"Hold your arms out," James said.
Scott looked at him. "Why."
"Because that jacket is sitting wrong. Arms out."
Scott held them out.
James pulled the jacket straight across the back, assessed it for a second, then went to the rail and started moving things without explaining himself.
Scott looked around the shop. He had come in for two things. A decent shirt and trousers that didn't embarrass him. Everything he owned before today had been fine when he was broke and invisible but that version of his life was over now. Whether he liked it or not he wasn't poor anymore, and to be around women at the level he needed to be around them he had to look the part. Simple as that.
"What brought you in," James said from the rail.
"Needed things," Scott said.
"What kind of things."
"The kind that don't look like I pulled them out of a bin," Scott said.
James looked at him over his shoulder. Then went back to the rail without a word.
He pulled a shirt off and held it up against Scott. Dark navy, clean cut, the kind of shirt that had a point of view.
"Try it," James said.
"I said I needed trousers," Scott said.
"You need this first." James held it out.
Scott took it and put it on. Looked in the mirror for a moment.
It fit well. Better than anything he had put on in a long time.
James, according to the name tag on his chest, had clearly decided Scott was going to leave with more than he came in for and had not asked for input on that decision.
"Two forty," James said, already moving.
Scott looked at the shirt in the mirror one more time. "Two forty," he repeated, like he was tasting the number. Then: "Alright."
That was how it started. James pulling things, Scott resisting, Scott ending up with the thing anyway because each time James held something up the argument made sense in the moment.
Scott watched the pile on the counter grow.
"James," Scott said.
"Mm."
"What are you doing."
"My job," James said, and pulled something else down.
"I came in for two things."
"You came in for two things you knew about," James said. "There's a difference."
Scott looked at the pile. Then at James. Then back at the pile.
Twenty minutes in and it had grown considerably past two things.
The door opened.
James looked up. "Morning ma."
"Morning James."
Scott turned.
She came in wearing a charcoal suit, jacket fitted at the shoulders, leather folder under one arm. She moved through the shop like she already knew where everything was and had three other places to be after this. The jacket was doing everything it could across her chest and losing the argument with every step.
Scott watched her move toward the back of the shop.
'More money,' was the first complete thought.
"How old is she," Scott said quietly.
"Twenty three," James said, also quietly.
Scott looked at her properly. Twenty three and moving through a shop like that, with that folder, with that suit, with that particular settled authority in how she carried herself.
'Twenty three,' he thought. 'Younger than she looks and carrying more than most people twice her age.'
"What does she do," Scott said.
"Estate management. Her father owns most of the commercial property on this side of the city. She runs the estate side herself." James kept his voice low. "Don't."
"I haven't moved," Scott said.
"You're thinking about it."
"So I'm not in her league," Scott said.
James looked at him directly. "You are never in her league."
"Never."
"She's twenty three and already running a serious operation. You're a college student who came in here because your clothes look like rags." He went back to folding something on the counter. "Trust me. So many guys have tried. Men with actual money and real positions. She doesn't even look at them twice."
Scott watched her at the back of the shop, the leather folder under her arm, the suit doing what it was doing.
'How many women would I have to spend on to reach that level naturally,' he thought. 'To be someone that conversation made sense with without engineering it.' He turned the number over. 'A lot.'
He looked at her one more time.
'But she's right there.'
"I'm not missing this," Scott said.
James put down what he was folding. "Scott —"
He was already walking.
He came up beside her at the back of the shop, not too close, just in the same space.
"Estate management," Scott said. "That's my guess."
She turned and looked at him. Quick. Practiced. The assessment of someone who had been approached before and had a process.
"Sorry?" she said.
"What you do," Scott said. "You have that look. Like every room you walk into is already an asset you're calculating."
Something shifted in her expression. Very slightly. Then it closed back down.
"Is this the new tactic?" she said. "Guessing professions?"
"I got it right though," Scott said.
She looked at him for a moment. Something moved behind her eyes, small and controlled, gone before it became anything she would have to deal with. Then she turned toward the front.
"James," she said.
"Yes?"
"Tell Maya I'll be there by eleven." She looked at Scott one last time, something sitting in her eyes that was not quite amusement and not quite anything else. "And you." She tilted her head slightly. "Focus on your studies."
She walked out.
The door closed.
Scott stood at the back of the shop for a moment. Then walked back to the counter.
James was waiting.
"I told you," James said.
"You did," Scott said. He looked at the door for a moment. "Focus on your studies. She actually said that."
"That's the nicest way she's ever turned someone down," James said. "Usually she just walks away mid sentence."
Scott looked at him. "That's supposed to make me feel better?"
"No," James said. "Just giving you context."
James watched him for a moment. Then reached under the counter slowly and set a small white business card on the counter between them.
Scott looked at it. Something moved in his face before he could stop it.
James put his hand over the card.
"One condition," he said.
Scott looked up. "What condition."
James smiled. Said nothing. Turned to the shelves behind him and started pulling things down one by one, setting them in front of Scott with the calm efficiency of a man who had already made a decision and was simply executing it.
Scott looked at the growing pile.
Then at James.
James kept going.
---
"Nice doing business with you," James said, as Scott picked up the last bag.
Scott looked at him for a long moment. Said nothing. Walked out.
He made it half a block before he stopped on the pavement and looked at the bags hanging from both hands. He pulled the receipt out of his pocket.
Seven thousand, two hundred and forty dollars. Plus tip.
He stood there with the receipt in his hand.
'Is she even worth seven thousand,' he thought. 'I don't know her name. I don't know anything about her except that she's twenty three, runs her father's estate and told me to focus on my studies.' He looked at the business card in his other hand. 'But when I do spend on her, ten times return on whatever that number is.' He turned it over. 'Could be significant.'
He pocketed the card.
'Worth keeping,' he thought.
He looked at the bags one more time. "Motherfucker," he said quietly, to nobody, to James specifically even though James was behind a door half a block away. "Seven thousand dollars for a business card." He looked at the bags hanging from both arms. "And I tipped the bastard."
He started walking.
His mind moved to the real problem.
He couldn't just approach any woman. Walk up to a stranger and hand her something expensive and she backs away or calls someone. Every woman he spent on had to make sense in context. Had to be someone he was already in conversation with before the money came into it.
He thought about the woman in the suit. What a ten times return on whatever he spent would look like.
His phone rang.
Catherine.
He answered.
"Scott, hey. I'm so sorry this is late notice." That professional warmth from the quad. "Are you still available for the interview today? Three o'clock?"
"Yeah," Scott said. "Send me the address."
"It's a house off campus. I couldn't get a room in time, I'm really sorry —"
"Catherine," Scott said.
She stopped. "Yeah?"
"Stop apologising. Just Send the address."
She pause. Then: "Okay. Sending it now."
He pocketed his phone.
'Perfect timing,' he thought.
---
The address was a residential street twenty minutes from campus. Scott arrived at five to three wearing the navy shirt, dark trousers, clean shoes. He turned into the path and Catherine was outside and she saw him coming and something happened in her face before she could manage it.
She looked at him as he walked up. "You look —" She stopped. "Did you get taller?"
Scott looked at her for a second. "Maybe a little," he said. Then his eyes dropped briefly to her chest, the white shirt she was wearing thin and fitted and doing very little to leave anything to the imagination. "You look good in those clothes."
She blinked. Her expression moved somewhere between surprised and pleased before she redirected it. "Thank you," she said, slightly uncertain about exactly what she was thanking him for.
Scott had been talking about her chest specifically. But she didn't need to know that.
'I could dedicate a whole chapter to those,' he thought.
"Come in," Catherine said, turning toward the door.
"Stop apologising," Scott said, and followed her in.
Three people inside. Two guys and a girl. One had a camera on a small tripod, one had a laptop open, the girl was sorting papers. They looked up when Scott came in and nodded.
He had changed at home before coming. Stood in front of the mirror long enough to confirm everything was sitting right, then left.
Scott sat in the chair facing the camera. Catherine sat across from him, crossed her legs, clicked her pen.
"Okay," she said. "Whenever you're ready."
"Ready," Scott said.
"First question." She looked at her clipboard. "When a woman reports harassment on campus, what do you think is the most common reason men who witnessed it stay silent?"
Scott looked at her. "Because reporting something means becoming part of it. And most people would rather not be part of it."
Catherine's pen moved. "Do you think that's a male thing specifically?"
"No," Scott said. "That's just how people work. Men or women. Nobody wants to be the one who made a situation bigger than it already was."
"But men specifically," Catherine said, "in harassment cases involving women. There's a pattern of bystanders being male and staying silent. How do you explain that?"
"Social cost," Scott said. "The guy who speaks up risks being seen as difficult. The guy who stays quiet fits in. Until people stop making the quiet option comfortable the math doesn't change."
Catherine looked at him for a moment. "That's more honest than I expected."
"You said you wanted the real answer," Scott said.
She almost smiled. "Last one. Do you think men on this campus understand what harassment actually is or do they think it's only the extreme cases?"
"Most of them know," Scott said. "They just find reasons why their specific situation is different."
Catherine stopped writing. Looked at Scott for a moment in a way that was slightly different from how she had been looking at him. "That was really good."
"It was fine," Scott said.
The rest of it moved quickly after that. More questions, more answers, the camera running, the guy on the laptop keeping up. Scott stayed present without performing it and by the time Catherine clicked her pen closed the room had settled into something easier than when they started.
She looked at her clipboard. Then back at him. "I also wanted to mention. We're fundraising for the campaign. We have about four hundred so far, trying to hit two thousand by end of month." She looked up. "Any amount helps."
Scott looked at her.
The number was there above her head, quiet and clear.
10%.
'Ten,' he thought. 'That's where I am with her right now.' He thought about the woman in the suit, what must have been sitting above her head when he approached her that he hadn't been looking for yet. 'Catherine has ten. Room to work with.'
He thought about every book he had read about this. The frameworks, the theory, all of it interesting, none of it had ever given him a number floating above a real person's head in a real room.
He looked at her. The number above her head. The two thousand she needed.
Then he made the decision the way you make decisions when you have already done the math and are just waiting for yourself to catch up.
"I'll cover it," Scott said.
Catherine looked up. "Sorry?"
"The full two thousand."
She stared at him. Looked at the clipboard. Back at him. "That's the entire target."
"I know."
"Scott you really don't —"
"I know I don't have to."
15% above her head.
The guy on the laptop had stopped typing.
"One condition," Scott said.
Catherine's pen went still. "What condition."
Scott stood up and picked up his jacket from the back of the chair. "Dinner. One evening. You pick where." Easy. No pressure in it. "You don't have to answer now. You have my number."
He looked at her one more time.
"And if you'd rather not," he said, "I'll still donate the money. So make sure whatever you decide comes from what you actually want."
He watched the number.
60%.
Catherine's mouth opened slightly. The girl behind her had put her papers down entirely.
"I'll." She cleared her throat. "I'll be in touch."
"Take your time," Scott said, and left.
He was halfway down the front path when he heard it through the open door. Three voices urgent and overlapping and Catherine somewhere in the middle of them not quite saying no.
Scott smiled to himself and kept walking.
'One day,' he thought. 'Two at most.'