jamie’s more ambitious than I am,” said Andrew, traces of doubt coloring his voice.
Jeff covered his smile with a hand to his face and then put on a serious look. “If you really want something, you have to put everything aside, don’t you?” Secretly, Jeff had always admired Andrew’s single-minded focus. Andrew never let the distractions of life get in his way. If Jeff had been that single-minded, it would be Columbia-Starr-Brooks Communication by now, and he’d be the proud owner of a sweet thirty-five-foot double-masted sailboat with polished decks. Pipedreams was what he used to call his goals. But now they seemed within reach. Maybe he could be more like Andrew…
Jeff looked at Andrew with new respect. Well, technically, he’d always respected his brother, but he usually hid it. This time he didn’t.
“You apply yourself, put in the hours, and it’ll pay off in the end. Life works out, Jeff. It always does.”
Yeah, life would work out for everyone but Sheldon. “No matter if you don’t exactly agree with what’s going on?”
Andrew nodded wisely, his brow furrowed. “Let me tell you a secret, Jeff. Corporate America is not for the faint of heart. It’s a tough, bullshit business, where money trumps all else. It’s not going to change. You’ll come across a lot of times where you don’t agree with what’s going on. But that’s the way business works. The people who own the company decide how they’re going to run it, and they don’t care about you. So if you want something, you get it. End of story. Haven’t you learned anything from me?”
“Sure” said Jeff, popping a peanut in his mouth. “Apply yourself, focus, ignore the crap. I can do that.”
Maybe.
WHEN JEFF HAD CALLED SHELDON to say he wanted to meet with her on Thursday, Sheldon knew the perfect place. Agent Provocateur was stylish but lurid, in a genitalia-engorging way. By the time Jeff made it through the door at the Soho shop, Sheldon was wielding eight transparent teddies, three sheer bras and one garter belt complete with little black bows. He stopped and stared. Suddenly, he was a man traveling in another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of sheer lace and peek-a-boo