“Sure.”
“Have you ever heard of the Million Dollar Roundtable?” “No,” Shelly replied.
“It’s the largest insurance association in existence. A group of the most successful companies. Pretty much anybody who is an anybody in the business. Right, Dad?”
Sal said, “It’s the top-selling people from around the world.
They represent every insurance company out there.” “You were a member of the group?” she asked.
“I was the CEO for twenty-five years.”
“Anyway, we have an idea to raise some money,” Nick said. “And more. The plan is to go to the Roundtable’s annual convention next month and get a hundred of these companies to pledge ten million dollars each. That will get us a billion dollars.”
“A billion? You can get us a billion dollars?” Shelly exclaimed. “Well,” said Nick, “we have a reason to raise the billion dollars.” Shelly leaned forward.
“The deal is, we raise the billion dollars, then hold a press conference at St. Theresa’s tying the Kristen Foundation into it, and we tell the world we are looking for a cure for cancer. The reward? One billion dollars. You bring us the cure, we hand you a billion dollars.”
Shelly sat in silence for a moment. She loved the idea of one billion dollars being raised to help her kids, but she knew that billions upon billions had already been spent and there was still no cure.
Sal clasped his hands together. “What my son is trying to say is that we make the pot of money so big that people all over the world would take notice. We all want a cure, right?”
“Of course we do.”
“If we use your Foundation as a base camp and try something that has never been tried before—I mean a billion dollars,” said Sal. “Who wouldn’t pay attention to that? In one lump sum to the first ones to bring us the cure?”
Playing the devil’s advocate as she did so well concerning this topic, Shelly sighed. “Do either of you know what cancer is like?” There was a sudden silence in the room, a room that had seen more cancer than most family should ever have to endure. “I’m sorry, that was insensitive.” Shelly backtracked. “What I’m trying to say