Would a refill be a bad idea? She felt sick to her stomach. Not everyone here was hostile, from what she could tell. Many seemed interested in talking to Caitlin and hearing what she had to say. But much of this crowd had come to raise money to defeat the two propositions that Caitlin said she was now on the fence about. In the case of Prop. 275, she’d already decided, Michelle knew.
“Looks like Ms. O’Connor’s had kind of a turnaround, doesn’t it?”
Standing next to her was a man about her age. Sandy brown hair, rimless glasses with titanium frames, wearing an open-collar blue button-down Oxford cloth shirt and a blazer.
“Her views are evolving, I think,” Michelle said.
He chuckled deep in his chest. “I’ve been telling Garth he’s going to get caught out on the wrong side of this issue. If Caitlin O’Connor’s coming around, I’d say the tide has officially turned.”
“Are you working on one of the propositions, Mr…?”
He stuck out a hand. “Shane. You’re Caitlin’s person?”
“I’m her assistant, yes. Michelle.”
“I have a fund,” he said. “We’ve taken some positions on cannabis-related industries. I’m in with both feet, and I’m advising others to do the same.” He leaned over. “Heard of Budly? Or Skunkish? Green Goddess LTC?”
She’d vaguely heard of Budly. “Budly… isn’t that… Facebook for weed?”
“Potentially-more like Amazon. But you have the right idea.” He was watching Caitlin across the room as she listened intently to a red-faced man who was chopping at the air with his hands: Angry. Frustrated.
“People are going to get very rich off this business,” Shane said.
“People already have,” Michelle said.
He laughed again. “I mean, legally. It’s already happening, with the medical industry. Once states start legalizing cannabis for recreational use…”
“You’ll still have to deal with the federal government.”
“This too shall pass. I’m not going to pretend it isn’t a little tricky right now, especially the banking end. But it’ll all get worked out. I can afford to be patient.”
Michelle glanced past him, out the window. By now it was completely dark, the night muffled in fog. She could make out a haloed string of lights somewhere out in the water. A bridge? A ship?
“There’s a lot of money being made right now with the way things are,” she said. “A lot of the people in this room don’t want things to change.”
Shane gave an easy shrug. “In any scenario like this, you have winners and losers. And you have people who know how to adapt to changing circumstances and stay winners regardless. If I’m wrong about this, I’ll lose money, but it’s not going to break me. If I’m right, I win big. And I’m pretty sure I’m right.”
He continued to stare at Caitlin. She’d calmed the man she’d been talking to by the look of things, clasping his hand and resting her left hand on his forearm for a moment.
Shane turned to Michelle. “How about introducing me to your boss?”
“Sure,” she said. “I’d be happy to.”
Dread sat in her gut. She thought she might actually be sick. She knew she’d never been in control of this situation, far from it. But now she had a palpable sense that things were spinning far, far out of her grasp.
x x x
Shane suggested they adjourn to a “speakeasy” in the Tenderloin after the cocktail party.
“There’s a private bar down there that’s good for conversation,” he’d said. “Just follow me. I’ll get us in.”
Michelle had Googled him on her iPhone. He looked like he was who he claimed to be: a very successful venture capitalist/fund manager and one of San Francisco’s richer men. His car was a red Tesla Roadster Sport.
As the town car pulled up in front of the Johannsen house, Troy hesitated.
“You’re coming, aren’t you?” Caitlin asked him.
“You want to ride with me?” Shane called out the window of his Tesla. “We should talk.”
Troy nodded. “Yeah. I guess we should.”
A pro-legalization venture capitalist and an activist working on keeping drug users out of prison probably did have a few things to talk about, Michelle thought.
“You know, I’m really having a good time tonight,” Caitlin said in the car. “Believe me, all the time I’ve been doing these events? That’s rare.”
Michelle forced a smile. “I’m glad to hear it.”
As they followed Shane’s Tesla through the San Francisco streets, losing the taillights now and again in the fog, Michelle tried to figure out how to tell Caitlin the truth, or at least to come up with a story that would make sense. One that Caitlin would believe.
“People are responsible for their own choices.”
Troy let out a sharp sigh, almost a huff. “That’s a thing with you masters of the universe, isn’t it. You’re in control, and if you’re not, you’re weak.”
He leaned back in the booth, in that still, coiled way Michelle already recognized. “You know, for most people, getting lectures about choices when they don’t have opportunities isn’t all that useful.”
He was clearly irritated, and Michelle couldn’t blame him. Shane had been going on since they’d arrived about paths to success and personal freedom, a conversation that had presumably started in the car on the way over, and Michelle was already tired of it.
She wanted to get out of there. She needed to figure out what to do. She was going to have to call Gary, for one. Caitlin’s reversal of Safer America’s positions in this election was bound to get back to him, and if she didn’t get in front of that, he’d take it out on her, and he’d take it out on Danny. She was sure of that.
The private bar of the speakeasy was down a flight of stairs, in a bricked basement that they claimed was used to smuggle booze during Prohibition. Who knew if that was really true? It was the kind of story Michelle could see making up to add a little burnish to your marketing. They’d gone with the theme down here, using old whiskey barrels for stools and installing a long, wooden bar scarred with cigarette burns.
“You’re disadvantaged, you don’t have a support system, you gotta make all the right choices, not slip up once,” Troy continued. “There’s no margin for error. Meanwhile, some people have the privilege to fuck up over and over again and still come out on top. You gonna talk to them about choices?”
“Life ain’t fair.” Shane raised his craft bourbon cocktail with its hand-chipped ice and sipped.
“That’s your answer?”
Shane put down his drink and sat up straight, like he was suddenly energized. “Look at it this way. The ones who do make it through, who make all the right choices and succeed… they’re going to be the best of the best. They’re ones who push us all forward. What’s that line by Hemingway, they are strong in the broken places.”
“Oh lord,” Caitlin said, rolling her eyes. “Let me tell you something. When some things get broken, they aren’t stronger. They’re just broken, healing up crooked and limping along as best as they can.”
“Here’s what I don’t get,” Troy said, jabbing his finger at Shane. “If you believe in some kind of survival of the fittest, you tell me how it is that most of the people making decisions in this country are the ones who’ve grown up being protected from their own mistakes. You tell me how that works.”
Shane laughed. “Not very well. Tell you what.” He leaned forward, elbows on the table, chin in hand. “If you have some opportunity-based programs in mind, let me know. Maybe we can help each other here.”
“How’s that?”
“I want both of these propositions to pass. I think that position is on the right side of history. It’s also the position that’s going to make me a lot of money. If you want to get the message out about how passing these propositions strengthens communities, I’ll put some money into those efforts.”