That Thing Between Eli & Gwen

“Yes I know. I’m overstepping right now, but I wanted to know if you really want to hand over your company to a bunch of sons of bitches who can’t even allow you time with your daughter. I don’t know much about TWM, but I remember your motto being all about making life better for others.”

“Innovation today for a customer’s better tomorrow,” he said, letting go of the door and hanging his blond head. He stood there for a moment and finally turned to me. “I dropped out of college, lived off cereal and noodles building TWM. I still remember when I bought my first actual office on top of a Chinese restaurant. It was just me, my girlfriend, and my brother. I thought I had really made it then… Now I have over a hundred thousand employees across the country; believe it or not, I know all their names.”

“I believe you, and I believe you don’t want to just give up and hand them over to the vultures surrounding you right now.”

He shook his head. “Eli, I don’t care. If they want to take TWM, let them take it. I won’t leave my daughter alone, especially not today. Not the day I lost my wife and she lost her mother. My daughter can’t even go to the block party. I won’t sit in a board room listening to their bullshit—”

“I’ll take her.” Why am I going this far? What the hell is wrong with me!

“What?” His eyebrows frowned together.

“The meeting will take what, an hour? Two? Molly can’t be outside without being monitored, so while you go and beat the shit out of the suits, I will go with her to the party. I’ll make sure she has a good time, and then you can meet up with us.”

“Eli—”

“It’s 1:31. You can still make it. I have your information, and my driver will pick up Molly and me—”

“Why?” He cut me off. “Why are you going this far? We live in the same building, but we aren’t friends. You didn’t even know me when I came in here. So why?”

I thought about it for a moment, and all I could think of was Guinevere and what she had once said to me.

“Do you know how many crappy people we meet a day in this city? I don’t want to be one of them. Sometimes we just need help and it's hard asking for it, so I’m going to offer it. Accept it Toby. Don’t give up yet; what kind of example does that set for Molly? Instead of giving up when the world knocks you on your ass, sometimes it’s okay to ask for help,” I replied, stretching out my hand for him.

He looked down and swallowed. “Please help me, Eli.”

“Of course.”

As happy as I was to help him, for some reason I wanted to call up Guinevere and tell her I wasn’t as much as a pathetic asshole as she thought.

“Molly, you’re going to the party with Dr. Eli,” he said when he opened the door.

Guinevere

“Stevie?” I said when I opened my door.

“Hi,” she replied. She stood there in jeans and a t-shirt, her red hair pulled back and her eyes red and puffy.

I wasn’t sure what was wrong with her, but I walked out and hugged her tightly. She cried on my shoulder. There were about a thousand things going through my mind and all I could think was to get her to calm down.

“I have wine and chocolate, which I would rather not eat alone.” I took her hand, pulling her into my apartment. Taigi came up to her while I went for the glasses.

“Hey boy, how are you?” She sniffled and laughed, rubbing her hands through his fur. He barked in her face and stood on his hind legs for her, while she took his paw as if dancing with him.

After pouring a glass for each of us, I handed one to her. “You have to taste this, my do-not-covet thy neighbor’s father made it and it is to die for—”

I paused, holding my glass as she drank the whole thing without once stopping for air, like a woman dying of thirst. Using her hand, she wiped her lips and held it up for more.

“It’s really good.” She smiled.

“Could you even taste it?” I questioned, handing her my glass.

She didn’t drink, just stared at it. “I’m making a mistake, right Gwen? Marrying Nathaniel…I’m making a mistake.”

“Stevie, what happened?” I asked instead of answering, because I didn’t know how to answer that question.

“We got in a fight,” she whispered, holding the glass to her lips. “More like his parents and I had a fight and he just stood there while they kept going on about how they expected him to marry someone better. I wondered, is this going to be my whole life? I’m going to have to stand there and take their shit because my dad is just an electrical repairman and my mother is a baker?”

“Just an electrical repairman?” I wanted her to rethink that statement. “Remember when we were thirteen and I was staying at your house when Winter Storm Michael came in? Eight and a half feet of snow and ice, it knocked out the power, and it was so cold we shared three blankets. Your mother let us eat all the cupcakes and cookies she’d baked for school the next day while your father put on his snow boots, at least three scarves, two hats, and a ski mask.”