Asking for Trouble (22 page)

“Yes,” Dave said, “I know you do. But what have you done
about what you stole? What have you done to make that right?”

“Uh . . .” Joe was stuck. “Nothing, I guess.”

“Then, if it’s still eating away at you, enough that you
have to come and tell me about it before you can date my daughter in good
conscience, don’t you think you’d better?”

“Like what?” What more was
there that he could do, if giving away as much as he had done hadn’t
fixed it?

“Like making a list of everyplace you stole from,” Dave
said. “Like walking into every one of those places and handing over a check
made out to the charity of their choice for the amount, and telling them why
you’re doing it. Like making it right.”

“I wouldn’t even know how much,” Joe said, everything in him
cringing at the thought. “I wouldn’t even know every place.”

“Do your best, then. And if you don’t know how much, well,
add a zero or two on there, don’t you think? That way you’ll cover your bases.”

“Wow,” Joe said. “I don’t . . . This isn’t what I expected
you to say.”

“Yeah.” Dave sighed. “People always expect some easier
answer. You’ll hear it said that confession is good for the soul. I’ve found
that to be true to a certain extent, but in my experience, it works a whole lot
better when it comes with reparation. You came here today, I think, to ask for
my advice. You don’t have to take it, but here it is. You did wrong. Do your
best to make it right. That’s the only way to let it go.”

“And if I do that,” Joe said, “that’ll make me good enough
for Alyssa? That what you’re saying?”

“No. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying, if you do that,
that might be a pretty good step towards making yourself good enough for you.”

Joe sat for a few moments, taking that in.

“Something my grandmother used to say to me, when I was a
boy.” Dave chuckled a little, remembering. “Because I had a temper, oh, and
then some. Had my share of anger, that’s for sure. You ever hear of the two
wolves?”

“I don’t think so,” Joe said.

“Cherokee proverb. One of those ones that makes you realize
that there’s a lot of common ground between religions, because people are
people.” Dave sat still a moment, then recited. ‘There is a battle of two
wolves inside us all. One is evil.
 
It is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, lies, inferiority, and ego.
The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy
and truth. The wolf that wins? The one you feed.’”

“I guess that’s true,” Joe said, because he had to say something.

“You may have fed your evil wolf for a while there,” Dave
said, “but seems to me you’ve been mostly working lately on feeding the good
one.”

They sat in silence a bit longer, and Joe was glad that, for
once, he could take his time. “I wanted you to know, though,” he said at last,
because he had to make this point, because this was the reason he’d come, “that
I know my background isn’t what you’d want for your daughter. That I know I
don’t come from much, but I promise you, I care about her, and I’ll be trying
my best to be good for her.”

“You want to know one thing I’ve learned for sure, after
more than thirty-five years in this line of work?” Dave asked.

“Yes, sir,” Joe said, and waited for it.

“Here it is, then. It doesn’t matter where you come from. It
only matters where you’re going.”

It took Joe a full minute to recover from that one. He knew
he was just sitting there, frowning into his lap, but Dave didn’t push him.
Instead, he waited patiently until Joe looked up again.

“Something else, too,” Dave guessed. “It’s serious, with
Alyssa, or you wouldn’t be here. And you’re . . . well, I’m guessing you might
be a little scared about that, because Alyssa’s not going to settle for half of
a relationship, or for half of you.”

Joe blew out a breath and admitted it. “Terrified.” And
then, as the older man continued to sit back and look at him, he went on. “I
never know what she’s going to do. What she’s going to make me feel.”

Dave smiled. “A little out of your comfort zone?”

That surprised a laugh out of Joe. “I don’t even remember
what my comfort zone felt like.”

“Don’t I know all about it,” Dave said. “You ever hear the
story about how I met Alyssa’s mother?”

“No, sir,” Joe said, so relieved that they weren’t talking
about him anymore. “I don’t think I did.”

“She was sixteen.” Dave sat back with a reminiscent smile.
“And if you thought Alyssa was a pretty girl when you met her, well, you should
have seen her mother that day. I was at a church picnic, and she was there with
her family. She was wearing shorts, I remember, and a shirt with a little bit
of lacy trim. Not a dress, nothing like that, because we were playing softball,
and she was a good athlete, just like Alyssa. But she had that lacy trim, and
she was so . . . pretty,” he finished with a sigh.

He sat a moment, remembering. “Well, I looked at her, and I
knew. And you have to understand,” he went on with a rueful laugh, “I don’t
believe in making life decisions based on infatuation. That’s a road that tends
to lead straight to unhappiness for all parties concerned, including the
unfortunate kids who always seem to show up as a result. And there I was, a
senior in college, looking at three or four more years of divinity school, poor
as a . . . well, as a church mouse. A one-quarter Cherokee, four-quarters poor
son of a single mother just scraping by herself. Not a thing in the world to
offer, losing my heart to a girl from a family who had a whole different idea
of the kind of future she ought to have, a girl with two more years to go just
to get out of high school.” He shook his head with a chuckle. “Hopeless.”

“So what happened?” Joe asked.

“Well, there,” Dave said, “I think you’d have to call that
the hand of God. Because for some strange reason, she wanted to talk to me, too,
that day. And after that, I spent three years watching her get older, seeing
her at church, seeing her go out with boys her own age and telling myself that that
was the right thing, because I was way too old for her, and sure as heck too
poor.”

He leaned back in his chair and smiled. If there was one
thing Dave Kincaid could do, it was tell a story. “And then, one day,” he said,
“when she was home from college for the summer, nineteen years old and getting
prettier every single day, she asked me why I hadn’t ever asked her out. She
said,” and he was laughing again, a deep rumble, “’I’m getting pretty tired of
waiting for you.’ And what could I do? That was it for me. I was a lost man.”

“That’s a pretty good story,” Joe said.

“Yep,” Dave agreed. “Susie gets what Susie wants. I don’t
know why she should have, but turns out she wanted me. Oh, it took a while,
still, for us to be together, for her to finish college and all that, all the
things her parents insisted on, the things I wanted for her too. I was
terrified I’d lose her, but I didn’t want her to marry me without having her
chance out in the world, without being old enough to be sure. But ever since
then, it’s been the two of us. She’s worked harder than any woman should have to,
and she’s had a whole lot less than any woman as good as her deserves, but
she’s hung in there with me all the same.”

“Sounds like you both got lucky that day,” Joe said.

“Yes, we did. I know I did. And I got three pretty good kids
out of the deal, too. Three kids I’m proud to call mine. And Alyssa, well,
she’s the image of her mother. Not just her looks, but her spirit. Her nerve,
and her heart. She’s every bit her mother’s daughter, and her mother was one in
a million. I know Susie could have done better. But I’m still glad she chose
me.”

 
He looked so at
ease, so fine with all this, that Joe went ahead and asked it, the question he
hadn’t dared to ask until now, because he couldn’t stand to hear the wrong
answer. “And this is really all right with you? Me and Alyssa?”

“This is what I’ve been praying for,” Dave answered simply.

“Me?” It was a shock. “Why?”

“Because I know you’d never have touched her if you didn’t
love her.”

Joe sat a moment and let the truth of that percolate through
him. “I just hope I can do it right,” he finally said. “I’m not good at this.”

“You just follow your heart,” Dave advised. “Your heart
knows the way. When you want to close down, open up and let her see you.”

“I have a lot that’s not nice to look at,” Joe said. “What I
told you, and a lot more.”

“You let her see you,” Dave said again. “Let her help you.
Because you’ll be helping her, won’t you?”

“Always.” And that was true, too. All the way down.

“Then pay her the compliment of believing she can do the
same, and that she wants to. That she wants to be there for you, too. Maybe a
man can make it alone, maybe he can have a good life that way. I know I
wouldn’t want to do it. Believe me, living in this world is a whole lot easier
with a strong, loving woman by your side to share your burdens. And when you’re
standing by her, sharing hers—that’s when you’re your best man.”

Joe had a horrible feeling that if he stayed in here a
minute longer, he was going to cry. He stood up, held out a hand to Dave. “Thanks.”
He knew he should say more, but as usual, he couldn’t think what.

Dave stood, too, and shook Joe’s hand. And then he did the
thing that did Joe in. He came around his desk, wrapped his burly arms around
Joe, and held him close for a moment. As if Joe really were his son.

The tears did surface then, and Joe couldn’t do a thing
about them.

Talk about being out of your comfort zone.

Alyssa was sitting in Joe’s loft a month or so later. It had
turned out that his place was nicer than her own. A
lot
nicer. In fact, it was so far from the white-painted
one-bedroom with board-and-brick bookcases she’d imagined, it wasn’t even
funny. Because Joe lived in the coolest place she’d ever seen.

It was a loft, but that didn’t really describe it. Off Fillmore
Street, at the dividing line between the swank of Pacific Heights and the
funky, urban Fillmore vibe of jazz clubs and restaurants, his condo was
one-sixth of a converted warehouse, all industrial materials, light-filled
spaces, and, at the same time, cozy warmth. Multi-paned windows made up one
entire wall of the hugely oversized main room and looked out over a treetop
view to Twin Peaks, across in the other direction to Japantown. The ceiling
soared eighteen feet overhead, punctuated again and again by skylights, and
that was the light and the space.

The warmth came from the rest of it. From the poured
concrete floors with more of that radiant heating beneath them, the bronzed
metal and rustic wood accents of a floor-to-ceiling bookcase that took up one
entire wall, a matching wine rack that rose halfway up another, sliding
barn-style doors that concealed a giant-screen TV in front of a seating area
made up of a sectional leather sofa. More bronzed metal formed the hearth of a
gas fireplace, in front of which were clustered two oversized leather couches,
two easy chairs, and a cozy rug. The nine-foot-long, heavy wood work table took
up some space between the two areas, and a separate dining table in the corner
stood next to another cook’s kitchen, in which the gleam of stainless steel was
softened by more wood and stone. It was all like being in some fantastic
combination of a mountaintop and a cave, every part of every room organized and
neat to the last degree, with built-in cabinetry that would have made any
boat-builder proud.

And then there was what Joe called his Gear Room. When she’d
first seen it, Alyssa had laughed out loud. “And here I thought your whole
place was a Man Cave,” she said. “But this is the ultimate.”

It was a big room, the size of a normal person’s master
bedroom. The center space was open, for setting up equipment, and sorting, and
packing, Joe explained, and she had to smile at that. All four walls were lined
from floor to ceiling with storage for every kind of outdoor equipment she
could imagine. Racks for skis and poles, high pegs for packs and sleeping bags.
Tents and rolled mats on shelves, parkas and bib overalls zipped neatly over hangers.
It looked like Aladdin’s Cave for outdoorspeople. It looked like a store.

“Organization is good,” he’d said when she teased him about
it. “I like to be able to put my hand on what I want.”

“Yes,” she said, “I’ve noticed that.” And he’d laughed and
kissed her.

Needless to say, she’d been happy to spend as much of her
time as possible at his place. Being with Joe was always good. Being with Joe
in the Man Cave was better, even if he spent a fair amount of his time there
working.

Now, she looked across at him. “Can I interrupt you to have
you listen to something?” she asked. She was sitting at the work table with her
laptop while he sat a ways down with his own, nothing moving but his fingers.
Both of them facing the soothing view of trees, sky, and hills that somehow
made working easier.

“One sec,” he said, his face intent, concentrating. He kept
typing for a few minutes, then sat back with a sigh and turned his attention to
her. “All right, shoot.”

“Remember the thing I was working on?” she asked. “Something
to pull in tech companies?”

“Of course. You thought of something?”

“Yes. I think I did. I think I thought of a
great
thing. OK. Here goes. What’s wrong
with most fundraising events?”

“I don’t know. What?”

“Two things. First,” she held up one finger, “they’re
expensive. Our big event is, what? The donor cocktail party coming up in a few
weeks at the Asian Art Museum. That’s kind of an, excuse me,
stupid
event. It costs a lot, even
though the space is donated. All that alcohol. And younger people, cooler
people, do they want to go to a cocktail party? Never mind, I’ll answer. No.”

She held up the second finger. “And that’s Problem Number
Two. Most fundraising events are boring. People who can afford to contribute
money, or people who work for companies that contribute money, they don’t want
to go to dinners and hear speeches. They want to have
fun.
So that’s what my idea is. It’s cheap, and it’s fun.”

“All right,” he said, “so what is it?”

“It is . . .” She did a drumroll on the arm of her chair.
“Geek Day!”

He laughed. “Geek Day?”

She sat forward and pitched him. “Yes. Geek Day. It’s a day
for tech companies. It’s a competition, and it’s
fun.
Like a Field Day in elementary school. Didn’t you love Field
Day? Wasn’t it
so
much better than
school?”

“Yeah, as I recall, it was.”

“Well, that’s what Geek Day will be. Just a day to have fun.
Every company fields a team, or more than one team, if they’re big. Maybe
lots
of teams. And, of course,” she said
with a smile, “there’s a great big donation required from every single team.
And all those teams compete to win the trophy. The Second Chance Geek Day
Trophy. A great big thing for their trophy case. A great big prize.”

“Compete at what?”

“All sorts of things. Silly things. Fun things. Nothing like
robotics or programming or anything geek-related like that. Nothing they’ll be
good at. That’s the point. Nobody has to get all competitive and crazy, because
it’s just fun. Although it’s going to be mostly guys,” she conceded, “so, all
right, they’ll get competitive and crazy anyway. Oh, man, that would be
awesome
media, Google employees
practicing for the three-legged race! Because that’s what it’s going to be, things
like you’d have at a company picnic or a kid’s birthday party. Things that will
make people laugh. Egg-and-spoon races, three-legged races, jump-rope contests,
gunny-sack races where you hop in a sack. It doesn’t matter if you’re athletic,
it’s just for fun, things geeks can do, things the media will
love
to take pictures of. Alec in a
gunny sack . . .” She laughed. “That’d be
great.”

“Things geeks can do? I beg your pardon?”

“Well, I’m not talking about you and Alec, obviously,” she
conceded. “But I’ve been in you guys’ office enough now, and let’s just say
that I’m pretty sure my high school girls’ basketball team could have kicked your
company team’s butts. If you
had
a
company team, which you don’t. Maybe a company Ping-Pong team. A
Wii
Ping-Pong team, and I’d
still
bet on my basketball team kicking your
butts. I don’t think any of those guys was on the football team, not unless he
was the water boy.”

“Statistician,” he suggested, his smile trying to work its
way out again.

“Exactly,” she pounced. “So here’s their big chance to do
athletic things. With a tug-of-war for the final event. Sudden-death, and the
teams keep going until you’ve got a winner. You add up points for it all, and .
. .” She gestured broadly. “Ta-dah. The winner! The Geek Day trophy!”

“Tug-of-war in the mud,” he suggested.

She laughed. “Even better, but I’m not sure how you’d get a
field full of mud. But yeah, that would be awesome.” She made a note. “Just in
case.”

“Where would you have this event?” he asked. “You’d need a
pretty big venue.”

“Well, I thought,” she said, and took a breath. “Stanford.
Isn’t that the perfect place? We could combine it with foster kids getting
tours of the campus the day before. More PR, and that would look really good
for the University. And mentoring, and everything,” she began to plan. “More
community service for tech firms. Get that rolling, who knows where we’d end
up? Plus, I’ll bet, help from the Stanford Athletic Department. First-aid
staff, right? Stanford has a lot of school spirit, and a lot of money, too.
Don’t you think they’d go for it? Don’t you think they might donate the use of
their facilities?”

“I think they might, with a couple well-placed alumni to
help ease the way.”

“Exactly. Alec and you to help with that, and Rae to help
with the committee, for the logistical side of it? Don’t you think it could
work? And don’t you think it’d be great publicity for all the companies that
contributed? Plus, think of the networking opportunities. Maybe I’ll keep this
one quiet, maybe it’s not a great selling point for management, but think about
it. You’re there cheering your team on, talking to people from all the other
companies? Just
think
about all the job-hopping
that could happen after Geek Day!”

“Mmm. Not going to help you sell the idea to Rae,” Joe
agreed. “Maybe don’t emphasize that one.”

“Yeah. But on the other hand, if a company’s doing well and
is good to work for, hey, net gain, right?”

“One hopes,” he said. “Anyway. Going to take awhile to get
the publicity going, and to organize it. When were you thinking?”

“It’d have to be a next-year deal. Say, soon after school
lets out next June. That would let it get into the budget for the next fiscal
year, and let us build up anticipation, too. And after that,” she went on,
caught up in her enthusiasm, “we could do it the next year, and the next, and
the next, and every year, it would get bigger, and the publicity would get
bigger, too, because tech is only going to get bigger. What do you think?”

“I think,” he said, and he was smiling, “that you’re
brilliant. I think it’s a terrific idea. I think you should go for it.”

“You really do?” she pressed him. “It’s not just because
you’re sleeping with me?”

He sat back and put his hand over his heart. “I swear. This
isn’t Joe-Your-Boyfriend talking. This is the cold, hard partner talking. I
think it’s an awesome idea. I think it’s going to work. I think it’s great.”

“Then that’s what I’m going to do,” she said. “I’m going to
get pictures of people doing all those things, and I’m going to make a slideshow,
and I’m going to talk to Rae about the dollars part of it, how much of a
contribution to ask, and I’m going to work up projections, and I’m going to
do
it.”

“When? You should give yourself a deadline,” he advised. “Always
work with a deadline.”

“All right.” She looked at her calendar, made another note.
“A week from now, I’ll ask for the meeting. April twenty-first. It should be
good timing, because we’re in the middle of planning the donor party, and
Helene can look at my projections against the cost of that, and it’ll look
especially good, right?”

“Sounds good,” he said. “You can practice it with me first,
as many times as you need to. I’ll ask all the hard questions I can think of,
get you ready to go. And then you’ll go in there, present it to Helene, and
knock it out of the park.”

“And you’ll still go to the party with me too?” she asked.

“Yeah.” He smiled a little wryly. “I’m thinking you’re
completely right, by the way. My feelings about getting dressed up and going to
your cocktail party, versus doing Geek Day? No contest.”