Lucky Darren

Darren stood in the front of the boardroom with all of the ease and confidence that his illustrious career had granted him. Seated at the long wooden table in front of him were several of the partners at his firm. It was no big deal. Their newest consulting client had approached their firm with such a simple problem: revenue was down; it needed to go up. Too easy. Switch up your marketing plan. Focus on enhancing your products. Listen to your customers. Same shit as always.

Darren was what every man wanted to be - tall, objectively handsome, charismatic. At just 28, he was well on his way to become one of the partners that sat at the table before him. He’s given this presentation several times before. It was a necessary step before presenting to the client, but at this point, it was just a formality. As always, at the end of his presentation, the partners would congratulate him on a job well done, give some miniscule feedback just to make sure the other consultants wouldn’t get jealous, and end with some comment about how he will soon be sitting at the table with them. Easy.

“So, DynaTech, if you just follow these three steps, we are sure that you will see 15 to 20 percent increase in revenue growth by the end of the year.” Darren ended his presentation with a powerpoint slide of dollars raining over the DynaTech logo.

He looked at the crowd, awaiting the same accolades as usual. But it wasn’t there this time. Instead, the partners remained silent, shifting awkwardly in their seats. The silence was nerve wracking. Even brown-nosing Jerry, one of the senior consultants in the back, couldn’t contain the large grin stretched across his face. He hated that guy.

Darren didn’t know how to break the silence. Luckily he didn’t have to. The president, Bill, spoke up. “Darren, what’s up with you?” he asked. Darren didn’t know how to answer that question. “This presentation is shit. Did you even spend any time on it?” Darren didn’t know how to answer that question either. He had spent the same amount of time on this presentation as he had on all of his previous presentations - about 45 minutes after binge drinking with his friends at the bar last night. He couldn’t say that, of course, but it always worked.

“Darren,” Bill continued. “I think we need to have a conversation. We’re hearing feedback from your last client that your recommendations have been disastrous for their business. And now this presentation? You have a history of success, and I recognize that, but you’re losing your streak. Let’s nip it in the bud before it gets worse. Call my secretary and have her make a meeting with me. In the meantime, go take a break. Clear your head.”

At this point, brown-nosing Jerry was tearing up from the laughter he was holding back. Darren silently packed up his laptop and walked out the door. He kept walking until he walked out of the building. And he still kept walking until he ended up at a Starbucks. That’s funny; his body on autopilot seemed to always end up at Starbucks. Damn, how did he get here?

“Hey, you just cut me.” Darren turned around to see a disheveled girl right behind him. She didn’t look like she belonged there. Actually she looked like she belonged behind the counter - a barista worn down by a shift full of asshole customers. Her hair was pulled back into a sloppy bun. Her baggy jeans and oversized sweater hung on her small frame. This was in sharp contrast to the pristine button down shirt and perfectly tailored suit that Darren was wearing. He didn’t respond back to her. Still on autopilot, he just stepped to the side to let her pass. “What’s wrong with you?” the girl asked.

There was that question again. What was wrong with him? He had never failed, not since he was a kid. He succeeded at everything: grades, sports, girls, work. He got what he wanted, and never had to work hard like the losers who still couldn’t cut it. Yeah. He was awesome. He just needed to get over whatever spell this happened to be. He’ll figure it out. He always figured it out. That pick me up brought his voice back.

“You’re hilarious,” she laughed. “You wanna smoke? My apartments’ right upstairs.”

What kind of girl invites a dude up to her place that quickly? Also how is her place upstairs? This area was full of downtown high-rises. How could this girl afford one of those? Maybe she came from money?

They went into the front door of the building and headed towards the elevator. When they got in, the girl pressed the 42nd floor.

“So, are you from the city?” Darren asked her. “Sorry, I didn’t even get your name yet.”

“It’s Sarah.” she said curtly. “And no. I’m actually from a small town in a state far far away. No need to go into that story. But I decided to become a writer and when I started doing it full time, I decided to move to a place that was more ripe with stories. Nothing like the big city, right?”

“Oh, you write?” Nothing screamed trust fund baby more than an aspiring writer.

“Yeah, I put out my first book, and it did really well. So I wrote another. And another. I never even dreamed I could make a career doing something I loved.”

Darren thought this girl may be a little too whimsical, but he was ready for some good weed and good company, especially after the morning he just had. And she definitely delivered. He wasn't sure where she got the bud, but it was probably the strongest he'd ever had. She was actually a pretty funny and insightful person. And beneath all the messy hair and baggy clothes, she may even be an attractive woman. Darren was feeling much better; maybe his luck was turning back around.

“Hey, I’m a little thirsty. You got a drink?” he asked her. They were both sitting on the floor of her living room. Big ceiling to floor windows basked the room in light while also displaying an amazing view of the city. The one bedroom loft was filled with plants of all shapes and sizes. It was like an oasis inside the concrete desert.

“Yeah, look in the fridge,” she responded. Darren got up and made his way to her pristine white kitchen with white marble countertops. He opened the fridge. There wasn’t much inside, but he did find a couple of bottles of water near the bottom. This got him curious. Why was there no food in here? He grabbed a bottle and closed the fridge. Next to the fridge, however, were piles of bills and an eviction notice.

Now he was definitely confused. He wasn’t going to say anything, but why did she have it out like that? If it were him, and of course it would never be him, he would at least have the dignity to hide it. He must’ve looked at it a little bit too long, because Sarah started walking towards him..

“Oh, don’t worry about those,” she laughed flippantly. “They’ll be taken care of.”

Darren wondered how they would be taken care of. “Parents cut you off?” he jokingly asked, accompanied by the most awkward chuckle.

“Parents?” Sarah looked confused. “My parents don’t pay for my apartment. I told you I write. I’ve done very well for myself.” She pulled out a magazine, and opened it to an article promoting her latest book.

“Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean to assume,” the weed brought out a bit too much honesty. “So I guess you just suck at paying bills?”

She laughed. “No. For some reason, about a year or two ago, my new book flopped. Then the next book flopped. My publisher started talking about cutting ties, and my agent started to get upset. I don’t know. They said I lost my touch.”

Darren was confused by how flippantly she was saying all of this. “That sucks. So what are you going to do?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, it looks like you’re running out of money. What are you going to do?”

“Oh, I told you not to worry about those bills. The universe has always worked in my favor. Maybe it’s taking a break at the moment. But it will come around again.”

Darren looked at her in silence. Then he looked around at the immaculate high-rise city loft. Then back at the frumpy girl who it turned out not to be a trust fund baby and really did come from a no-name place in a state far far away. Maybe she had a point. Maybe the universe brought him here for a reason.

The next day, Darren strolled into the office feeling refreshed. The universe was on his side. He didn’t know why he was so blessed, but who was he to question things? He didn’t even bat an eye when his boss told him to work with Jerry to re-do the presentation. Jerry openly and shamelessly loved being staffed above Darren, but this didn’t even bother Darren this time.

“Jerry, I know you work hard on everything that you do,” he said with his usual air of confidence. “We can’t all be naturally gifted, so I get it. So I’ll amuse your feedback this time.”

“So, you’re still in denial on how badly you failed on this last presentation,” Jerry quipped.

“Failed? I don’t fail, Jerry. I’m a winner. That’s the station that the universe has granted me. And I’m all here for it.”

“You think the universe makes you a winner?”

“I can’t help it if it influences my world world to make sure I succeed.”

“Well then maybe you’re still a loser, just on the inside.”

On the inside, huh? Fuck that guy. But just after he said that, Bill tapped Jerry on the shoulder to follow him to his office. Darren guessed Jerry was the new star consultant. I’ll show him who the loser is, Darren thought to himself. He was done waiting for the universe to come back to his side. He had to figure this out.

So he worked all that day, through the night, and again for the next two days. He dusted off his old MBA books, looked up case studies online, and researched his client until he knew even more than their CEO did. Instead of booking a meeting with Bill, hee sent a meeting invite to all of  the partners to present his findings again. The night before the presentation, Sarah texted him again. “Wanna chill?” He took a look at his new and improved presentation. He was ready. He deserved a little break.

He headed downtown to Sarah’s apartment and hit the button for the 42nd floor. “You look like shit,” she said as she greeted him at the door. Darren kept his mouth shut. Apparently she didn’t realize how she looked on any typical day. But this time her apartment looked like shit too. Boxes were strewn everywhere from the kitchen counters to the living room. Some of the furniture was already gone.

“Moving out?” he asked.

“Yeah, the landlord has just about had it.”

“Shit. Well, might as well party.” So, they partied. At the end of the night, while they were sitting on the spot on the floor that used to belong to the couch, Darren asked “So, what are you going to do now? Still waiting on the universe?”

“I think so. She hasn’t failed me yet.”

Darren guessed the packed up boxes didn’t look like failure to her. “Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to try to do something yourself?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that maybe we shouldn’t rely on something or someone else for our success. If it comes, great; then, we’ll get even farther. But if it doesn’t come, we should still be working hard.”

Sarah cocked her head back and gave Darren her most attentive high-on-marijuana stare. “If you have to work hard, then how can you call yourself lucky?”

Darren couldn’t answer her question, but he knew it was true. Someone can work hard and be lucky. How it worked, he wasn’t so sure. But it was very late and he had to get home to rest before his big presentation.

The next morning, he stood in the same spot in front of the company partners. This time, although he looked cool and collected on the outside, he was filled with nerves on the inside. He ended his presentation and looked out into the crowd.

The partners were silent. “This is much better, Darren,” one said. The feedback wasn’t ecstatic, but it wasn’t horrible either. Darren took a deep breath. He wasn’t the star today. He was a normal consultant who had worked hard and done a decent enough job. Oh shit, he was fucking Jerry.