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Noah took another sip before pointing out the obvious. “Dad doesn’t do anything without a plan”
I felt exactly the same. “He said I was supposed to rehabilitate my reputation and the company’s.”
“And that means giving away a ton of money, or maybe sponsoring a lion at the zoo, to buy a reputation?”
I thought about what I’d read over lunch. “I don’t think he means that. Given the names we’re competing against—like Ford, IBM, and Bank of America—we can’t donate enough money to any charity to really be noticed.”
“Of course you can.”
“Against names like that, I could triple our giving with no impact on visibility. That wouldn’t make him happy. Dad’s all about the money. That’s one thing that never changes.”
“Then it stands to reason that he thinks improving the company’s image will improve the bottom line.”
“Or it’s all about punishing me with an impossible task.”
He studied his glass for a moment. “He always has a plan and parameters.”
“So?” I asked.
“If you go to the track,” Noah said, leaning back against the cushion. “There’s an almost surefire way to beat the odds and make money.”
I blew out a breath and rolled my eyes. “I’m not going to the track to make money. That’s just idiotic.”
“You’re not listening,” he insisted. “I saidifyou go to the track.” He lifted his glass to look up through the bottom, which meant only one thing.
“Sorry.” I settled in for a long-winded story.
“Let’s say you like the favorite, but you go up to the window as soon as it opens and put a thousand down on the long shot. What do you think happens?”
“You lose a thousand.”
He shrugged. “The odds on the tote board change instantly on the long shot, but if you’d put your money on the favorite, nothing would have happened because your thousand didn’t change the odds. So what happens next?”
“Everyone laughs at you?” I quipped.
“Probably not, because nobody knows it was you. But, they do notice the change in the tote board, and now the long shot is the favorite, or at least close. The thousand would have been a little fish in the big pond of the favorite betting pool, but move the same bet to the small pool of the long shot, and now it’s a big fish.”
With that analogy, I could see what he was saying. “So concentrate on small-enough charities to get noticed.”
He nodded. “Now you’re cookin’. Make an impact. The rest is marketing to get your outsized effect noticed so people know you’re doing good.”
I offered the bottle to refresh his glass. “Thanks. That helps a lot.” As I poured, I realized what I needed to do, and I already had a candidate in mind—the only charity Zoe had given to that wasn’t a big name.
“Glad to help.” Noah finished a slow sip and changed the subject. “Now we can get to the juicy stuff. After all these years, Alexa Borelli just waltzed into your office?”
I took a sip of my own. “It wasn’t planned. She had an appointment with the lady I replaced.”
He leaned forward. “I’d say that’s a good sign.”
“I don’t see it.” I liked talking things over with Noah precisely because we didn’t come at life the same way. He always had a different perspective, sometimes off-the-wall different, but thought provoking all the same.
He sipped and then lifted his glass to look up through the bottom of it again.
I choked back a laugh. “Do you act like this with your clients?”
“Fuck no. I’m professional as an undertaker with them.”
“I doubt undertakers talk in circles the way you do.”
