Promise Me

Three days left.

Beth Cardall’s Diary

We moved slowly those last days, as if the speed of our actions could somehow slow time. To my disappointment, Matthew was gone for most of the afternoon of the twenty-second and the morning of the twenty-third. On the afternoon of the twenty-third, he brought me into the bedroom to talk. There were practical matters to be discussed, he said, which felt grim to me, like the planning of one’s own funeral. As I look back on it all, it was the most interesting conversation of my life.

We sat on the floor facing each other. Matthew had a large, accordion-style file folder brimming with what I would discover were certificates and documents. Matthew spoke with the stoic demeanor of a financial advisor.

“What I’m giving you now is all the financial information you will ever need. This morning I paid off this home, so you own it free and clear. You still have more than two million dollars left in your accounts. Over the last two days I have divided them into funds that will do well over the next eighteen years. There are a few companies you need to invest in that haven’t started or gone public yet. One of them is called Google. They’ll go public in 1996. The other is YouTube in 2005. YouTube will be a private fund, so I’ve given you special instructions on whom to contact. It’s very important that you invest the exact amounts at the times I have written down.

“If you do what I say, you will be wealthy beyond your wildest imagination. Do not, I repeat, do not let anyone change or touch these accounts. There will be people who will try to talk you out of it, or think they know better. They don’t. The best they have is an educated guess. I’m not guessing, I’ve read the last page. I know how the story ends. Promise me you will do exactly what I say.”

“I promise.”

“Remember how I tricked you into signing me on as a cosignatory on your home-equity loan?”

I nodded.

“Don’t ever do that again. There will be temptations. There will be fools. Money attracts fools. Do not give in to them.”

He pulled out an envelope. “This is a fund for Charlotte’s education. She’s going to major in art history and will decide to attend the University of Utah mostly to be near you, so this fund will ensure that you will have more than enough for school, books and lodging.”

He replaced the envelope and pulled out another. “This packet right here is time-sensitive. Do not touch these funds until the dates I’ve written down, then be sure to take all the money out. The dates I’ve written are generalities, the best I can remember, so if they’re off a bit, don’t worry about it. They’re close enough.”

“If you want to buy something big, like a mansion or yacht or something . . .”

I stopped him. “Why would I want those things?”

“I’m not saying you will, just that any big expenditure needs to come out of this fund. This is your liquid fund. Don’t ever spend more than this account or you’ll kill the golden goose. People get rich and they go nuts and lose it all. Most lottery winners end up bankrupt. It’s the norm. As long as you don’t leave the path I set for you, you’ll be safe. Step off it, even once, and you may be back pressing suit coats and clipping coupons.” He looked me in the eyes. “Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“Good.” He sighed and pulled out another small packet. “This might seem a little selfish, but this fund is for Charlotte and me. It will be worth several million when it matures. We can’t access it until we are thirty. I did that on purpose, I didn’t want to mess up the future I’m stepping back into and I didn’t want to ruin Charlotte. It’s best if Charlotte doesn’t know about it until it matures.”

“Okay.”

“Now this checkbook, the green one, is what I call your Mad Money account. It’s an interest-bearing checking account. This is what you are going to gamble with. I made a list of all the Super Bowl and NBA championship winners for the next fifteen years. Just keep gambling the money and turn it over. Never gamble more than half of it at once, just in case I made a mistake.” He took my hand. “Does all this make sense?”

I nodded.

“I know it’s a lot, but I wrote everything down. This is your new job, managing your money. Promise me you will do only what I’ve told you to do.”

“I promise.”

“As long as you stay in the pen, the wolves won’t get you. Step outside . . .”

“I’m dinner.”

“Exactly.” He breathed out and pushed the file aside. “Okay, enough about money. There are other things you should know about the future. I made this for you.” He lifted a small steno notepad he’d had at his side. “I’ve written down some things I think you’ll find helpful. Some are important, some are just interesting. For instance, you know the group Milli Vanilli?”

“The singers,” I said. “They just won a Grammy for best new artist.”

“Yeah, well they’re fake. It’s not really them singing.”

“What?”

“It will come out later this year.” He turned a few pages. “Here’s something six or seven years away. Harry Potter is going to be really big, so if you want, secure the dot-com address as soon as you can. You can sell it back to them. The author’s going to be a billionaire, so don’t settle for less than a hundred thousand dollars. Trust me.”

“Who’s Harry Potter?”

“He’s a fictional character in a series of books about a boy wizard.”

“A wizard?”

He nodded. “It’s going to be big.” He leafed through a few more pages. “Oh, this is very, very important. Stay out of New York City, actually, don’t fly at all, on September 11th, 2001.”

“Why?”

“That’s one I can’t tell you. Just trust me.” He turned a few more pages. “We’ll go to war twice with Iraq. The second time we’ll be looking for weapons of mass destruction, but they’ll never find any. But they will eventually find Saddam Hussein.”

“Who’s that?”

“You’ll find out. I filled this whole book with information like that. The bottom line is, over the next two decades you’re going to hear doomsday scenarios, dire predictions, ‘blood will run in the streets’ propaganda. None of it will happen. Be at peace, the world will go on.”

He handed me the book and the file folder. “Protect this information, don’t tell anyone about it, not Roxanne, not even Charlotte. You don’t want that responsibility and you don’t want to screw up the future.” He reached into his pocket and took out a small brass key and handed it to me. “Just in case there’s a fire or something and these copies are destroyed, there are backup copies of everything in this safe deposit box. It’s at the bank where we took out your home-equity loan.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?” He stood. “Oh, one more thing. When I come over for Charlotte’s twenty-first birthday party, don’t point out that my fly is open in front of everyone. It was really embarrassing.”

“I really did that?”

“Yeah, you did.”

“Sorry.”