by Sadie Hayes
“Cute color!” Chloe Hawkins exclaimed. “I’ll take that, too!”
Patty gave her mother a look.
“What? A woman can’t take fashion advice from her hip daughter?” She grinned at Patty, and then at ChaiLai for support, her face still flushed from tennis.
Patty sighed. “Whatever, Mom.”
Mother and daughter sat in silence as the women at their feet chattered away in their native Thai.
Mrs. Hawkins finally broke the silence. “Something on your mind?”
The moment she’d seen her mother, decked out in a short white tennis skirt and matching spandex top, an outfit far too tight for any mother of two to justifiably wear, even if she did have a body any normal mother of two would envy, Patty realized that she’d made a mistake.
“No,” Patty said, reaching for a magazine in her purse. “Why?”
Mrs. Hawkins lifted an eyebrow. “You texted me for a thirty-dollar pedicure. You never text me when the bill’s under three hundred dollars.”
Patty felt her face flush as she looked at the magazine—it had never occurred to her that her mother had realized her scheme.
Chloe went on: “So I figured something must be up that you can’t talk to one of your girlfriends about. And I fully understand if you’ve changed your mind and don’t want to talk to me about it, but I know you’ve already read that issue of Vogue, so if you get bored, I’m here.”
Patty turned her head skeptically. “How do you know I’ve already read this issue?”
“Because it’s the January issue. And you’ve read every issue of Vogue on the day it arrived since you were fifteen years old.”
It was true: Patty knew the day the magazine arrived in the mail (the seventh, or the soonest weekday after) and always planned two hours to cuddle up with a cup of Earl Grey and peruse its pages, a once-a-month ritual she treasured.
She folded the magazine in her lap. “Okay, fine.”
“Don’t feel pressured,” her mother said, laughing. “I’m just saying I’m here.”
“It’s Alex.”
Her mother took a deep breath.
Patty sighed and went on. “Yesterday we were at the Creamery and he was on his cell phone the whole time for his stupid company. And I’m happy for him—I really am—I mean, I always knew he was more than a dumb jock, and I think this is really showing him that he is, too. I mean, that he has more potential than just playing sports. But, Mom, the company is…”
She stopped, afraid to say it.
Mrs. Hawkins pressed her. “The company is…?”
She sat up, changing her mind about what she was going to say. “Well, it’s doing great. I mean, TechCrunch just tweeted about it. And Alex thinks that really means it’s going places, and maybe—I mean, he’s probably right.” She looked up at her mother. “And that’s great, right?”
“It is,” her mother agreed.
“So why am I not happy for him?”
Mrs. Hawkins rolled her lips into each other and searched her daughter’s face before responding. “That’s a brave thing to admit. What does your gut tell you?”
“What do you mean?”
“When you’re listening to him talk about the company, what are you feeling, if not happiness?”
Patty looked over to the window and thought back on yesterday. “Annoyance,” she finally answered, turning back to face her mother. “I felt really annoyed.”
“What was annoying about it?”
“It’s a stupid idea,” Patty said. “It’s not a business. It’s a one-off college kid app that about twelve people will use and nobody will pay for, and he’s treating it like it’s the next frickin’ Google.”
Mrs. Hawkins let out an understanding chuckle. Which made Patty laugh, too, at how ridiculous it sounded when she said it out loud.
“And I’m sitting there, Mom, trying to be supportive, but I just can’t stop thinking about how stupid this is, and how he’s not even doing it right. I mean, he doesn’t even have an engineer. And he thinks all these freshmen—who by the way don’t have cars—are just going to sign up to drive around to deliver food to drunk upperclassmen late at night. At least I suggested he use the upperclass Mormon students as drivers.”
“That’s a clever idea, actually,” Mrs. Hawkins inserted.
“Right? I thought so,” Patty agreed. “But anyway, I think I was annoyed because … well, because I just feel like he’s acting like it’s such a huge deal, and honestly, Mom, anyone could do it. Does that make me a bad girlfriend?”
Mrs. Hawkins took another deep breath. “Can I tell you a story?”
“Yes,” Patty said, feeling surprisingly affectionate toward her mother all of a sudden and open to a good lecture.
“Around fifteen years ago, when your father and I had just moved you and Shandi to California, he comes home talking about these two engineers he met at Stanford and this computer thing they’re building in a garage in Menlo Park. The Internet is a totally new concept, but these guys have figured out a way to sort all of this information on ‘the Net’ and rank which Web sites were more important than others. And your dad, bless him, can’t stop thinking about this company and how interesting the technology is. He keeps going on and on with algorithm this and algorithm that. And he wants to put all of our money—we didn’t have much then—into these two guys named Larry and Sergey.”
The pumice stone was making Chloe lose her train of thought. “Kim Cuc, do you mind going a little easier on me?” she asked the pedicurist, turning back to her daughter.
“Anyway, we go have dinner with these two engineers and a group of investors, and they’re all going on and on about the programming and the code and this and that. And finally I ask, ‘How are you going to make any money off of this algorithm?’ And they all just look at me like I’m crazy. They launch into this hubbub about how ‘People will pay for it if it’s good enough’ and ‘On the Internet it’s more important to acquire customers than make money’ before dismissing my question entirely and going back to their code discussion. It goes on like that and they’re getting each other riled up about how this math equation—or algorithm, whatever—is going to be worth billions of dollars. Meanwhile, I’m in the corner, seething with anger because, evidently, I’m just there to eat the soup.”
Mrs. Hawkins was getting worked up just remembering this dinner, despite the lavender lotion being massaged onto her feet.
“Patty, at that point I didn’t give a damn what they thought of me or why I was invited along. So I turn to these guys and tell them what I think anyway. ‘You should sell ads.’ All ten of them stop talking and look at me. Your father tries to settle me down with a ‘What do you mean, dear?’ And I say, ‘No one is going to pay to use an algorithm they don’t understand. But they are going to use your little search engine to find things they want, like a restaurant’s address, or a newspaper article, or something they might want to buy on the Net. I bet companies would pay good money to have their Web site show up on the first page—hell, I bet they’d compete to pay the most money to show up as the number one search result. But,’ I told them, ‘you make the ads look like every other search result. And I bet you two geniuses’—and, Patty, I swear to God I pointed my finger right at Larry Page and Sergey Brin—‘I bet you two geniuses could figure out a way to use all this data and math to choose which ads matter to each user.’”
“Mom.” Patty’s jaw dropped. “Google ads were your idea?”
Mrs. Hawkins winked at her daughter.
“This is crazy. Without ads Google wouldn’t have gone anywhere. I mean, if they’d charged, people would have kept using Yahoo! or something. And if they hadn’t done either, they wouldn’t have made any money.”
“And there would be no Google. No Gmail, no Google Maps, no self-driving cars…”
“But,” Patty continued, “but why haven’t you ever said anything to me?”
“Business isn’t rocket science, Patty. Don’t get me wrong, people like you
r father and your boyfriend Alex work really hard. And it takes a lot more than just a good idea at a dinner party to build Google. But don’t let anyone make you feel like you’re stupid. Just because they speak in jargon and are quick to cut you off doesn’t mean they’re smarter than you. All that jargon is like a secret language. And they say crazy stuff in this secret language, like how their algorithm will use crowdsourcing to disrupt the disruptors or else they’ll pivot their go-to-market strategy.… But just because you don’t speak their language doesn’t mean you can’t communicate. Just because you don’t know their jargon doesn’t mean you don’t understand.”
“Doesn’t it drive you crazy that you didn’t get any credit?”
“For Google? I didn’t need it, Patty. I wanted to stay at home and raise a family and play tennis during the day. And I got that, and really appreciated your father for going to the office every day so that I could do it.”
She paused and studied her daughter. “But that was what I wanted. And you’re not like me, Patty.”
Patty felt her heart clench.
“And you’re not like your sister. And I don’t mean that one is better than the other, but you’re never going to be happy on the sidelines. So don’t waste your time there.”
Patty felt the tightness in her chest well up into her throat and tears start to form in her eyes. She couldn’t describe it, but that was the nicest thing her mother had ever said to her.
“So what do I do?” Patty whispered.
“About Alex? Oh, I don’t know—I’m just so glad you’re not pregnant!” Mrs. Hawkins laughed.
“About me, Mom,” Patty said.
Her mother smiled, more seriously this time, and said, “Go get in the game, Patty. It’s where you belong.”
5
Star Power
“You want Amelia Dory on our list?”
Brandon Carrington lifted his eyebrows skeptically over his thick hipster glasses as he took a sip of his martini.
“Why not?” T.J. asked as he watched a hot blonde’s spandex-clad butt cross the bar to a plush sofa, where she placed it next to an older man.
“Don’t play dumb, T.”
T.J. looked back at Brandon, who’d been a junior when he was a freshman fraternity pledge. Despite all the hazing Brandon had bestowed on T.J., or maybe because of it, the two had stayed close after Brandon graduated and joined Forbes magazine as a staff writer. Now, Brandon was in charge of compiling the “Thirty Under Thirty” list for the magazine, which showcased the most promising young entrepreneurs in the world.
T.J. had called Brandon last week to cash in a favor: In his first move as official CEO of Doreye, he was determined to get Amelia Dory on that list.
Now they were sitting at the bar in the Rosewood hotel just off Sand Hill Road, and T.J. was determined not to leave until he had his way. And he knew just how to get it.
“You can’t pretend like Doreye isn’t a thousand times better than most of the companies you put in the magazine. Remember last year? That bespoke dog-clothing company you featured? Where’d that gem of an idea end up?”
“It’s on hold.”
“Exactly.”
“But only until after the wedding.”
“What wedding?”
Brandon chuckled to himself, drinking more of his martini. Despite his edgy Warby Parker glasses, he was pure blue blood: white skin and blue eyes and strong bones that indicated Viking heritage. “The founder’s wedding,” he said. “Remember her? Most perfect rack I’ve ever seen.” He closed his eyes to reflect on her cup size for a moment. “Get this: The week after we publish the list, she gets about a thousand calls, one of which is from a forty-five-year-old billionaire angel investor ‘interested in the dog-clothing space.’ And was he ever. Five months later she’s his fiancée. Now the company’s on hold until after the wedding because she wants to”—he made air quotes—“‘really be able to enjoy the wedding planning process,’ and the dog clothes were taking too much time.”
“And that’s an accomplishment that you and Forbes magazine are proud of?”
“You’re missing the point, T. We’re not selling the bespoke dog-clothing company, we’re selling the girl running the bespoke dog-clothing company. And honestly, we’re not even really selling her; she’s selling us. I mean, our magazines. A hot blond University of North Carolina cheerleader starting a company? Who gives a shit what that company actually does; our readership likes seeing pictures of people like her.”
Brandon finished his martini and lifted his hand to the waiter to indicate another round. T.J. grimaced at him.
“What?” Brandon caught his stare and shrugged. “Don’t shoot the messenger, T. I don’t make up the rules. Who am I to judge what readers like? All I know is no one wants to look at pictures of a not-very-cute Stanford kid who thinks the Internet is an exercise in sharing and caring.”
T.J. took a long, slow sip of his Scotch and winced at Brandon’s reality. A year ago, he would have agreed with Brandon, but now that he’d gotten to know Amelia, he saw past her geeky exterior. She was legitimately impressive, not like so many other people who made the news. If people didn’t care about her, they should.
The Rosewood bar opened onto a terrace that looked westward, where the orange sun was setting over the Santa Cruz Mountains. It was Thursday night, and the bar was packed with Silicon Valley dealmakers and the women who followed them. The Rosewood was the after-five place to be seen in Silicon Valley. The investors and entrepreneurs who held meetings at University Café by day came here for cocktail hour; only here they drank martinis instead of coffee and met with women instead of engineers. He peered at the sun setting beyond the crowd as if for inspiration, or perhaps approval, then turned back to Brandon.
“What if I make her hot?”
Brandon almost choked on his martini. “What?”
He couldn’t change the game, but he wasn’t going to let it stop him. “She’s pretty,” T.J. insisted. “With a little primping, I know she could take a photo that would more than meet your standards.”
“Oh, God. Don’t tell me you’re trying to pull a She’s All That?” Brandon rolled his eyes.
“What? You know you’ve hooked up with less attractive girls.”
“When I was blacked out, maybe,” Brandon said, smirking.
“I can make her attractive,” T.J. insisted, “which will be an addition to the fact that she’s actually talented and worth reading about.”
Brandon looked carefully at his friend. “Did your ex-girlfriend really screw you up so badly? That you’re going for nineteen-year-old engineers now?”
“I didn’t say I was attracted to her; I said I could make her attractive.” T.J. glared at his fraternity brother, daring him to push him further.
“Speaking of your ex-girlfriend, I saw her in L.A. Hate to say it, bro, but she’s gotten really hot.”
“Do we really have to talk about this?”
“I mean, it’s not just her ass, it’s like her confidence or something. Maybe it’s because she’s older.”
“Please don’t,” T.J. said, meaning it. The thought of her dumping him still made him cringe.
Brandon opened his mouth to say something, but stopped himself, looking to the bartender for another drink instead.
“So what do you say?” T.J. pressed.
Brandon sucked in a deep breath. “Listen: I’ll cut you a deal. We’ll put Amelia on the list for the photo shoot and see how the pictures turn out. There’s one company on the list that might fold before publication anyway, so if that happens we’ll need something to fill in.”
T.J. smiled and sipped his drink, satisfied. Just what he needed to prove he was the right CEO to get Doreye back on track. “So it’s a deal? Amelia on Thirty Under Thirty.”
Brandon rolled his eyes. “If you and the photographer can make her passably good-looking, then yes, it’s a deal.”
The two men clinked glasses again as they drank to their dealmaking. “Shal
l we conquer this bar?” T.J. asked.
“But of course,” Brandon agreed. “Just one question.”
“Shoot.”
“Why feature Amelia instead of you? You know we’d slap that pretty face of yours on the list in a heartbeat.”
T.J. thought about it for a second. “Nah. I think I’m better suited to be the chess master, not the pawn.”
Brandon shook his head, laughing, and toasted T.J. again. “You always were a prick.”
T.J. smiled at the compliment, locked eyes with a doe-eyed brunette in the corner of the bar, and stood up to go talk her into bed.
6
Out of Focus
Patty hadn’t slept in two days. She’d only left her room in the sorority house to work out and get food, which she’d brought back to her desk to eat. She’d even foregone the Sigma Chi party last night to work on her new business plan, finding that instead of being sad to miss it, she was actually thrilled to have several hours of quiet in the house while all the girls were at the party.
She glanced around her room, a small rectangle on the second floor whose walls she’d painted a light pink to complement the deep plum comforter set she’d special-ordered for sophomore year. The floor was littered with empty coffee cups and discarded Post-it notes. She’d stripped the bulletin board above her desk of the photos and concert tickets and other memorabilia she used to display and replaced it with ideas for the new company: whom she would sell to, whom she would hire, how she would charge the former and pay the latter, what the marketing materials would look like, and where she would advertise.
She took a deep breath and looked at it one last time for motivation before she headed downstairs to test the hypothesis. She couldn’t help feeling nervous, even though, looking at the bulletin board and her two days of work, the plan seemed so obvious, so flawless in its need and execution that she didn’t see how it could not work.
The idea had come to her in a brief moment of inspiration. After her brunch at Peninsula with Alex and her pedicure date with her mom, Patty had spent hours thinking about and fine-tuning what she could do that was valuable to other people. What did she have that others didn’t? What could she do that others couldn’t? What was she able to see that others couldn’t see? Figuring that out, she was sure, was the key to figuring out her way of getting in the start-up game.