by Sadie Hayes
“To think that I was here the night you first made the original Doreye application work! Do you have any idea how cool that is?”
She smiled politely.
“Listen, Amelia.” He took a deep breath. “I thought about you this summer—a lot. Not just because of Doreye, but because I think you’re a really … a really special person, and I’d love to get to know you better. And I thought maybe, if you’re up for it, we could hang out … sometime.”
Instinctively, she began to turn him down. “George, I think you’re really—”
But then, abruptly, she stopped herself. Why should she always decline? Sundeep had a girlfriend, Patty was in her sorority, Adam was living in a frat house now and, apparently, had a girlfriend. And all she had was two thousand lines of code that weren’t working.
“Sure, George. I’d love to hang out sometime.”
“Really?” George tried to contain his excitement. “That’s great!” He scrambled for an idea, afraid that if he didn’t get a plan made now it might never actually happen. “What are you doing tonight?”
Amelia looked at the jumbled code on her screen. It was a lost cause. “Nothing. I’m not doing anything.”
“I was going to head over to the LAIR to play ZOSTRA. We have a group that gets together every Wednesday. Do you play?” George was referring to the virtual reality game that had developed a cult following in the computer science community.
“I’ve never played,” Amelia said, watching his face drop. “But I’d love to learn.”
“Excellent!”
Who was she kidding? Guys like Sundeep didn’t go for her. She was a computer science geek. She might as well act the part.
39
Meet Me at ZOSTRA
Amelia had heard of the LAIR, but she had never actually been there. Situated across campus from the Gates Building, it was technically a twenty-four-hour study room. Stanford was always updating the equipment in the Gates Building and, whenever they did, they put all the old (meaning six to twelve months outdated) equipment in the LAIR and left the space largely unmonitored.
It had become an upperclass computer science hang, where engineers who wanted to socialize more than code came to “study.” They’d start filtering in after dinner and open a problem set. Then they would sign in to Instant Messenger and flirt with people across the room. By ten o’clock at night, everyone was usually huddled around a few monitors watching YouTube clips or two people battling against each other in Angry Birds or Scrabble.
Wednesdays had officially become ZOSTRA nights, starting promptly at midnight.
Amelia followed George through a painted red door and up two flights of concrete stairs to the LAIR, where two guys she recognized as computer science TAs sat at a table collecting money and handing out player numbers.
“Hey, guys!” George said to the two. “Do you know Amelia? Amelia, meet Jon and T-Bag.”
T-Bag, a lean, good-looking blond guy wearing a sports coat with a pocket square, stood up and took Amelia’s hand, bowing his head to her in mock formality. “Forgive these imbeciles. Everyone calls me T-Bag, but as you seem rather sophisticated, feel free to refer to me by my Christian name, Theodore.”
Amelia smiled with surprise. Who was this guy, with his strange European accent and ornate speech? “Very nice to meet you, Mr. T-Bag,” she said, taking his hand and playing along.
Jon, a chubby Asian boy wearing a tie over his t-shirt, khaki shorts, and no shoes, also stood up and shook her hand. “You’re not the Amelia, are you? The one doing that device-linking thing with Roger Fenway?”
George swept his arms up as though he were a magician presenting his finest act. With these guys, he had an air of confidence and charm she had never witnessed from him in Gates. “Indeed, she is. Gentlemen, you are in the presence of greatness.”
“Tickets comped!” T-Bag exclaimed. “May I have the honor of getting you a drink, Madame?”
Amelia wasn’t sure if they were mocking her or if they were seriously impressed, but it didn’t matter; there was something utterly lovable about these three. T-Bag handed her a plastic cup filled with cheap vodka and cranberry juice. “Our very finest, for the lady,” he said, and she felt her heart flutter a little as she happily took it from him.
She and George played ZOSTRA as a team so she could figure out the rules. The game was based on avatars, which each player created and kept from week to week. The avatars challenged one another to different games and tasks—ranging from gladiator-style fencing to who-can-pick-up-a-virtual-girl-in-a-virtual-bar-first competitions—on a large screen in front of the whole room. When you won a competition, you got points that could be used to buy accessories, weapons, and superpowers for your avatar. As the night went on, the crowd got more and more drunk, and more and more into the game.
Three hours and three vodka-cranberries later, Amelia was seated on a beanbag chair between George, T-Bag, Jon, and Jon’s girlfriend, Janet, an awkwardly lanky blonde wearing a thrift-store prom dress two sizes too small for her tall frame. They made an astonishingly strange-looking pair, but whenever she told a joke—which she did often, between swigs of tequila straight from the bottle—Jon watched her with a loving pride that made Amelia instinctively like them as a couple.
“I think,” Janet said drunkenly, reaching out for Amelia’s hand, “that you are just delightful.”
Amelia grinned into her plastic cup and took another sip. Although she barely knew them, she felt right at home with these people.
“Don’t you think so, T-Bag?” asked Janet.
T-Bag raised his glass. “I do, indeed. You simply must join our ZOSTRA nights and get your own avatar. Then you won’t have to continue on as that ghastly, unrealistically muscular Italian man,” he said, referring to George’s avatar.
“Hey!” George protested, mocking T-Bag’s accent. “I think he’s quite strapping.”
“You straight men don’t have a clue.” T-Bag rolled his eyes, turning back to Amelia and grabbing her hand. “Trust me, darling. We’ll design her together, and she will be stunning. I am a second-life fashion genius.”
She giggled tipsily. He went on. “Do you have a gay best friend yet? Because I would really love to be that for you.”
“Wait,” she said. “You’re gay?”
“Flaming.” He grinned. She grinned back. She’d never met a gay person before, but she liked him. In fact, she liked just about everything right now.
They stayed for another half hour before saying their good-byes. When she tried to stand up, she fell back down, giggling at herself. George put out his hand to help her up. “Let me walk you back to your dorm,” he offered.
They walked along the narrow pathways, Amelia chatting animatedly about strategies for next week’s ZOSTRA. When they got to her dorm, George waited while she found her keys. “Can you get to your room okay?”
“Yeah, I think so.” She smiled.
“Great.” He smiled back. “I’m glad you came tonight, Amelia. I had a really good time.”
“Me, too,” she said.
They paused for a moment, smiling drunkenly at each other.
“Okay, then,” he said. “See you tomorrow at Gates?”
“I’ll be there!”
40
The Inner Room
Across campus, Adam’s lips were clenched around the spigot of a tapped keg, his hands gripping either side of the metal barrel, his legs held above his head by a couple of burly rugby players.
“Sixteen! Seventeen! Eighteen!” a crowd of manically drunk coeds chanted as Adam swallowed the beer rushing out of the spigot. This was his first keg stand, and he was dominating, to use a term he’d picked up since moving into Phi Delta. The last guy had only made it to twelve, and here he was on …
“Twenty-four! Twenty-five! Twenty-six…”
But then something happened. The beer went down the wrong side of his throat and he started coughing into the spigot. The rugby players dropped his legs, and he landed
clumsily on the floor.
“Twenty-six!” cried Chris, the Phi Delta social chair, who was standing with a clipboard, recording performances. “Our reigning champion!”
Everyone cheered, and Adam grinned drunkenly, accepting a beer from a cute brunette wearing a tight red dress and five-inch heels. “You were amaaaaazing!” she slurred, pushing her hand into his chest. “What’s your name?”
Adam felt on top of the world as he took in the filthy kitchen, strewn with beer cans and red cups. A couple was making out against the wall in the corner. No one seemed to notice, or to care. “I’m Adam,” he said as he took a sip of the beer.
“Wait, Adam Dory?” She batted her eyelashes, but the concentration it required caused her to trip on her massive heels. Adam put his arm out to catch her. “Oops!” she giggled. She leaned down and took off her shoes, apparently unconcerned about placing her bare feet on the sticky, beer-drenched floor.
“You don’t know who I am, do you?” The brunette pouted.
“Sure I do…” Adam lied. He stared at her hard. Who is this girl?
“You were the creep who narr…” She stopped midsentence, not able to articulate the word through her slurring. “You narr-a-ted my g-chat conversation to Professor Marsh’s PoliSci class!”
“Oh! Rebecca?” Despite all that Adam had achieved over the past few months, the feelings of inadequacy resurfaced. “I’m so sorry about that. I really didn’t mean to…”
“Do you want to dance?” she asked, instantaneously forgetting about the incident and pulling Adam toward the fraternity’s common room, where speakers were blasting a Lady Gaga remix.
Adam closed his eyes, letting his body sway with the music in careless abandon, as they moved against each other on the dance floor. He felt her open mouth press against his and let it happen, sinking into the sensation. Then, as if the signal of what was going on finally reached his brain, he pulled away. “I can’t…”
“Sure you can.”
“No, it’s not … I have a girlfriend.”
“Oh.” The girl pouted and dipped her chin, her brown curls falling in front of her face. “Wait,” she said, her head abruptly popping back up. She glanced around the dance floor. “Is she here?”
“No.”
The girl put her hand back on his shoulder. “Then what’s the problem?” she asked, leaning in to kiss him.
He pushed her away gently. “Well … I love her.”
Her red lips spread into a sideways grin and she cocked her head. “Awww … that’s so cute. She’s a very lucky girl.” Rebecca turned and walked away, her full hips swinging back and forth in her tight red dress as she headed to the kitchen to find someone else to flirt with.
Adam stood in the middle of the dance floor, surrounded by couples making out or on the verge of it. He felt unbelievably alone. Where was Lisa? He knew she had a dorm meeting and a study group, but that should have ended hours ago.
Suddenly, he panicked. What if she was hanging out with that water polo player who lived next door, that guy with the perfectly toned body and the shaggy blond hair?
He should call her, he decided.
He dialed her number, but there was no answer. Maybe she didn’t hear the phone ring. He tried again. Still no answer. This time he left a message, trying his hardest to sound more sober than he was. “Lisa, it’s me. Just thinking about you and missing you. Call me.”
He waited until the next song was over, and then tried again. Then one more time. Still no answer. What was going on? Where was she?
Maybe she was online. He should go log on to his computer and check.
He stumbled up the stairs to his room. Like all the rooms in the Phi Delta house, his was a two-room double, meaning two guys shared two rooms, but there was only one door in and out. This meant there was an “inner” room and an “outer” room. The outer room was a little bigger, but you had to deal with your roommate walking in and out to get to his room. Adam’s roommate, Henry, didn’t have any qualms about people walking in and out when he was hooking up with girls, so he’d requested the bigger outer room, and Adam had happily obliged, opting for privacy.
Now he pushed open the door and found Henry sitting on his bed with three girls, all giggling and passing a pipe. The room reeked of pot.
“Adam!” Henry exclaimed, so high he could hardly open his eyes. Henry was English and milked his Britishness for all it was worth. He wasn’t bad looking, but he wasn’t model-attractive like T.J. or Chris, the Phi Delta social chair. His thick British accent was a golden ticket for getting women, however. Sometimes Adam wondered whether the words he used, like “chap” and “bloody” and “wicked,” were even words British people used or just things he threw in to get attention.
“Adam, meet…” Henry looked around and realized he didn’t know any of the girls’ names. “Meet the girls,” he said. They giggled and smiled at Henry.
“Want a hit?” one of the girls asked Adam.
“No, thanks,” Adam answered, stumbling to the door of his inner room. “I’ve got to make a phone call.”
“Adam!” Henry shouted. “Who are you calling at three-thirty in the morning? Unless it’s a pizza boy, I suggest you restrain yourself.”
“Ooh, pizza! Can we get pizza?” one of the girls squealed.
Adam shouted from the other room, “It’s not pizza!”
“Don’t do it, Adam.” Henry was standing in the doorway now, looking at Adam perched on his bed with his phone in hand. “How many times have you called her tonight?”
Adam tried to downplay it. “I only left one message—”
“How many times, Adam?”
“Four.”
“Come on, mate. You’re embarrassing yourself.”
“It’s none of your business,” Adam said. “Go back to your girls.”
“No more calls tonight, Adam. You’ll regret it. Mark my words.”
Adam motioned for Henry to leave the room. As he shut the door, he dialed Lisa’s number.
He heard a sleepy voice pick up on the other end. “Hello?”
“Lisa! Lisa, Lisa. Where are you?”
“I’m in bed, Adam. It’s almost four in the morning.”
“Do you want to come over?”
“Now? I have class at nine.”
“Oh, okay. Well, sweet dreams then.”
“Good night, Adam.”
“I love you,” he said, but she had already hung up.
41
No Simple Highway
Amelia sat across from Roger at Juniper Café, a fancy Greek restaurant in Menlo Park, nibbling at the hummus plate he’d ordered as an appetizer. When she’d googled the restaurant and seen the prices on the menu, she’d realized she probably needed to dress up. She’d stopped by the Gap on the way home from the incubator and bought a simple navy linen dress with spaghetti straps and a pair of gold braided sandals. She paid seventy dollars for the outfit—more than she could remember ever having spent on clothes—but the girl in the dressing room had told her she had to get it because it fit her perfectly. Still, she felt like an imposter wearing something other than her normal jeans and plaid shirt.
That morning, they had made the decision to bring Arjun, a shy sophomore from Bangalore, and Ralph, a precocious redheaded junior from Chicago, onto the engineering team. Arjun had worked as a programmer in India throughout high school and was a machine at developing and replicating code; Ralph was an expert on iPhone application software and had interned at Cisco the summer before, giving him exposure to a range of products relevant to Doreye.
They were quirky in their own ways, but Amelia liked them both very much. They would each work fifteen hours a week on tasks that Amelia would assign every Monday.
Roger had taken her to dinner to celebrate the first hires. The restaurant was small and intimate, with only a dozen or so tables covered in white tablecloths. The dining room was dimly lit by candles and stained-glass lanterns mounted on the dark wooden walls.
“
Can I tempt you with a glass of champagne?” Roger asked.
“Sure,” she said. Since playing ZOSTRA at the LAIR last Wednesday, she had been more open to alcohol. She had never had champagne before; what was the harm in trying it?
“Excellent,” he said, motioning over the waiter.
After the waiter delivered the champagne, they toasted. “To expanding your team,” Roger said as he clinked her glass. Amelia winced at the sour flavor of the champagne, and Roger noticed. “It’s an acquired taste. Talk to me in five years and you’ll love it.”
Over lamb moussaka and grilled halibut, they chatted about Doreye, the team, their progress, and next steps. After the waiter had cleared their plates, Roger leaned forward and placed his hands on the table.
“So, Amelia, I wanted to bring you to dinner tonight in part to celebrate, and in part to make a suggestion.”
She took a sip of her champagne. She was on her second glass and feeling open to ideas, but this still came as a surprise.
“It was a big summer, and you made a lot of decisions. You turned down a lot of money, which shows how committed you are to this product. And now you’ve hired two new team members, which is going to significantly increase your time commitment. Plus, you’ve got TechCrunch following Doreye’s progress, which means pressure to get a product out sooner rather than later.”
She nodded, waiting for the punch line.
“And so, I think you’re at the point now where you need to start thinking hard about your priorities. And whether you can really do what you want to do at Doreye while remaining a full-time student. If you want it to succeed in a big way, Doreye needs to be the only road you travel.”
Amelia sat up a little straighter in her chair. She adjusted her glasses on her face. “Are you telling me to drop out of school?”
Roger smiled. “I would never tell you what to do, Amelia. It’s your decision. But people do take breaks from school. You can always go back later and finish your degree.”
“Drop out?” she said softly to herself, looking down at the table. The thought of leaving school had never crossed her mind. That was something people like Steve Jobs did, and, as much press as Doreye was getting, she didn’t consider herself Steve Jobs.
