Bella: I’m on BART now. Just left Berkeley. I’m headed over to the lab, and I’ll work there probably pretty late. I didn’t tell you this, but my lab manager quit last week.
Me: Oh crap, but are you telling me as your boyfriend or are you telling me as your potential investor?
Bella: Well, certainly as my boyfriend. Although… is that what we are calling ourselves?
Me: I think we can be safe to say that I’m comfortable with that. Are you?
Bella: Okay. I think so.
Me: Me too.
Bella: Then, as our potential investor, I’m telling you that we are looking for a new lab manager. I’m unclear on why the current lab manager left. One of my goals is to reach out to him and get some feedback so that when we hire a new replacement that we are able to fix what is wrong so that the next person doesn’t leave.
Me: Great answer.
Me: I’ve been invited to play golf on Saturday morning, probably somewhat early, with some people from work. Are you okay with that?
Bella: Yes, absolutely. Don’t let me hinder you. I have plenty of things to do this weekend, which will include hitting the farmers market before I head over to the lab and probably spend most of the day in the lab.
Me: We do have plans for your cousin's party on Saturday night. Let me know if I need to rent a tux or something.
Bella: You’re funny. My family is not that formal. Dress like you did the day you came to my office.
Me: I know on Sunday you’ll want to work, but I thought since I’m meeting your family on Saturday night, I will drag you to a dinner on Sunday night with the partners and significant others. How does that sound?
She’s quiet, and I’m getting nervous. It takes some time before she responds.
Bella: Sorry, I was walking from BART to Muni. Sunday night sounds fun. I look forward to seeing you with your friends.
Me: You know, as long as you’re there, I don’t care what we’re doing.
Bella: Have a great day. I’m just arriving at the lab. I’ll text you when I’m headed home. Let me know if you want me to meet you. Did you like staying in the Mission last night?
Me: I will stay in the Mission as often as you let me. Have a great day.
I sit back in my chair, and savor this feeling. I’m totally excited about how this relationship is developing. Everything about her pleases me, and I can’t believe how comfortable I feel with her so quickly.
Chapter fifteen
Isabella
Walking into the lab, I’m stunned at how quiet it is for a midday afternoon. Turning to the receptionist, I ask, “Where is Dr. Johnson?”
“I’m not sure. He came in this morning and said he’d be back but didn’t specify a time.”
Part of me is really happy he’s not here. The lab is active with the various scientists working on their roles, and everyone seems to have more spring in their step and be overall much happier without Dr. Johnson’s presence. I need to figure out how to balance him better. Honestly, if we didn’t need his technique on a new delivery system, which in our case would distribute the medication to the brain, I’d get rid of him.
Eventually, the scientists will be heading up teams, but right now they are doing all the grunt work and generating the data to support the efficacy of our studies. Currently, we are testing on particular plants and human brains of Parkinson patients who have died and donated their brains for a cure. We need to evaluate the disease and how the cells in the brain react. I walk through the recent experiments and look over the data. We are almost to the point where we can start some trials. And we hope that within a years’ time, we are ready to do clinical trials. It’s an ambitious schedule, but I’ve been working on this by myself for six years as a grad student, so we have a lot of research to fall back on.
Before Dr. Johnson returns, I decide I’m going to make the difficult call to Jim Thompson, our former lab manager, and determine why he left so suddenly. As I think about the recent turnover, I’m left wondering if Dr. Johnson is trying to get everyone to quit. It costs us time and money to hire replacements. I shake my head in disappointment. I dial and get my former lab manager’s voice mail. “Hey, Jim. This is Isabella Vargas. What happened? Can you give me a callback? I understand if you don’t want to come back and work for us anymore, but I’d like to understand what made you decide to quit so suddenly. You’ve been with me since the very beginning, and it’s important to me that I understand. If we’re doing something wrong, I’d like to fix it. I’d appreciate it if you could give me a call.” I leave my personal cell phone number.
When I hang up, I hear Dr. Johnson yelling at one of our research scientists, and I walk out to see what’s going on. “What’s the problem?”
“I’ve got this,” he informs me.
Tina looks like she’s on the verge of tears.
“Tina, can you excuse us?” I say quietly.
She nods and runs out of the lab.
“You have no right to dismiss her like that.”
“What could she have done that deserved a berating like you were giving her?”
“She’s behind, and if she doesn’t speed it up, I’m going to fire her.”
“She probably wouldn’t be behind if we still had a lab manager.” I need to change the subject because I’m not going to let him fire her. “Where were you this morning?”
“Why does it matter?”
“Because I asked.”
“I was looking at some possible new office and lab space.”
“Why would you be looking at new space? We are eight months into a ten-year lease.”
“You fucked up when you signed that lease. This space is going to be too small when we get this funding. We’re going to need to add not only the lab portion but also set up for clinical studies. Plus we need to include space for marketing and sales and all kinds of different people to make sure that this becomes a possibility.”
“We have more than enough room in this space. Marketing and sales won’t be an issue until we’ve gone through multiple clinical trials and we are dealing with the FDA on trying to get approved. What happens if we are sold? There are so many opportunities and chances of things going sideways. To get this to market, we’ll need over two-hundred million dollars. Why would we spend any venture capital on deadweight at this point? There’s nothing for a marketing and sales team to do except be in the way and spend money we can use for development and research.”
“You don’t know how any of this works,” he mocks. “Don’t worry your little head about it. I got this all under control. You just worry about your part, and I’ll worry about mine.”
I try to control my anger. “You don’t understand, Dr. Johnson, this is my part.” I wave my hands around. “This is all my part. I hate to remind you, yet again, that I own 51 percent of this company. You have no ability to sign a contract with anyone without my approval.”
He looks at me with death-ray eyes and then storms off. I swear I hear him say, “We’ll just see about that.”
I can’t imagine that Christopher and SHN would agree with him. Why spend their money before we need to? There’s just something that isn’t right, and I can’t quite figure out what it is.
My phone rings and distracts me. It’s one of our suppliers.
“Ms. Vargas, we have a bill for just over eight thousand dollars that is over one hundred and twenty days overdue. We were wondering when you plan on paying the bill. We’ve also received an order from one of your scientists, but until we receive payment, we will not be able to fulfill the order.”
“I’m sorry. This is news to me. I will check with our accounts payable and find what’s happening.”
“Thank you, Ms. Vargas. If we don’t receive payment in five days, we will hand this over to collections, and you’ll be unable to order from our supply house in the future without establishing a significant retainer.”
“I see on my caller ID your number.” I repeat it back to her. “Can I investigate and ca
ll you back?”
“Of course. Five days, Ms. Vargas,” she stresses to me.
What the fuck? We have plenty of money in the bank.
I walk over to Mindy. “I just received a call from Lab Suppliers, and they tell me we’re three months overdue on paying our bill. They are about to shut us off. Are you getting copies of the bills?”
She nods. “I’ve written checks and given them to Dr. Johnson, but he won’t sign them.”
“Do you know why?”
“He said we needed to show investors that we have money.”
“What else is outstanding?”
“Every bill, with the exception of payroll. He told me once we get the funding, I can pay the vendors.”
“That’s a problem because we won’t be seeing any money from the venture capital firm for six to eight months, and that’s if they choose to invest in us. We’re not expecting a check tomorrow or even next week. It’ll be a while. How many bills do we have outstanding?”
“As I said, it’s almost all of them.”
“Can you put together a list of bills and our bank balance?”
“I have it put together already.” She types a few keys on her keyboard, and I hear a document being printed. She hands it to me. My palms begin to sweat, and my stomach falls. I feel like I’m going to vomit. We only have enough money to become current and probably go another six months. How did we get so far off our budget? In our original business plan we could make it another two years before being desperate for cash.
“Please write checks for all of these outstanding bills and bring them to me for signature.”
I take the list of bills and march into Dr. Johnson’s office. He’s on the phone on what sounds like a personal call with his investment advisor, but I don’t care. He can talk to me now. He points to the door, and I cross my arms in defiance and then point to the spreadsheet.
He rolls his eyes and tells the person he’s talking to, “I’ll have to call you back. Yes, you can buy those stocks.” He ends the call and turns back to me. “That was very rude.”
“Well, I guess, like everyone else, you should take care of your personal business on your own time.” He hates me, but I don’t care. I hand him the printout that Mindy gave me.
“What is this?” he demands.
“This is a list of all our outstanding bills. We are about to be evicted, we are going to lose our laboratory supply house, and we are most likely going to have our lab equipment repossessed.”
“That will never happen. They threaten, but that’s all they’ll do.”
“We should have discussed this.”
“I have my responsibilities, and this is one of them.”
Breathing through my nose in staccato bursts to control the urge to reach across and punch him in the nose. “This is unacceptable.”
“We’ll get the check from SHN in the next few weeks, and we’ll pay everyone.”
“Christopher Reinhardt told me that they were a good six to eight months out from fully vetting us and writing us a check. Why would we hold bills for that long? We’re in serious trouble if we are not paying our bills.”
“You don’t understand how to manage a business.”
“Maybe not, but I know that we want people to pay us timely, so we pay timely.”
When I turn to leave, he yells after me, “If you take money out of our checking account, we won’t get the funding.”
“I imagine that having several creditors chasing us down for money would be a bigger concern for them.”
“I told you I’m the one worrying about all of this. You need to just concentrate on your side while I concentrate on mine.”
I put my finger in his weasel face, so there is no question as to my seriousness. “What you don’t understand is that since I own 51 percent of this company, I’m financially responsible for 51 percent of the debt, and if this goes under because of your financial malfeasance, then we have a bigger problem. I’m going to owe money on your crap, and that is unacceptable.”
“No need to get bitchy with me just because it’s your time of the month.”
I stop in my tracks. There is no way he just referred to my menstrual cycle. I look to the ceiling and clinch my fists at my side. I consider slapping him, kicking him in his tiny balls, or just flat out firing him. In as menacing voice as I can muster, I tell him, “Your comment is completely inappropriate. I’ll be signing all checks today. You need to figure out what’s going on and where your priorities are, and this company better be a priority.”
“A priority for me? I’m not the one who comes in here three days a week after one o’clock in the afternoon.”
“Yes, you’re right, you don’t come in at one o’clock in the afternoon, but I also don’t see you here at two o’clock in the morning closing down.”
“I don’t take orders from you.”
That’s as good as he can dish. I know I’ve already won, and my blood pressure goes down significantly. “Actually, Dr. Johnson, you do take orders from me as long as I own the majority share of this business. Check your contract.” I march out of his office and into my own. I’m so angry with him I can’t see straight.
I text Christopher.
Me: Can you meet me for coffee right now?
Christopher: In a half hour?
Me: That’s fine. I’ll come to you.
Christopher: There’s a Starbucks across the street from our building.
Me: See you in a half hour.
I look up as Mindy places several checks in front of me. I scoop them up, thanking her. “I’ll be delivering these to the post office myself.”
“I’ve worked for several start-ups, and in my experience, Dr. Johnson isn’t correct,” Mindy whispers at me.
I look around, and just above a whisper, I say, “Thanks, Mindy. I hate to put you in an awkward situation, but let me know if he does anything shifty this afternoon while I’m out.”
“No problem.”
My rideshare drops me at Starbucks. I’m early, but I order drinks for both of us and sit at a table and begin signing the checks. These are going to hurt. We won’t have a lot in our checking account to make it six months. I’m not sure where I’m going to find the funding to cover us until we do get the money—if we get the money.
Christopher comes in and kisses me on the cheek. “Hi, what a pleasant surprise.”
I smile at him and try to put my argument with my business partner aside. “I’m glad you could make it work.”
“What happened? I can see something has upset you.”
“I want to ask my boyfriend a question and not my potential investor. Can you do that for me?”
He nods slowly.
I open the file and show him what I found and that I’m paying the bills. “Is he right? Do you want to see that we’ve got money?”
“You’re both right. We do want to see you have money in the bank, but it would be a bigger concern if you are in collections on your debt.”
I never cry, but that is all I want to do right now as I feel my dream of finding a new medication for Parkinson’s so close but quickly becoming out of reach. “The interest we accrued on these bills make up a month of our operating budget.” I look at him with tears pooling in my eyes. “We’ll never make six months. I’ve drained everything I have ever had and leveraged my mother’s house.”
“As your boyfriend, I will tell you let’s see what we can figure out.” He reaches for my hand and squeezes it. “Can you stay with me tonight?”
We drink our coffee, and he tells me a story of what is going on with one of the partners in his firm who is dealing with the Russian mob. I try to pay attention, but I’m only half listening. I’m moving from angry to scared.
“Do you want to come upstairs and meet some of the team?”
I stand on my tiptoes and kiss him on the cheek. “I’d better not. I have a ton of work to get done.”
“Okay, but promise me to call when you’re heading home, and I’ll c
ome over.”
When I return to the office, Mindy informs me that Dr. Johnson left shortly after I did. “Thanks,” I tell her.
I try to work through the data flowing in from six scientists and do the lab manager’s job and my own. My mind keeps wandering to what Dr. Johnson could be up to. I’m not concentrating and finally give up about ten o’clock. It’s a short day for me, but I can’t do any more. I’m exhausted, and I’m still quite angry. I’m not getting much work done, and I keep dwelling on how I want to shred him a new one.
As I ride home in the rideshare, I think about Christopher. He’s smart, God knows he’s absolutely gorgeous, he’s great in bed, he’s totally into me, and I’d be a fool if I didn’t explore this further. But I’m not sure that the timing is right for us. I decide I can’t see him tonight.
Me: Heading home. Exhausted and going to bed early. Let’s talk tomorrow.
Christopher: I’m disappointed, but I understand. We’ll figure something out. Do you want to try to escape for lunch tomorrow—isn’t it your day in the lab all day?
Me: No, I better not. Things are kind of crazy right now with the loss of the lab manager. And I need to figure out some things.
Christopher: We’re still on for Saturday’s party, right?
Could my cousin’s party be at any worse time? Crap.
Me: Are you crazy? Of course! There’s no way that we could get out of it at this point. My family is preparing questionnaires for you to answer. Don’t be alarmed if somebody brings out a group list of questions to ask you.
Christopher: LOL that would be funny. We could write a book on how to integrate yourself into your family.
Me: There’s no other family like mine. It would scare all men like Fatal Attraction did in the 80s. Have a good night. Sleep well.
Christopher: Sleep well. Let me know if you change your mind about lunch. We’ll handle your challenges at Black Rock together.
My week continues to not add up. I’m doing the job of the lab manager and seemingly taking care of everything else around the lab, but I’m not sure exactly where to find Dr. Johnson.
Longing (Billionaire Venture Capitalist #7): A Billionaire Romance Page 10
