The Nobodies

by Liza Palmer

  “What did they say to you?” Thornton asks. Hani appears at the top of the staircase.

  “No, don’t tell him anything yet, I can’t hear you.” Thornton and I get to the top of the staircase and sit at our chairs, and we all roll into a tight circle.

  “It was nothing. Chris was being a dick about this being my second wind and how it’s hard to get back on your feet again,” I say.

  “And what did you say?” Hani asks.

  “I told him that I was going to be with Bloom for the long haul.”

  “Which is technically true,” Thornton adds.

  “Exactly.” My phone buzzes in my pocket. “Oh!” Thornton and Hani flinch as I reach into my pocket. “It’s Elise’s mom.” I tug my headphones from my pocket and plug them in and answer the phone. “Hello, Mrs. Nakamura. Hold on one second while I find a private place to speak freely.”

  I bound down the stairs, trying to find any empty room in which to have a private conversation. In the end, I sprint all the way right outside the front doors of Bloom and out onto Melrose Avenue.

  Out of breath, I listen as Mrs. Nakamura walks me through her contract negotiations with Tavia. Tavia wants to place the story with the San Francisco Chronicle because she feels it’ll have the most impact, as it relates to Silicon Valley. I text all of this to Hani, Elise, and Thornton in real time, and get their feedback and any questions they have. Once I have their sign-off, I tell Mrs. Nakamura to send over the contracts for us to sign and we will send over a digital file of the story so Tavia and the Chronicle can run it through legal and dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s.

  I thank her for all she’s done and we sign off. I’m not halfway through the main area of Bloom when my phone dings with the email from Mrs. Nakamura. I walk up the stairs to an awaiting Hani and Thornton.

  “Where’s Elise?” I ask, before I say another word.

  “She’s in a meeting. I know … it’s … it’s so her,” Hani says, unable to keep from smiling.

  “Can you get this thing off my phone and how are we going to sign it and—” Thornton takes my phone, his hand lingering on mine just long enough to lower my heart rate by about twenty points.

  “I got this,” he says, walking over to his desk and tapping away at his computer. I look from him to Hani.

  “I knew it,” Hani whispers.

  “That’s what Elise—”

  “I knew before Elise.”

  “How?”

  “The Batmobile. I’d never seen him do something like that. It was the first time I saw him giggle,” Hani says, smiling just thinking about it.

  “The Batmobile is his?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I thought it was yours?”

  “Uh, no. I’m a Marvel girl.” Hani is absolutely offended. “Thornton is DC. It’s…” Hani waves her hand in front of her face. “It’s a point of contention, so…”

  “I didn’t know,” I say.

  “Well, now you do.” Hani exhales loudly while mumbling something about the DC universe and how could I possibly think the Batmobile was hers of all things!

  Thornton calls us over and somehow we electronically sign a contract and wait as Elise emails her signature over to join the others.

  “The Batmobile was yours?” I ask, after e-signing the contract. Thornton’s face colors.

  “Are you blushing?” I ask, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. He leans into my touch.

  “Yes,” he says, focusing back on his computer. “We’re all signed. You want me to send it back to Mrs. Nakamura?” I nod, Hani gives a big thumbs-up, and Thornton sends our signed contract along with a digital copy of the story on to Tavia, who’ll then send it on to the San Francisco Chronicle.

  It is officially out of our hands.

  “You know what?” Hani asks, standing up and lunging into a superhero position.

  “What?” I ask, slightly numb.

  “Chicken butt,” Hani says unable to help herself. “No, but really. You know what?” Thornton and I are quiet. “I’m serious this time, no funny business.”

  “What?” Thornton asks.

  “I am going to go get my lady and make like a tree and leaf,” Hani says, closing down her thoroughly scrubbed work laptop. Thornton and I look at each other. Why are we hanging around? Thornton spent all morning scrubbing our laptops of anything personal. Our desks are cleaned off, and we know for a fact that, after today’s, we will not be receiving another paycheck from the “good” people at Bloom. “You guys want to make like a baby and head out?” Hani tucks her chair under her desk. Thornton stands, walks over to his desk, and shuts down his computer, then tucks his chair under his desk as well. “You guys ready to make like a bread truck and haul some buns?”

  “How many of these do you have?” I ask, shutting down my computer, picking up my coffee mug, and looping my messenger bag over my head.

  “Millions,” she says as I tuck my chair under my desk.

  We stand at the top of the stairs and look back at the loft. Thornton holds his hand up in the air. The high five. Hani thwacks his hand without a second thought and bounds down the stairs.

  “Oh, god,” I say.

  “You know you want to,” he says. I look at his elbow and hear the crack of my hand on his ripple through the loft. We smile at such a small victory, hoping many more will follow. We walk down the stairs and then across the main area of Bloom. Elise and Hani are already outside waiting for us. Talking and laughing.

  “You ready?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” he says.

  “I never got sorted,” I say.

  “Yeah, neither did I,” he says, with a wink. Thornton takes my hand in his and we walk past the front desk, say a sincere goodbye to Caspian, and without looking back, stride out the front door, never to return.

  22

  Redemption

  “Messrs. Lyndon and Lawrence have no comment other than to commend Ms. Dixon on her thorough reporting and to thank her for shedding a light on what she believed was corruption at the highest level. Many older Americans are just as perplexed with the fine print of technology, and while Ms. Dixon is correct that Bloom does, in fact, utilize a server farm to safeguard our clients’ data, it is just that and not more. A safeguard.

  In a show of good faith, Messrs. Lyndon and Lawrence have donated a share of this year’s profits to several organizations whose mission it is to celebrate and protect the First Amendment.

  We look forward to serving the American people in the future.”

  I read it again and again.

  “Many older Americans,” I say, finally pulling into the parking space just inside the studio lot.

  “Yeah, but it’s not working. People are calling bullshit left and right all over social media,” Lynn says as I shut off Billy’s truck’s engine. “That was so smart to get screenshots of their website before the story went up.”

  “Yeah, I’m so glad we did that. What does it say now?” I can hear Lynn clicking around on her computer.

  “CAM is nowhere to be found,” Lynn says.

  “They’re trying to get away with it,” I say, putting the phone on speaker and switching over to social media, where the hashtag #bloomgoesboom is now trending.

  I click on the hashtag and along with my story, and think pieces about my story, there are uploaded vlogs from Bloom of people cleaning out their desks, raiding the canteen, and giving Chris’s and Asher’s office doors the middle finger. Even Mackenzie has taken a selfie in which all of the stuff from her desk, along with her Bloom swag, is packed up in a box and sitting just behind her in the back seat of her car. Her caption is simply a string of wineglass emojis.

  “Yeah, but they won’t,” Lynn says. I click through photos of the server farm, Chris and Asher pushing their way into the Bloom offices, and stock photos of Silicon Valley and all manner of computers, most of which are so outdated that they reinforce Asher and Chris’s statement that most people don’t know the first thing about technology ot
her than how to post on social media. “When does your meeting start?”

  “In ten minutes,” I say, pulling the keys out of the ignition. I can hear my voice as I reply to Lynn. It’s hard and clipped. And as we sign off and I walk toward the entrance of the bungalow, the last thing I want is to ask myself why that is. But, of course, I know the answer to that question; I just don’t like it.

  I check in with the woman at the front desk, thank her for the bottle of water, and sit among the movie posters this particular production company has made over the last year. I pocket my phone as I’m called into the small development office by a young man in an expensive suit. Once inside, two other young men join us and the meeting goes just as all the others have.

  The young men brood about what complicated anti-heroes Chris Lawrence and Asher Lyndon are. They want to “drill down” on what was behind such a desperate choice and really highlight the themes of societal pressure on young men these days and what their relationships with their fathers were like and, you know, have we talked to their schoolmates about whether they were bullied or not? Then, you know, they want to really build out their past, show their home lives, and isn’t Asher engaged and, you know, what does his fiancée think of him as a man? They pitch several young white male actors who’d be perfect and that, you know what, this could be an Oscar vehicle for them if we play our cards right.

  And then, like clockwork, the meeting builds to a swelling battle cry that what they believe this story to be about is redemption. Who among us, the young man asks. There but for the grace of God go I, another young man sighs.

  “We want this movie to—” The third young man pauses, looks out the window and out onto the sprawling movie lot. “Inspire.” He laughs to himself. The other two men join in. I’m positive they have no idea what they’re laughing about. “We’re all flawed.” The other two men nod worshipfully. “We’ve all got a little Chris and Asher in us, you know?” All three men turn their gazes toward me.

  “Uh-huh,” I say. I stand, shake their hands, they tell me how excited they are to get to work and can’t wait to hear from me. I smile and say my goodbyes.

  I walk back out to the banged-up truck, marveling at how my story about toppling a billion-dollar tech company just became an inspirational tale about a couple of flawed anti-heroes.

  I wrench the truck’s door closed, drop my purse next to me, and violently shove my keys into the ignition. I bang on the steering wheel. Again and again.

  “Redemption,” I repeat. I start the old truck up and reverse out of the space, shaking my head. As I drive, I get progressively madder about every meeting that was billed as everything I’d ever wanted. “Redemption, my ass.”

  I pull the truck over on a small side street just off Highland and shut it off. I rip the name tag I got at the studio’s security gate off my sweater, fold it up, and shove it into my purse with all the others like it. I roll down the window and let the cool breeze in. It’s getting hotter. Almost summer. Closing in on a year since I was laid off.

  I pick up my phone. Desperate not to think, even though that’s exactly why I pulled over, I scroll through some texts. Thornton wants to meet me back at my house. I give him my ETA and tell him I can’t wait to see him. Which is the truth. Lynn asks how the meeting went. I leave that one unanswered, and it looks as though I missed a call from Mom. I listen to her voicemail and it’s just her telling me that there’s an accident on the 110 freeway, so I should probably take the 134 freeway home.

  I pull up my inbox. These emails are an actual fantasy sequence of responses from every person I’d ever emailed for a job in all those months and years. Would I like to write a story on this, contribute to that, there’s a book agent they’d like me to meet.

  And at the very top of the inbox is an email from someone at The New Yorker. They’d like to chat about a long-form piece they’re working on about Silicon Valley. They liked my “outsider’s take” and would I consider joining the team. It would involve moving to Palo Alto for at least three months, possibly as long as six, but they believe it’d be a perfect fit for me. I drop my phone back into my purse and sit. Officially too numb to feel.

  I start the old truck up again and roar down the quiet side street toward Cahuenga Boulevard, away from the 110 freeway and toward the 134 freeway, just like Mom advised.

  I pull down our long driveway and see Thornton’s old orange Volvo waiting. He’s standing just in front of it. Hands in his pockets. Sunglasses. I smile as I rumble up to him. I shut the truck off, grab my purse, push open the door, and hop out onto the dusty driveway.

  “So how was your big, fancy meeting?” he asks, taking off his sunglasses. I lean into him for a kiss.

  “Same,” I say as we continue on inside the house. “Always the same.”

  “That’s actually chilling—pathological, really,” he says, opening the front door and waiting for me to go in first.

  I step inside and the quiet surrounds us. Dad and Billy are working at the nursery, Anne and Poppy are at the park, and Mom is volunteering at the local elementary school’s community garden. I drop my purse on the dining room table and by the time I’ve turned around Thornton has his laptop set up on the dining room table just next to my purse.

  “You working on something?” I ask, walking over to the sink in search of a glass of water. I pull a squat Mason jar from the cupboard and fill it.

  “I know you haven’t asked me what I want—” My stomach drops. “What I want to do with my life, not us. Job wise.” Thornton motions to the chair just next to him. I sit. I’m growing nervous. I think about the New Yorker offer and the temporary move to Palo Alto that I haven’t mentioned yet.

  “I knew you’d tell me when you were ready. Which, I’m assuming, is…”

  “Yeah, now.” Thornton tucks his chair in closer to the table and taps away on his laptop. “When I went into the Bloom server farm, something clicked. Every single person in there lied. To me. Someone they knew for sure was on their team and even knew a little bit—more than they thought I did, anyway—about what they were talking about. And even then, they tried it.”

  “I didn’t know that,” I say.

  “Before we … this little presentation is kind of a good news, bad news situation, so…”

  “Oh my god, why would you tell me that?”

  “I … I actually don’t know. I saw you getting all excited and melty about me having found something to do and just felt bad about … you know—”

  “Felt bad about what?”

  “What’s going to come next.” Thornton taps a few keys and screen after screen of chaos comes up one after another. “This is the data—some of it, anyway—that I pulled from the servers at the Bloom server farm. I’ve been going through it ever since. I don’t know why. At first, it was probably just a puzzle, looking at their coding, seeing how they did it, really just trying to translate what Chris and Asher were saying Bloom did, versus what the guys in the server farm said was happening. But then it became something else—I wanted to figure out what was actually going on. The facts. I’m sure it was about ego in the beginning. But then—it wasn’t right what they did.”

  “I know,” I say.

  “These tech guys are out-and-out lying to people. Taking advantage because no one understands what the fuck they’re talking about half the time. But I do. I want to be these tech bros’ kryptonite.”

  “Hani said you were DC,” I say. Thornton laughs and throws up his hands.

  “It’s the maddest I’ve ever seen her. A true betrayal.”

  “I don’t understand how—”

  “Normal people need a guy who can call bullshit on this tech stuff. I can be that guy. I can be the guy you hire to go in and see if that computer company actually works and whether or not it’s worthy of your money or your data or your business. I can bridge the two worlds. I can be the official Nerd Translator. That’s the good news.”

  “You’d be perfect.”

  “I sent some
emails and started talking with a few people I knew from school and reached out to a couple of internships I worked at over the years and I think it’s about figuring out if I want to first join a consulting firm to learn the ropes and then go out on my own or if I can manage going out on my own while paying bills by tending bar at this place over in Echo Park that’s looking for some part-time help.” He smiles. “TBD.”

  “I love this so much.” I pull him in close. “I just want to touch you all the time. I had to say that out loud because I was about to touch—no, I was about to caress your face and I thought that would be weird, but? I kind of always want to caress your face. Is that weird?”

  “No,” he says.

  “No?” I say.

  “No.” He pulls me in for a kiss. We break apart.

  “So, what’s the bad news?” I finally say. Thornton gives me one last kiss. And with an arched eyebrow turns back to his computer.

  “I was studying the data from the Bloom server farm like I was saying. Seeing if I could spot all the ways they’d hidden shit and whether or not I could explain it to someone—”

  “Like me,” I finish.

  “Right.” He turns the computer so I can see it better. I am worried that no amount of visibility is going to make me understand anything that I’m about to look at, but don’t have the heart to tell him that. I don’t think now is the time to tell him about the Computer 101 course I just signed up for at the local community college. “And that’s when I found it.” He points to a series of bigger and bigger spikes.

  “I don’t—”

  “See how they gradually start to expand?” he asks, pointing at the expanding width and space between each spike.

  “Yeah.”

  “Now see right here? How this spike just becomes the new baseline?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When I got underneath what that was measuring, I figured out that each one of those spikes is a test. And each time”—Thornton points to each spike, except the very last one—“the test failed.”