by Sadie Hayes
He looked at Violet, who was looking straight at Ted Bristol. Ted turned his gaze in their direction and Adam ducked his head and shuffled to the bathroom.
Violet caught his arm and followed. “Where are you going?”
“Why is Ted Bristol here?” he whispered to Violet.
“Gibly was his company.”
“This is a Gibly party? I thought Gibly was shut down.”
“No. They just sold to a British company. Sale closed like two weeks ago. This is the celebration party. Poor Ted,” Violet went on. Did she know him?
“Why?”
“He got totally screwed in the deal. After that hacker, there was such a massive PR debacle, the company barely sold for anything.”
Adam’s heart sank hearing her words. Had Amelia really caused all that? Once again, Amelia’s pretend innocent do-goodery had hurt someone. And his mentor, no less.
Of course, Ted wasn’t going to be his mentor much longer if he found out Adam was at the Gibly party with Violet instead of driving his daughter Lisa home.
Violet looked at him. “Are you okay?”
“I gotta go. Now,” Adam said. “How far is it to the St. Francis? My car’s still there.”
“Adam,” she reprimanded, “chill out. You’re way too drunk to drive. Just have fun and crash at my place tonight.” She bit her lip and smiled.
Adam’s instinctive defensiveness at being called out as a drunk was immediately offset by the epic victory of getting to sleep at Violet’s apartment.
“Okay, but I think we should head out of here. Now.”
She smiled at his assertiveness. “Whatever you want, Mr. Dory.”
And just like that, Adam, the mastermind behind Doreye, was off to spend the night in the city with a beautiful woman. Maybe things were finally turning around after all.
16
Smooth Boolean Operator
Amelia tiptoed into the hospital room, where she had ridden her bike as soon as Riley dropped her off at her dorm, oblivious to the fact that it was nearing midnight and the streets were pitch-dark. “How could you not tell me?”
Roger’s eyes were closed in half-sleep and his face was long and pale. An IV was feeding clear liquid into his arm, which was half the size it used to be, and plastic tubes exhaled oxygen into his nostrils.
“Amelia Dory the magazine star,” he said, and smiled weakly without opening his eyes.
Amelia’s anger melted into concern. She moved closer to Roger and whispered, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Roger opened his eyes. “I should have. But I didn’t know how.”
Amelia thought about how she’d said the same thing to Adam.
“Are you angry?”
“No.”
“How did you find out?” He coughed. He still hadn’t opened his eyes, as if conserving all the energy he had.
“Riley. She was the photographer for the Forbes thing.”
Roger’s eyes brightened into a smile. “That sneaky girl. You stay close to her, okay? She’s special. Like you.”
A nurse came in to check Roger’s vitals.
“I can come back,” Amelia said, hoping he’d say no.
“I’m sorry I’m not much company,” he said, his voice weak. “I’m just so tired.” His breathing grew steady and Amelia stayed—she didn’t know how long—watching his fragile chest rise and fall until the nurse asked her to leave.
* * *
Amelia left the hospital and got on her bike, her brain spinning. It was all too much: Roger and Riley and Adam and T.J. She didn’t know what to do, but knew she couldn’t sleep and found her bike pointed to Gates.
She got to her old computer terminal and said hello to her fellow night programmers, wondering why they were staring. But then she remembered she was wearing her new clothes and makeup and blushed helplessly.
She pulled on headphones and opened Spotify, typing “The xx” into the radio playlist and letting the beat of the music flood her ears as she inserted a thumb drive and opened her Ubuntu box to continue working on the nested conditionals she’d started last week. She was solving for a negative feedback loop in the Doreye app that caused the program to hog the mobile device’s RAM and waste all of the battery.
Amelia didn’t lift her eyes from the screen until five hours later, when she noticed that the sky had an orange glow from the rising sun. She sat back and watched it, breathing deeply and feeling calm, or perhaps delirious from working for so long.
“Good morning, stranger.” T-Bag, her old flamboyant friend from ZOSTRA parties, was suddenly beside her.
“T-Bag!” Amelia smiled and jumped from her chair to give him a hug. “What are you doing here? I thought you were going abroad this quarter?”
“I considered it, but why leave all this?” He gestured around him. “I decided instead to start pursuing my master’s degree, as one does,” he said, nodding in humble recognition of having taken the stereotypical path of engineers pursuing as many degrees as possible so as not to have to face the real world.
He looked at his watch. “And now I am charged with TAing the eight A.M. section of Computer Science 101.” He let his eyes get wide and silently mouthed, Oh my God.
Amelia chuckled imagining T-Bag, one of the university’s smartest programmers, tutoring the Intro to CS crowd. “Will you walk me to class?” T-Bag suggested.
“Would love to,” Amelia said, grinning. “I’m so happy to see you.”
Now that Adam and Roger weren’t around, maybe T-Bag could be her support.
As they walked down the stairs to T-Bag’s lecture hall Amelia saw the building doors open, and a flushed T. J. Bristol rushed through. Her heart froze. What was he doing here? She blushed and brushed her face, trying to wipe away the sleepless night as he spotted her and waved.
“Amelia!” He was walking over, and she shifted anxiously on her heels. T-Bag lifted a silent eyebrow in her direction as if to say, “Who is this frat boy and why is he talking to you?”
“Hi, T.J.,” Amelia said, aware of T-Bag watching and evaluating. “What are you doing here?”
T.J. reached out his hand to T-Bag. “I’m T.J.,” he offered.
“Theodore.” T-Bag took his hand and nodded.
T.J. turned back to Amelia, reaching out to rest his hand lightly on her arm. “You caught me! I’m taking the Intro to Computer Science class.” He lifted his hand and shrugged. “I thought since I’m working in tech I ought to at least try to understand the basics.”
Amelia smiled and her cheeks burned at the same time: Was it really possible a guy like T.J. could care that much what geeks thought? Stop, she told herself. She didn’t know what had been going on lately, but it felt like she couldn’t stop rushing to T.J.’s defense. Not necessarily to other people, but to herself. It was making her nervous around him, too, nervous about what he was thinking … especially what he was thinking about her.
“That’s great, T.J.” She covered up the thought just in time for another to creep in: Oh my God, is T-Bag going to be T.J.’s TA? Her head was freaking out but she said as coolly as she could, “Let me know if you, you know, need any help or anything.”
“No offense, but there’s absolutely no way I’d be able to ask you for help. You’d lose all respect for me!” T.J. said. “I mean, assuming you’ve got some respect for me now.”
Amelia blushed furiously. Was he trying to make her self-conscious? The threesome stood for a moment in awkward silence until T-Bag broke it. “Are you in room G-107? I believe I’m your TA.”
“Yes, I noticed you as the guy who sits in the front looking exasperated and annoyed at my questions.” T.J. smiled. “We should probably head inside?”
“Indeed,” T-Bag agreed. “Miss Amelia, such a pleasure to run into you. Were I at all interested in women I’d tell you that you look absolutely stunning today.” He leaned down to kiss her cheek.
T-Bag’s gesture left T.J. not sure how to say good-bye, and so he leaned forward and gave Amelia a kiss on
the cheek, too. “Yes, you really do,” he whispered in her ear.
The two men headed for G-107. Amelia stood in the hall watching them go, her face on fire from where T.J. had kissed her.
17
Typecast
“Another for my little little!” Sally slurred, motioning to the bartender to bring Patty another tequila shot.
Aside from being the daughter of a billionaire hedge fund manager in New York, Sally was Patty’s big sis’s big sis in Delta Gamma, and was tonight being very generous with her alcohol intake, her affection, and her credit card.
She leaned over the bar to the man pouring the tequila shots; he was tall and angular, with slicked black hair and olive skin. “My friend Patty here,” she said drunkenly, “started a comp-a-ny.”
He smiled flirtatiously at Sally, leaning in to her tequila breath. “And what kind of company did she start?”
Sally grinned and blushed. “You are C-U-T-E!”
He returned the grin and she put a twenty on the bar and told him to keep the change, even though their shots were four dollars apiece.
“Cheers,” she said, and clicked glasses with Patty and shot back the tequila, sucking on a piece of lime to chase the taste.
Patty did the same, squinting at the sourness, but Sally had moved on to another conversation before Patty could thank her.
She sat the empty shot glass on the bar and thanked the cute bartender. Patty hadn’t been out at all since she’d started Focus Girls, and the alcohol felt good and familiar as it hit her bloodstream.
“What kind of company did you start?” the man sitting at the bar to her left asked. His hair was graying, but he had a young vibe, dressed stylishly in a purple checkered shirt, dark-wash jeans, and Gucci loafers.
She studied him for a moment, not used to talking to strangers in bars, then decided he was okay and turned her shoulders toward him.
“You really want to know?”
“I do.” He took a sip of his drink. “I’m a VC. Give me your elevator pitch.”
“Well,” she said, and took a deep breath, “Focus Girls is dedicated to connecting companies with their most valuable consumer: young women. We provide a platform for connecting marketing departments with the college-age female influencers they want to be advocates of their brands.”
“You’re a Focus Girl?” the man asked.
“Have you heard of us?” she asked eagerly.
The man let out a laugh. “Uh, yeah. All the guys on Sand Hill are talking about it.”
“Really?” Patty surged with pride.
“I know a couple guys who are pretty excited about it. Don’t kid with me here: You seriously do it?”
“I don’t just do Focus Girls,” Patty said, smiling, “I started Focus Girls.”
“Exciting.” The man lifted his eyebrows and took a sip of his beer, turning his eyes away from her as if he needed to process what he’d heard. “You don’t seem so”—he caught himself—“you just don’t seem like the type.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Her delight gave way to offense. Who did this guy think he was, saying she couldn’t start a company? She was just as capable—no, more capable—than half the “entrepreneurs” she knew at Stanford.
“You’re just not what I expected, that’s all,” he said. “Pretty girls like you don’t—”
“Don’t what?” She set her jaw angrily and turned to the bartender. “Could I have a glass of water, please?” she said steadily, intentionally disacknowledging the man.
“What?” he asked.
She took a long sip of her water and finally turned back to him. “‘What?’” she parroted. “I’ll tell you what: Just because I’m a girl and just because I’m young and just because I have one iota of fashion sense doesn’t mean I can’t start a company just as well as some loser engineer or douche-bag MBA, okay?”
“That’s not what I meant—” the man started.
Patty downed her water and glared at him. “Whatever,” she said as she turned away.
“No, wait. You totally misunderstood what I said. What I meant was—” But she didn’t hear the rest.
How dare some guy in a bar tell her what she could or couldn’t do? How dare he make judgments about what she was capable of? She shook her head angrily, as if trying to scrape the memory of the incident from her brain, and went to find Sally.
18
Making the Grade
“I don’t often follow up with students on their work.” Professor Marsh took a handkerchief from his pocket as he flagged a waiter. “Another Syrah for me, please, dear,” he said to the waitress, and then to Adam, “especially after nine months and especially when those students nearly fail my class for insubordination.”
The waitress waited to take Adam’s order. “Anything for you?”
“I’ll have a Coke, please,” he answered.
“Suit yourself,” Marsh responded as he sniffed and wiped his nose with the handkerchief. “One of the perks of being a grumpy old man is that you can drink whenever you please.” He sat back and considered, “On the other hand, I suppose that’s one of the perks of being a college student these days as well.”
Adam laughed nervously. It was his first time in the Faculty Club, the esteemed faculty-and-their-guests-only members club whose old-school décor and secretive allure seemed out of sync with the rest of Stanford University.
Marsh had invited Adam here in response to his makeup essay assignment, which he’d sent in an e-mail with the subject line “What I would have rather been doing than sitting in your class, one year later.”
Now, they sat in a dark dining room with high ceilings, next to an imposing stone fireplace. The table was covered in a white cloth that matched the napkin Adam had been proud of himself for remembering to unfold and put in his lap.
“So,” Adam began hesitantly, “are we cool with the class? I mean, did I pass now?”
“Oh, sure,” Marsh replied slowly. “I suppose I wouldn’t actually have failed you, but I was curious whether you’d come through with something.”
Adam felt momentarily betrayed: Why had he made him write that essay if he’d never actually have failed him?
But Marsh anticipated the question. “You see, as a professor, you’re made to teach these imbecile classes to groups of students who will do nothing with them. It’s aggravating beyond belief, but occasionally you find a student who seems to actually get it. Of those who get it, however, maybe one in ten actually does something with his or her talent. Whilst unconventional, in class that day you proved something. Your off-the-cuff description of the prisoner’s dilemma showed that you have a natural intuition for the subject, as well as an ability to apply it in unique ways. The essay assignment was my wanting to see whether you’re the one in ten who takes it somewhere.”
Adam was trying to let this all sink in: No one had ever complimented him on his academic performance; all the praise had always gone to Amelia.
“That’s not why I brought you here, though.” Marsh scratched his nose. “I wanted to find out more about this company of yours everyone keeps talking about.”
Adam sat up in his chair. “People are talking about it?” Everyone always said professors hated when Stanford kids started companies because it distracted them from studying. Why would Marsh have heard—or care—about Doreye?
“Yes. It sounds like it’s a very nice … app.” He sounded awkward saying the word. “I’m curious what you’re doing with it. The … app, I mean.”
The waitress returned with their drinks. “Thank you,” Marsh said, and nodded at her.
“Well, Doreye is an application that enables your iPhone to see other devices; it basically turns your iPhone into a central remote control or radar.”
“And is this one of those companies that collects user data?”
“Well, sure. Utilizing personal data is necessary for the app to function.”
“The usual for me, Mary,” Marsh said, transitioning his attentio
n casually to the back-again waitress. “Have you had a chance to decide?” he asked Adam, who quickly glanced at the menu before him.
“I’ll have the ravioli, please.” Adam chose the first thing he saw.
“And do you have any qualms about that?”
“About ravioli?”
“No, about collecting user data?”
“It’s what we need to make the app work. Don’t worry, we scramble everything; it’s not like we save it.”
“Has anyone ever approached you about doing anything with it?”
“No.” Adam felt himself prickle. What was this man getting at? “Why?”
“Just personal curiosity. The legal issues surrounding privacy and technology interest me. What’s your view on it? I mean, if someone asked you to sell user data?”
“We’d never do it. I don’t know if you know my sister, but she’d totally flip out. She doesn’t even want us to charge users to download the app.”
Marsh chuckled. “Is that so?”
“It’s annoying.”
Mary returned with their food and Adam inelegantly shoveled an entire ravioli in his mouth.
“Do you ever feel your sister’s moral compass is holding you back?”
Adam almost choked. “How did you know?”
Marsh stopped chewing and looked carefully at Adam. “How do you mean?”
“Oh, she just doesn’t see the bigger picture sometimes,” he said honestly. “Like she gets so set in her ways, she can’t rationalize how sometimes you have to do certain things you don’t like in order to get the outcome that’s best for the company.”
Marsh looked back down at his food and began eating again. “Interesting,” he said. “And you’re fund-raising right now? Are you looking at VCs in the Bay Area or talking to any European firms?”
“No, we’re just focused on Sand Hill Road right now.”
“That’s very exciting,”
Marsh went quiet. Adam looked at him, wondering what to say.
“So do you have any advice?”
Marsh looked surprised by the question. He shrugged. “Be careful.”