I proceeded to send my driver a message and began walking towards the front door. Chris was close behind me. My driver was pulling into the cul-de-sac when I turned to face Chris and confirm that he had a knife in his hand, just as I had suspected.
“Mario, what the hell is going on?” he said in a stammer, obviously terrified.
I looked at him, then looked down at the knife in his hand. He followed my eyes to the knife, seemed to realize what was happening and proceeded to drop the knife on the ground. He repeated his question.
I said, “the only person who can give you the kind of answers you need and want is in there. You need to talk to Lisa.”
I turned to walk to my car and he went inside. Two hours later Lisa called.
“I told him everything,” she said. “I told him that I want a divorce and I want him out of the house. Do you still want to be with me?”
For reasons I didn't entirely understand at the time, I struggled with expressing my own needs as they related to relationships. What I wanted and needed to say was, “Laney, the sex is good, but we can't be together for any number of reasons. Mostly, because I haven't been entirely honest with you. It just doesn't feel like we're making good choices. And whatever you've been willing to do to your husband, I'm pretty sure you’ll eventually do to me.” Instead, what I said was, “of course I want to be with you.”
But even as I said it I knew that it wasn't possible. I was separated from my legal spouse, trying to navigate a complicated divorce while simultaneously taking a company public. All of which needed to be accomplished in such a way that wouldn't leave my financial jugular exposed to divorce proceedings. Then there was a task of convincing investors to hand over $50 million in venture capital, split a multi- million dollar finder’s fee with the father-in-law, and through it all somehow find a stable relationship so that my actual daughter wouldn't have to grow up like an orphan in Mexico.
Lisa knew nothing about my daughter. A fact that spoke volumes about the viability of any form of long-term relationship between us. She would frequently insist on seeing houses together, which we did but I used the excuse that I couldn't reasonably purchase a house until I was legally divorced and financially solvent after everything was settled with our company, the venture capital, and the IPO. Plus, how was I going to explain to her that not only did I have a daughter that I had never mentioned precisely because I didn't want my daughter to know her?
Then one day I received a text message from Lisa telling me that her husband Chris wanted to meet me for a drink. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but I was strangely sympathetic to this man's predicament, so I agreed.
We met at a local bar. I ordered a beer, he did the same. He then proceeded to hand me a manila folder.
“My intention here is to keep my daughters safe,” he clarified.
The irony in the fact that he felt that he needed to keep his daughters safe from me was priceless. How was it possible that he had been married to Lisa for at least 10 years and somehow didn't have the slightest clue as to who she was?
He explained that he had been investigating me. He knew that we, as a company, were on the verge of a venture capital deal, an IPO, and that there were a lot of moving parts and because of which, “lots of things that could go wrong.”
What the file contained was information from the SEC showing that years prior my securities licenses had been revoked for failure to comply with an official investigation. All of which was true. But what he didn't know was that his ace wasn't as strong as he thought it was.
“What do you want?” I asked.
He knew exactly what he wanted and he was quick to tell me. He wanted me to terminate my relationship with his wife. In exchange he wouldn't alert my business associates or investors to my “dirty problems” with the SEC.
“Even if I were to agree,” I said, “Lisa is still a woman who is not going to be manipulated by you.”
“I have a plan for that,” he admitted. “All I'm asking is for you to do your part, and if you do I won't play my hand.”
I told him that I would think about it and we parted ways. Then I immediately went to meet with Gary Zbacnik, the CEO of our company, and showed him the manila file.
“This isn't anything new,” Gary pointed out. “The SEC revoked your license only because you never responded to their inquiry letters. They never found you guilty of a crime, or even ever charged you with a crime.”
Gary Zbacnik: photo courtesy of Linkedin
“Exactly,” I said, “but he seems to think that he's holding an ace.”
“And you didn't bother to tell him that his ace isn't what he thinks it is?”
“No, I just told him that I would consider his proposal,” I said. “Because even though his info is old news he could still spook the investors.”
We discussed all the angles for at least an hour. But then Gary cut through all the bullshit and directed my attention to the obvious: “Didn't this crazy bitch ask you for a print out of your bank account before you officially started dating?”
I laughed and nodded in agreement that this was the one I had mentioned. What had happened was that Lisa and I had made arrangements to have lunch, and just prior to that lunch she called and asked me to bring a print out from that day of my bank statement, or investment accounts—whichever.
“You don't really want her, do you?” Gary asked.
“I mean, when you put it like that, absolutely not, but…”
Gary waved his hand to stop me. “Say no more, I know. I've already lived it and heard it all before, and I'm going to give you some free advice that you're probably not going to take: I want you to take a long and hard look at this guy, her husband, and pay very close attention to what she's willing to do to him because that will eventually be you, my friend.”
Photo of Lisa and unknown man with Miami hats: courtesy of Facebook
Gary's advice was to tell Lisa exactly what Chris was doing, since that would direct her “evil,” as he so eloquently put it, on her husband’s scent instead of my own. Then, I was to explain that to protect my partners and the business I needed to go along with her husband's demands for the time being. All of which, according to Gary, was to achieve a much needed and legitimate out that she would accept without feeling the need to dismantle my life.
“She'll understand,” Gary insisted, “because there are millions at stake, a company, the employees, and at the end of the day she's a mercenary who naturally understands and believes that there is nothing more important than money.”
Was all of that true? Had I developed an emotional attachment to such a person? Well, let's look at the evidence: there was the fact that I did have to produce a bank statement, and show a threshold of assets sufficient enough to keep seeing her; and, yes, she was expensive to maintain; but I wasn't able to accept Gary's assessment of “evil” because she had lots of good and attractive qualities. And, if truth be told, I have never succeeded at explaining or justifying any relationship—I never look at the pros and cons I just go by the feel of it.
Ironically, what made us compatible was also what doomed us to fail. The compatibility of our personalities, sense of humor, and the incendiary nature of our attraction for one another made us each a cautionary tale to our own best interests.
I decided to take Gary's advice. And just as Gary had promised, she accepted my need to separate from her and it was agreed that once our respective divorces were final, the IPO was a done deal, and everything else was in order we would then revisit “the viability of our relationship.”
On the surface, her husband Chris had played his hand and won. The problem, however, was that Lisa still wasn't relenting in her insistence on finalizing their divorce and securing for herself everything they owned. Chris had just assumed that without me in the equation she would return to the monotony of their unhappy marriage for convenience, but that didn't happen. Maybe because I was still paying her a monthly stipend, a payment which, as Gary agreed, was a cost-effective way of not creating an unnecessary enemy at a critical junction of our business endeavors. But that wasn't the only reason I gave her a monthly allowance.
The truth is, I wanted Lisa to win. I knew what it was like to be manipulated by a spouse who didn't want to let go, not because of love, but because of pride, jealousy, and the kind of hate that borders on self- loathing—if I can't have him (or her) nobody will. And when I look back on it I also know that I helped her because it felt like the right thing to do, given the fact that I would never be able to give her what she hoped would come from us: a life together.
Yes, I am familiar with the saying, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, then it's a duck, but, I assure you, LOVE it was not. And how I know this will be explained in due time.