It’s the Penguin Classics edition of Man and Superman, a four-act drama by George Bernard Shaw. I’ve read it once before, but in no way can I recall what’s on page two-sixty by memory. So I do as he instructed and turn to the precise location.
The play ends on two-forty-nine, and Shaw’s Maxims for Revolutionists begins. In a section titled “Reason”—Ryke highlighted a quote in yellow.
I silently read the words:
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
I rest my forearm on the counter, and the trash bag falls out of my grasp. The passage hits me harder than I thought it could.
I’ve always been the reasonable man. It’s easier. I tend to go after the harder challenges, but not when it’s like beating my brains against a brick wall.
To be unreasonable for the first time in my life—can I even do it?
54
CONNOR COBALT
“Mr. and Mrs. Cobalt won’t be taking questions from the press, so if you have any planned, we suggest you put them away,” Naomi advises the collection of journalists and photographers that have gathered for the press conference. I stand backstage with Rose, our daughter, and her parents and our friends, waiting for my cue to greet the media.
Lily whispers, “It’s already streaming live on GBA News.” She has Lo’s cellphone cupped in her hands, and she flashes the screen to us. Sure enough, my publicist stands behind a podium with about ten microphones attached, insignias of each news station printed on them.
In seconds, that’ll be me.
I can’t determine what I feel in this particular moment. I don’t have time to call Frederick to ask. Rose lifts Jane higher on her hip, and Jane says, “Daddy!” Her exclamation echoes in the speakers of Lily’s phone, which means the microphones caught her voice.
I rest a hand on Rose’s back and then kiss Jane’s cheek. She touches my jaw with a wider smile, and I say quietly so only Rose and Jane could possibly hear, “The only apology I will make today is to the two of you.” What I decide affects them, more than anyone else backstage.
“It’s unneeded,” Rose tells me, her shoulders pulled back, chin raised, ready for war. I love her for it. “So pocket your unnecessary apology.”
I smile at the passion in her voice. “My pockets are full, darling.”
She rolls her eyes. “Of what?”
“Of love.”
She presses her lips to stop from smiling, but she’s doing a horrible job hiding it.
“She’s smiling for me,” I muse. “It’s a standing ovation before the speech has even begun.”
She controls her expression and it morphs into a glare.
I grin. “Rose, Rose, Rose,” I feign contemplation, “always making me work for the win.” Just how I like.
“Richard, Richard, Richard,” she practically smites my name. And then she pauses, her eyes drilling into me. “Go win.”
It brings me back to the moment, and Naomi pads through the black curtain, entering backstage. “They’re waiting for you,” she tells me.
I kiss Rose’s cheek and then Jane’s again. I leave their side.
Corbin lingers by the stage entrance. “Where’s your speech?” His eyes dance around my suit.
“In my head,” I say easily.
He curses like this is going to go terribly.
“Do you know me?” I ask him. I never cower, not an inch of my six-foot-four build. With every ounce of confidence I possess, I remain upright, assured and tall.
He takes too long to answer, so I extend my hand to shake his, as though we’re meeting for the first time. By the guile of my assertive demeanor, he does shake my hand.
“I’m Richard Connor Cobalt,” I tell him. “The man whose IQ doubles yours. I would suggest scripts for yourself, maybe line-by-line and in large font, but I won’t ever need one.” I pat him on the shoulder. “I’d tell you to remember this, but I’m extremely hard to forget.”
I push past his startled body and enter the main stage. Cameras flash in quick succession, journalists seated in about eight rows with tripods stationed around the parameter, filming the conference. I stand behind the glass podium.
No paper.
No teleprompter.
I haven’t rehearsed a poignant speech for hours on end. I haven’t recited anything to Rose or in the mirror. I construct what I need to say in the moment, and I trust myself wholeheartedly to accomplish this to my high, impossible standards.
I’m used to the bright flashes, and I hardly blink as they appear in waves. Every journalist sits erect, eager for answers: Did you really sleep with those guys? Have you had sex with Loren? Do you really love Rose? How does Jane fit into all of this?
When the cameras settle and I’m no longer bathed in blinding light, I finally speak. “There is nothing that the media could say to me that would justify the way they’ve acted. You can hound me. You can follow me, but in no way should you frighten those around me. To harm my wife and potentially harm my daughter—there is no excuse that could put any of you on the right side of morality.”
The day where Rose almost fell in a hoard of cameramen floods me. Many news stations condemned the paparazzi for surrounding us, for causing Rose to rip out her hair just to protect our daughter, but not much has changed since then.
“Is she your wife only in the legal sense?!” a reporter yells. Security squeezes through the rows to escort him out, but he struggles to stay put, clinging to the frame of his plastic chair.
I don’t acknowledge him. “I met Rose when I was fifteen and she was fourteen, and through what she would call fate and I’d call circumstance of our hobbies, we’d cross paths dozens of times over the course of a decade.”
I’m unlocking a private history book for millions of people to read, and maybe they still won’t understand the love I share with Rose, but they’ll at least know how much I desire her.
“At seventeen, I attended the same national Model UN conference as Rose, and a delegate for Greenland locked us in a janitorial closet. He also stole our phones.”
The journalists chuckle at the image.
“He had to beat us dishonorably because he couldn’t beat us any other way.” I stare around the room, at all of them, and they quiet at this statement. “Rose said being locked in a confined space with me was the worst two hours of her life.”
They look bemused, brows furrowing. I can’t help but smile.
“You’re confused because you don’t know whether she was exaggerating or whether she was being truthful. But the truth is that we are complex people with the ability to love to hate and to hate to love, and I wouldn’t trade her for any other person.”
They jot notes, the cameras flash again.
“So that day, stuck beside mops and dirtied towels, I could’ve picked the lock five minutes in and let her go. Instead, I purposefully spent two hours with a girl who wore passion like a dress made of diamonds and hair made of flames. Every day of my life, I am enamored. Every day of my life, I am bewitched. And every day of my life, I spend it with her.”
My chest swells with more power, lifting me higher.
“I’ve slept with many different kinds of people, and yes, the three that spoke to the press are among them.”