$10,000,000 Marriage Proposal

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  Chapter 1

  It was a Friday morning and Janey Ellis was running late. As usual. She prided herself on being so low maintenance that she could make it from bed to car in twelve minutes flat. The only problem was the getting-out-of-bed part. This morning she could barely drag herself to the shower, having spent the previous evening reading scripts until midnight. Flowerpot Studios had three new TV shows going to series this season, and she was expected to give notes on all of them today—if she made it to work in time for her first call.

  Sebastian, her ex, used to call her a lane-change demon, and it was true: she would never let some boring gray Prius slow her down. Indeed, she was weaving west on Sunset so fast she would have missed the billboard if it hadn’t usurped the one for her show. The bright-yellow ad was wrapped around one whole side of a fifteen-story building that until yesterday had promoted the cop drama Loyal Blue. Loyal Blue was the only successful TV show that Janey had developed to date—the one that looked like it was going to secure her job for the next few years. But it had been cancelled. The finale had aired.

  It wasn’t her fault. Shows got cancelled all the time, and shows ran for years with worse ratings than Loyal Blue. It was a crapshoot. Nonetheless, as Janey’s boss had put it, “Money is money and failure is failure.” The towering building that had once showcased her success now displayed two-foot-tall Crayola-green letters reading: WILL YOU MARRY ME FOR $10,000,000?

  The message was so bold and unexpected that it distracted Janey from wallowing in the sad fate of Loyal Blue. This was quite a departure from the TV ads that rotated through this prime Hollywood ad real estate. Janey slowed to gawk. It had to be another reality dating show, right? She cursed herself for not having been the one to come up with it. But then she read the rest of the sign: CREATIVE, OPEN-MINDED BUSINESSMAN WITH LIMITED TIME AND DESIRE TO PLAY THE FIELD. THIS IS A SERIOUS PROPOSAL.

  Janey chuckled to herself. It was just weird enough to be legit. Dude obviously had some cash—she’d seen the budget line for the lease on that billboard, and it wasn’t cheap. Cars started to honk, and Janey realized the light in front of her was green. She hit the gas a bit harder than she meant to and hurtled through the intersection.

  The billboard vanished from Janey’s mind as she dashed across the studio lot and hurried into the Flowerpot offices, but not for long. Inside she was a bit surprised to see that everyone—executives and assistants alike—was gathered in her boss’s office. Uh-oh. This couldn’t be good. After dropping her bag in her office, Janey went to see what was going on.

  The roomful of people was staring out the window. “You can see the back of the building, over to the right,” an assistant was saying.

  “Check out the gridlock,” someone else said.

  “What’s going on?” Janey whispered to her assistant, Elody.

  “It’s an ad,” Elody said. “A ten-million-dollar marriage proposal. It went up this morning and has already gone viral. Gawker says it’s caused three fender benders so far.”

  “I saw it on my way in,” Janey said, feeling briefly proud that, for once, she hadn’t been the one in the fender bender. “It’s got to be some kind of hoax.”

  “Or a publicity stunt,” her colleague Marco said. “Some wannabe actor decided to go big or go home.”

  “I think it’s romantic,” Elody said.

  A voice boomed over the rest of them. “It’s a waste of time and money. This isn’t a watercooler, people. It’s my office. Out.”

  Inwardly Janey kicked herself at her mistake. Her boss, J. Ferris White, had been known to can people for taking lunch breaks. Not long lunch breaks. Any lunch break at all. And after the collapse of Loyal Blue she needed to get back on his good side. She ducked out of the office with everyone else, feeling twelve years old.

  Chapter 2

  At 11:00 a.m. on the dot Suze Lee allowed herself her first coffee break of the day. Redfield Partners, though a small venture capital group based in LA, prided itself on offering all the benefits of a big Silicon Valley tech company. Pool and Ping-Pong tables, a half court for basketball, a fully stocked kitchen. The free coffee was supposed to stimulate them to work longer and later, but Suze was pretty sure the excuse for frequent breaks had cut her colleagues’ productivity in half. She therefore limited herself to two visits to the café every day, twenty minutes each. Just coffee, no snacking. Today something was different. The café was strangely quiet. The persistent ping-pong of the game that never seemed to cease was silent for once. Instead there was a cluster of people around one of the café tables, where Kevin sat with his laptop.

  “I’m sure the guy is sixty years old and ugly as a dog, looking for arm candy,” Emily said.

  “No! People in the comments are saying that he’s a tech billionaire. Too busy to waste time dating,” Kevin said. “I mean, for all we know, he’s upstairs now, watching the Tweets roll in.” The second floor of Redfield Partners was home to the executive suites, where the investing and operations teams of the firm had their offices (open concept, of course, but still a floor above everyone else). There they met with eager start-ups, counted their millions, and worked out daily in the on-site gym. It was easy to fit it all in when you knew you were set for life. Suze, Kevin, the ten other “entrepreneurs in residence,” and the support staff were always encouraged to use the gym, but none of them ever did. Who wanted the hyperfit, life-balance-obsessed partners to see them panting on a treadmill at a slow jog? Instead they took ownership of the in-house café, some of them subsisting solely on its PowerBars and caffeinated beverages.

  “Suze—you should totally apply,” Meredith said.

  Suze practically spat out her iced coffee. “What are you talking about? Why me?”

  “Don’t play dumb,” Meredith said. “I have walked down the street with you. Every man we pass drools, and those are the ones who don’t even know that you’re brilliant.”

  “And you’re nice. Mostly. A little uptight, but in a nice way,” Kevin chimed in.

  “Thanks?” said Suze.

  “You’re the hottest catch in LA,” said Jeff.

  There was an awkward silence. Jeff, the office IT guy, rarely spoke. When he did, it was always a little creepy.

  “He’s right,” Meredith finally said. “A ten-million-dollar catch.”

  Suze rolled her eyes. “If that were true…wouldn’t I have been caught by now?”

  “For ten million dollars you might as well find out,” said Kevin.

  Chapter 3

  “Caroline! Where are you?”

  Caroline Fried-Miller cringed. This was working out worse than she’d expected. She’d been living back at home for only two weeks, and already every word out of her mother’s mouth got on her nerves. It was not a large house. And yet her mother had to bellow from downstairs as if they’d been separated at an oversold general-admission concert. At this rate Caroline would never last long enough to get back on her feet. Losing her apartment had been an unexpected blow. It was nobody’s fault. It had been her roommate Angie’s apartment first. Angie had landed the sweet, low-rent beach pad in Venice
through a family friend. The lease was in her name. She paid all the bills, and Caroline reimbursed her. That was why it was totally cool when Angie’s boyfriend, Bill, started living with them. It was fun, sort of like a super-crowded sitcom. But Caroline should have seen the writing on the wall. When Angie got engaged to Bill (Caroline was so happy for them! She really was!), of course they wanted Caroline out.

  Finding a new place on her nonprofit salary wasn’t going to be easy. She needed a second job, or something. Meanwhile, stuck at home with her mom and little sister, she was determined to keep the peace. The indomitable Isabelle Fried wasn’t going to change. And Caroline was in no position to complain. She rolled out of bed.

  “Be right there,” she said politely, but at a proper volume that quite possibly would not reach all the way downstairs to her mother. Caroline was willing to be respectful, but that didn’t mean she had to compromise her standards. She refused to turn into her mother.

  “Hurry, look, you’ll miss it!” her mother urged as Caroline came into the living room. “This is it, honey, your golden ticket!”

  Isabelle was staring at the TV, where the local news was covering a story Caroline had glimpsed on her phone on the way downstairs. Something about a billboard with a marriage proposal.

  “Mom, I am not Cinderella. Please don’t fairy-godmother me.”

  “Don’t be such a snob. It’s fun. This man, whoever he is, is obviously smart, or he wouldn’t be rich, and he’s obviously determined, or he wouldn’t be launching this impressive campaign. He knows what he wants and he’s willing to pay for it. You should try out, honey. You’ve got nothing to lose!”

  “Um…thank you for thinking of me, but I’m not for sale.”

  Isabelle shook her head. “Don’t be obstinate. He’s not buying you. He’s buying opportunity.”

  Caroline laughed. “Okay, you win.”

  “So you’ll do it. Great. The audition is tomorrow—”

  “What? No!” Caroline shook her head. “You win that he’s buying opportunity. You don’t win entering me into the wife contest.”

  “Are you sure?” her mother asked. “You know, you haven’t had a boyfriend since He Who Shall Not Be Mentioned. It’s not like you have a good track record with finding your own boyfriends. Might as well put it in the hands of fate.”

  “Yeah. No.”

  Isabelle stared at her daughter. Then she got a glint in her eye. “Five hundred dollars,” she said. “I’ll give you five hundred dollars.”

  “Uh, Mom? I’m not an idiot. If I won’t do it for ten million dollars, why would I do it for five hundred?”

  “Because I’ll give you the five hundred just for trying.”

  “Do I get five hundred dollars, too?” Caroline’s little sister, Brooke, piped in from the doorway.

  “Get ready for school, sweetie,” Isabelle told her second daughter.

  Caroline said, “How about you give me five hundred dollars to clean out the garage, which I’ve been doing in my spare time for two weeks now? Isn’t that worth five hundred dollars?” She could really use the money. When she moved out, a landlord was going to ask for first month’s rent and a month’s deposit—cash she didn’t have sitting around.

  “Five hundred dollars to take a chance with Prince Charming. Deal or no deal?” her mother said.

  “No deal.” Caroline couldn’t be bought by a man, and she certainly didn’t want to be bought by her mother.

  “I’ll do it for two hundred!” Brooke said.

  “Get your backpack, we’re late,” Isabelle told Brooke.

  Chapter 4

  Three days later Caroline was navigating to the downtown address her mother had given her. Her laptop battery had died its last death three hours after their conversation about the contest. Between the shame of borrowing her sister’s babysitting savings to help pay for a new computer and the shame of auditioning for the role of a rich man’s wife, she had opted for the latter, and now here she was.

  As she drove south on Figueroa Street, there were no big office buildings, nothing that looked like a place where a man could interview several potential wives. Nothing…except the Staples Center.

  “You have arrived at your destination: 1111 South Figueroa Street.”

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Caroline said out loud. The goddamn Staples Center. She couldn’t help but laugh. This was so absurd that it might actually be worth it.

  It was a cattle call. If it had been anywhere other than LA, Caroline would have assumed she’d walked into some kind of pageant or convention for models, or into any gym in LA, where you’d find a high ratio of sculpted bodies, chemically colored and straightened blond hair, and obscenely long eyelash extensions. Caroline instinctively reached to her own hair. It had been honey blond when she was a kid, but now the best she could do was to beg her colorist to try to replicate the color she’d once had naturally. When she could afford it. Which, as anyone who saw her roots would know, was about six months ago.

  The women were lining up by last name. Caroline found A–F and took her place at the back. The tall, skinny blond woman in front of her caught her eye and smiled.

  “Hey—don’t I know you?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so?” Caroline peered at her. She looked familiar, but only in that LA way—she was either a regular at Caroline’s neighborhood Starbucks or a bit actor on Law & Order. Both were a dime a dozen.

  “No, I know why I recognize you,” the woman insisted. “As kids we went to all the same auditions. You looked as miserable as I felt. But I didn’t last long—I quit acting in high school.”

  “At least you quit. That makes you smarter than I was. I failed my way out,” Caroline said.

  “Well, I quit to model, so…maybe not.” They both laughed. But suddenly Caroline realized what she had gotten herself into. This again. Her mother had been doing this to her since she was a kid—putting her up for singing contests, auditions, talent searches. Isabelle Fried needed her oldest daughter to be a star. Thankfully, Brooke was exempt. She had fallen in love with piano at age three and was a borderline prodigy. Apparently, that was enough for Isabelle. But Caroline was not so lucky. Her entire childhood had been a relentless exercise in rejection, loss, failure. And yet here she was, twenty-six, still somehow suckered into living out someone else’s dream. It was starting to say more about her than it was about her mother.

  She looked around the room: at the generic but friendly model who was still talking to her, and the sea of hopeful women left and right, all looking for a shortcut, all trying to win a lottery against terrible odds. The last thing Caroline wanted or needed was one more affirmation that she was not as desirable as everyone else.

  “Good luck to you,” she told the blond woman. “I think this time I’m the one who should be quitting.”

  And with that, Caroline marched out of the automatic glass doors.

  Chapter 5

  Suze took a seat at the end of a row and scanned the questionnaire she’d been handed. It was six pages long and reminded her of the online dating profiles she’d helped friends create now and then. The top of the form had a number of basic questions about her appearance, educational background, religion, and lifestyle. Then came the more open-ended, philosophical questions. There had to be a strategy to these self-profiles, Suze supposed, some clever way to answer these questions that would make her stand out from the rest and at the same time maximize her chances of appealing to the bachelor in question. But she had never been one to play games. If you tricked someone into picking you, then you had to keep up the act indefinitely. False advertising was for people with low self-esteem.

  Suze carefully assessed the personal information required. It was minimal and safe. Even if this was one big joke, at least it wasn’t an identity theft scam. After filling in the short answers by hand, she came to the first open-ended question: Why are you here today? She took out her handheld thermal printer (the Zoom, one of Redfield’s most promising ventures) a
nd began to type. In my job at a venture capital firm, I offer innovators large sums of money to support great ideas. So if this offer is made in the spirit of finding true love, I respect the idea of using money to do it. We use money to find everything else.…

  The questions were increasingly probing, but they made sense to Suze. With all these candidates, how could the millionaire possibly choose one person out of the crowd? What do you like to do on weekend nights? Tell me about your ambitions. What is your perfect first date? On it went. Suze was glad for her Zoom. It allowed her to self-edit as she went, then print out her paragraphs as neat labels to affix to the questionnaire. She made a mental note to recommend that the partners boost their investment in the next round.

  The final question was the first one she had never had cause to answer before: Are you here for love or money?

  I am here out of curiosity, she wrote. I understand that my chances of walking away with either love or money are low. It’s not that I’m a pessimist, but the odds are simply against it. However, if I did find love, or what promised to be a very high chance of true love, I would be willing to leave the money on the table. She leaned back to consider what she’d written before she printed it out. It was a logical answer. She imagined being happily married, and being offered ten million dollars to leave her husband. She would never do such a thing; therefore, love trumped money. Of course, it was hard to imagine feeling that way about a man she hadn’t yet met, but a hypothetical scenario could only have a hypothetical response. She hit Print, affixed the final label neatly to the questionnaire, and brought it back to the intake desk.

  “Thank you,” the woman at the desk said. She scanned the application.

  “Most of the applicants didn’t even bring something to write with. But you seem to have…what are these, labels?”

  Suze smiled. “I love my gadgets.”