Screen Queens

by Lori Goldstein

  Delia’s mom looked ready to scold Tim, and Delia said, “It’s fine. Mom, Dad, try the zucchini-flour pancakes and head to the auditorium without us. We’ll catch you after the presentation, okay?”

  “If you’re sure . . .” Claire said skeptically. Her face then shifted into a proud smile. “Well, then—”

  “Break a keyboard!” Jeffrey said.

  Tim snorted, and Maddie clenched her jaw, holding herself back from saying something that would only make things worse.

  Delia’s parents hugged her goodbye before embracing Maddie too. Maddie could still feel the strength of Claire Meyer as she and Delia trailed behind Tim.

  “It’s nothing,” Maddie said to reassure Delia, whose bottom lip quivered. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

  Beside her, Delia nodded.

  They both knew Maddie was lying.

  And the moment they crossed into the office in the computer science building that Ryan used while on campus, they knew it wasn’t just something, it was something big.

  Because even Ryan Thompson had never looked this smug. It hung thick in the air, so dense Maddie could hardly breathe.

  “Girls, girls, come in. But we are missing a girl, aren’t we?”

  Maddie mustered a half shrug, half nod.

  Ryan pursed his lips. “Ah, well, you two have the starring roles anyway.”

  Delia shot Maddie a panicked look.

  With an exaggerated sigh, Ryan continued. “Still, a shame not to see Lucy’s reaction when she learns you’ve gotten her kicked out of ValleyStart.”

  “Kicked . . . kicked . . . what?” Delia struggled. “But today’s Demo Day.”

  “Sure it is, but not for you. Unless, of course, you want to proceed after this. It’s entirely up to you, really.” He turned his laptop around. “Here, see for yourselves.”

  An image of Delia and Maddie filled the screen. A pause button covered the middle, but Maddie knew exactly what they’d see underneath. Or rather, who.

  “Alrighty, let me.” Ryan hit play.

  And there was Natalie. At her desk, accepting Delia’s computer and logging in to Pulse.

  “All the tech we have, and turns out, security cameras are the simplest yet most effective. We canned this little lamb when my IT staff got notice of a double login. Logged in at the office and an unknown remote location at the same time. It happens, but this time, her explanation didn’t compute. She was helping another Pulse employee? One whose description matched no one on staff? Imagine my surprise when we reviewed the security footage. Solid gold handed right to me.”

  The video rolled, and Maddie felt sick. As much for what they’d done as for being caught.

  “You’re disqualified, girls. Which you should have been the instant it was revealed that you’d stolen Lit.”

  “But we didn’t—” Delia started.

  “Revealed how?” Maddie interrupted. “What would you know about stolen Lit code that no other ValleyStart administrator knows?”

  Ryan simply smiled, and Maddie searched for a hint of something beneath his bravado. Was he really so arrogant that he wasn’t even a little afraid of what they might have uncovered?

  “Now,” he said, “you can go ahead and give your half-assed presentation on whatever sorry app you’ve come up with in the past five minutes, and I’ll have the police officers waiting in the wings to escort you when you’re finished. Or you can leave quietly, no fuss, no muss.”

  Maddie slid closer to Delia and took her trembling hand. This was why he wasn’t afraid. “You’re blackmailing us?”

  Ryan clasped his hands behind his head and propped his feet up on the desk. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  THIRTY–THREE

  WALKING DEAD • A company not yet out of funding but that clearly won’t become successful, making it unattractive for buyers

  AGAIN. AGAIN, AGAIN, AGAIN.

  It was happening again.

  A fist tight around Delia’s throat.

  Strangling her every breath.

  Dark spots in front of her eyes.

  Obscuring her vision.

  A sledgehammer pounding her temples.

  Making her feel like she was dying.

  She wasn’t dying. She knew she wasn’t. That didn’t make it any less terrifying.

  She pressed her hands flat against the concrete wall of the building, raised her eyes to the blue sky, and focused on a cloud—one, just one, shaped like the Hot Pockets she’d been reheating for weeks. Which made her think of Eric. Which called up his “Breaths raise you from the depths.” It began to loop in her mind, and she kept it going, silently repeating it with each prolonged inhale and each extended exhale. With Maddie at her side—the warmth of her hand penetrating the linen tank Delia had borrowed from Lucy—Delia’s vision began to clear. Her heartbeat began to regulate. Her muscles relaxed and her mind focused on regaining control, calming the anxiety that held her body hostage, commanding it at will.

  “Dee?” Delia had never heard Maddie sound so afraid. “Are you okay?”

  “Physically,” Delia said, though a throbbing still beat beneath her ribs. “I—I’m getting there. But that . . . Maddie, it’s over, everything, and it’s all my fault.”

  Maddie shook her head. “We did this.”

  “Didn’t you see that video? It was me. I gave her my laptop. It was my idea. It’s my fault.”

  “No. No way, Delia.”

  The voice came from behind. Delia spun around to see Lucy with Emma and Sadie.

  “I texted them,” Maddie said.

  “Then they know what I did.” Delia tried not to let the tears welling up spill. “Lucy, I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault.”

  Exhaustion weighed down Lucy’s eyes, but what Delia expected to see—anger, fear, sadness—none of that was written across Lucy’s face. What was there was what had been there since day one. Determination.

  “You’re not taking credit for this,” Lucy said. “We took him on together.”

  “But—”

  “No,” Maddie and Lucy said at the same time. They looked at each other, Maddie giving a short laugh while Lucy grinned.

  Something that would have never happened on day one.

  Sadie cleared her throat and stepped forward. “And now . . . ? What?” She placed her hand flat against her jutted hip. “We just give up? Go for sushi?”

  The panic attack had ebbed, but the feel of it remained in Delia’s mind. She didn’t want to invite another, and yet she also didn’t just want to go for sushi or pizza or frozen yogurt or anything else. She didn’t want to give up.

  “I should have said something.” Delia spoke softly. “Told him we knew about the secret table—that we knew what he was doing.”

  “It’s a good thing you didn’t,” Emma said. “He’d go for the jugular.”

  “I almost forgot,” Maddie said. “What you wrote about Pulse not having a heart? He made you take it down?”

  “Oh no, no way,” Emma said sarcastically. “Ryan only suggested that if I didn’t want my dad to hear about how I’d been hitting on the founder of Pulse to win ValleyStart that maybe I should consider changing the caption on my profile.”

  Lucy’s jaw clenched. “She’s right. No matter what you said, Delia, he’d have talked his way out of it and then definitely have had you arrested. Probably thinks we were fishing. He’d never believe we could actually have something on him.” Lucy’s voice got sharper, angrier, and Delia realized just how much Lucy had been keeping inside all this time. “He thinks if he threatens us, we’ll back down.”

  “Is he right?” Maddie asked.

  “Do we want him to be?” Lucy said.

  Delia let her eyes focus on each of them, then stepped back until she saw them together. The image was so much stronger.

  “I don’t,” Delia said. “
I wouldn’t do it alone, but with all of you . . . well, as my mom would say, the show must go on. She didn’t let childbirth stop her, so what’s the threat of a little jail time?”

  Lucy sucked in her lower lip, moving forward to narrow the distance between them. “And who knows . . . first all-girls team to—”

  “Win,” Delia said.

  “Accessorize with handcuffs,” Maddie said.

  “Kick Ryan Thompson in the bal—” Emma said, stopping when she laid eyes on Sadie. “Backside. In the backside.”

  Sadie groaned. “I’m eleven, not five.”

  They all drifted closer, forming a tight circle and leaning in.

  “So we’re actually doing this?” Delia said. “Consequences be damned?”

  Lucy looked at each of them. “Do you trust me?”

  A chorus of yeses and Maddie’s “uh-huh” sent a shiver down Delia’s spine.

  “Then we’re presenting, no matter what,” Lucy said. “I just need to make one call.”

  “To who?” Sadie asked.

  Lucy locked eyes with Emma. “My editor at Teen Vogue.”

  Sadie’s hand slapped her hip. “Yowza. And to think you’re no longer a 10. Pulse doesn’t know what it’s missing.”

  “It’s about to,” Lucy said.

  A ding sounded on Delia’s phone. She checked it and motioned to Lucy. The others began talking, and Delia and Lucy slipped to the side.

  She showed Lucy her phone. “Do you think we should still do this too? Because, well, I was just wondering—”

  “No. No, no, no.” Lucy shook her head. “You’ve got to stop with the justs. We all do. Me, you, even my mom. We can’t ‘just’ wonder. We have to stop ‘just’ checking in. No more ‘I hope it’s okay, but I just needed to know . . .’ No more couching. No more being afraid to say what we mean. To ask for what we want. Not anymore.” Lucy opened the contacts on her phone. “Now, I do think we should still do this—all of it. But say the word, and we’re going for sushi.”

  “No,” Delia said. Lucy’s face fell. “I mean, no, I don’t want sushi—kind of ever again. But I do want to do this. Dial.” That Lucy’s resulting nod had a slight hesitation in it made Delia feel better, not worse.

  Lucy hit the call button, and Delia texted Cassie back: Go straight to the theater. See you soon.

  Cassie:

  Delia:

  THIRTY–FOUR

  MOONSHOT • Investing in a risky area with the hope that it will be incredibly successful, i.e., “reach the moon”

  THIS. IS. IT.

  Everything. Not just for the past few weeks but for the past few years. More.

  A current powered by fear and disbelief and the chutzpah she’d inherited from her mom flowed through Lucy as she tucked her legs underneath her on the seat between Maddie and Delia at the back of the auditorium.

  If only she didn’t have to sit through everyone’s presentations to get to “it.”

  Truth? Lucy was impressed by what most of her classmates had done. The acceptance rate at ValleyStart was two percent, and this was why. Creative, innovative, ambitious, far-reaching, many of the projects would have a good shot at attracting investors if this were that type of program.

  They’d slipped in after it started, after Nishi had sent an email asking what happened, why Ryan had just told her that Lucy’s team had been disqualified for violating the morality clause of the contract they’d signed. Lucy wrote back, asking for Nishi’s cell number, saying she’d be in touch shortly.

  Shortly was now. The final team was concluding its presentation. The next-to-final team.

  “Go ahead,” Maddie whispered.

  Lucy drew out her phone and texted Nishi: Someone dumped a whole cart of lemons on my doorstep, and I promise not to make a single glass of lemonade. But I need a favor. She paused and then added: Ryan won’t like it.

  Nishi: Good. What do you need?

  Lucy: Don’t let things end. Announce that there’s one more team left.

  Nishi: Only if it’s yours. Starting to feel like curiosity’s not just terminal for cats.

  Lucy whispered, “We’re a go,” and her stomach twisted into a dozen knots as Nishi walked onstage.

  She did exactly as Lucy asked, and Ryan leapt from his seat.

  Nishi laughed heartily into the microphone. “Well, someone’s as excited as I am, it seems. But, please, Mr. Thompson, take a seat before whispers of favoritism ripple through the crowd.”

  Ryan’s cheeks puffed like a blowfish as Lucy climbed the stairs to the stage. Her hand rose to her neck, centering the Star of David necklace she’d chosen that morning, the gift from her mom that had been a gift to her from her own mother—passing through from generation to generation. As important to her now as Delia’s and Maddie’s pieces had been to them all along.

  Delia and Maddie used the side entrance to go backstage and upload the PowerPoint presentation to the projector.

  In the few seconds of delay, a silence descended on the room. Lucy lengthened her torso and teetered on tiptoes, but even in her wedges, she couldn’t reach the mic. She unclipped it from the stand and held it in one hand. She scanned the audience, her heartbeat echoing in her ears. The confidence she’d never once been without seemed to elude her.

  And then she saw Gavin off to the side. He mouthed something Lucy couldn’t understand. Then he did it again: “Tin can. You got this.”

  “You don’t have to be the best, you just have to act like you are.”

  Freaking Gavin Cox.

  But, damn straight, Lucy was the best. No acting required. She clutched the microphone in her hand, stepped forward, and tried to steady her rapid pulse by focusing straight ahead. On the woman smiling at her from the front row. Abigail Katz.

  She came?

  She came.

  The Girl Empowered logo, all pink and blue and swirly with enough white space to fill in with whatever color one desired, blazed on the screen behind Lucy, and an energy ricocheted through her.

  She pushed aside thoughts of Gavin and Ryan and Stanford and everything that had gone wrong.

  Then stopped.

  And pulled them all back in.

  Because ignoring the pieces that had gone wrong meant ignoring the pieces of herself that had changed because of them. Happy accidents. And unhappy ones.

  She channeled Nishi’s warm smile and her mom’s authoritative tone and her own mix of brains and charm that had gotten her this far and concentrated on something she hadn’t fully believed in until meeting Maddie and Delia: a support system.

  One the women featured in Girl Empowered needed then, one the girls they hoped would be using the app needed now.

  “Girl Empowered,” she began, raising a hand to the screen. “Our app is like every app—made up of numbers and letters, programs and code, and hoping to attract users in an underserved market. But it’s more personal than that, because that market is us.”

  Lucy spent most of her introduction describing the app, ending with the talks they hoped to incorporate by successful women. Which led her to her mom.

  “I was fortunate to grow up in a place that values the changes technology can bring to the world and in a home with a parent who was striving to do just that. My mother sent me to tech day camps. She set an example for me every day. She showed me a world I may not have found on my own. But the truth is, most kids aren’t me, especially most girls. The majority of schools in this country don’t teach computer programming, a deficiency seen across communities, but even more so for minorities, especially black and Latino children. And yet tech jobs are the fastest growing in the country. Who’s filling these jobs? Who’s going to fill them in the future? Right now, fewer than one in five computer science graduates are women, and the number of female computer scientists is actually falling, down double-digit percentage points in the past ten y
ears. If we don’t act now, women will phase out of computer science entirely, doing a disservice to the women who pioneered in the field.”

  Lucy began to move to the side of the stage. “Women like Ada Lovelace, credited with being the first computer programmer. Her theories in the 1840s were a precursor to machines that had yet to be built. Our app celebrates women like Ada, introducing them to the next generation. Why? Because we need to get girls engaged and excited about computer science. We need to show them role models who look like them and make them understand that there’s a place for them, if they want it. Early on, it seems both boys and girls have that bug—pardon the pun.” Lucy winked. “But studies show that interest in computer science drops as girls age. Our goal with Girl Empowered is to capture those girls and offer educational coding games and programs entwined with compelling stories of historical women that will age with them, fueling their interest before it flames out.”

  As Lucy passed the microphone to Maddie, she noticed Ryan had relaxed. Whatever he’d thought might happen hadn’t.

  Yet.

  * * *

  * * *

  Maddie accepted the mic from Lucy, and her “nailed it” crossed with Lucy’s “good luck.” Not particularly afraid of public speaking, Maddie didn’t delight in it the way Lucy did either. Fortunately, Maddie wasn’t speaking alone.

  Sadie zoomed onto the stage on a scooter. Maddie set her laptop on a table Delia had stealthily carried onto the stage while Lucy was speaking. Maddie attached her computer to the cable coming up from the floor to sync it with the screen. As Sadie circled her, Maddie opened Girl Empowered. A tingle spread beneath her skin at the logo that had been confined to her laptop screen projected for all to see.

  “What’s that?” Sadie asked, doing a figure eight on the stage.

  “An app of games.”

  “Computer games?”

  Maddie nodded. “About coding.”

  Sadie scrunched up her face. “B-o-r-i-n . . .” She dropped her head and mimed snoring. Everyone laughed. “You want my brother, not me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”