by Yvonne Woon
A lump rose in my stomach, and I leaned over the toilet and heaved, but nothing came up. So this was why Mast hadn’t wanted to make eye contact.
In an attempt to make myself feel better, I checked my stock. Amina was right, it was up to an all-time high: twenty-six. I stared at the number, both bewildered and relieved. At least I didn’t have to worry about my standing.
When I returned to class, I had a message waiting for me in my inbox from Kowalski. I opened it.
See me during office hours.
-S.K.
I sank into my chair, my head beginning to throb. At the front the room, Kowalski was busy tapping into his computer. If he was thinking about me or my derelict attendance, he didn’t let on.
I considered skipping the rest of my classes and spending the rest of the day curled up in bed, but that would only make my absence more obvious. After class, I dawdled by my desk, slowly packing up my things until Mast walked by me.
“Hey,” I said to him.
“Hey.” He was uncharacteristically quiet, which made me even more worried.
“Mitzy told me it was going to be a meeting,” I said. “I had no idea it was going to be a party.”
“Okay,” Mast said in a tone that made me think it wasn’t actually okay at all.
“The pictures make it look worse than it was. Those guys—I have no idea who they are. I barely talked to any of them.”
“That doesn’t make it better,” he said.
“Nothing happened, I promise. I drank too much and acted like an idiot. That’s it.”
“There are pictures of you being groped by old men. Of you in a wet, see-through dress while a bunch of guys feed you mini quiches. How is that nothing?”
I’d never seen Mast angry before and it startled me. “Mitzy gave me this sticker and told me to put it under my tongue. I didn’t know it was acid.”
“And you just took it? Without asking what it was?”
“I wasn’t thinking. I trusted Mitzy.”
“Why? Why do you trust her?”
How had this suddenly become about me and Mitzy? “Why does she bother you so much?” I said, my shame shifting to anger. “You’ve never even met her and yet you’ve seemed to hate her from day one.”
“I don’t hate her. I just don’t get why you’re bowing down to her like she’s your personal savior. And yeah, I don’t need to meet her to wonder if she has your best interests at heart. Why does she always ask you to meet during class when she could just as easily ask you to meet at night or on the weekend?”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Because she cares about me and is trying to help me succeed.”
“By dropping acid and being groped by strange men?”
“By getting me VC meetings.”
“Where are those meetings? Have you actually been to any?”
I wanted to snap back with a smart response, but didn’t know what to say because he was right. I hadn’t been to any yet.
“Look,” I said, trying to compose myself. “The point is that I wasn’t acting like myself. I never would have done those things if I’d been sober.”
“But you did do them. And yeah, you haven’t been acting like yourself.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know, but something is different. You’re skipping class to get pedicures and go shopping, you’re more worried about posting photos on Façade than finishing your assignments? Sometimes you check your phone so often that it feels like you’re half here, half somewhere else.”
I backed away from him, incredulous. “You’re jealous. You’re upset because I’m doing better than you.”
Mast looked at me with disbelief. “Is that what you really think?”
“Do you have a better explanation?”
“If you think I’m trying to bring you down by expressing concern that you’re skipping class to hang out at fancy restaurants, then I don’t know what to tell you.”
“You act like you know me but you don’t,” I said. “I was right about you the first time. You’re not different. You’re just like everyone else.”
Mast looked at me like I had slapped him in the face. He didn’t respond. He didn’t say anything. He turned and walked toward the boys’ dorm and I forced myself to look away so I wouldn’t have to watch him leave.
Twenty
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to scream or cry. My hands were shaking and I wanted to simultaneously throw something at a wall and curl up in bed until enough time had passed that I’d forget this day and the pit in my stomach and the rising lump in my throat that made the air taste bitter. Instead, I went to the dining hall to get an energy drink between classes. I needed a boost. I was pulling a purple drink from the refrigerator when an arm reached over me and grabbed one.
“I highly recommend the green flavor,” Arthur said. He’d gotten a haircut, which made him look cute. “Definitely stay away from the red, it tastes like cough syrup.”
I wasn’t prepared to see him and felt flustered. “Thanks,” I said, and swapped mine for the green.
“Only extremely desperate people drink these things in the afternoon.”
“I’ve had a bad day.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I saw the pictures. Did you really do acid?”
To my surprise, his cheerful indifference to my terrible mood made me feel better. “Yeah.”
He looked impressed. “I never would have picked you for the type. Pretty cool.”
I was embarrassed to admit how good it felt for him to call me cool. “What’s my type?”
“I don’t know. Law-abiding. Studious.”
I let out a sarcastic laugh. I used to think of myself that way, though now I wondered if I really was, considering the number of classes I’d skipped and the small matter of the acid. Was it even worth being law-abiding and studious when the only things that seemed to have helped my stock and my social status were ditching class and partying more?
“What was it like? Did a portal open to an alternate universe? Did you feel super creative and have an epiphany?”
“No portals.” I did remember having a revelation with Mitzy on the carpeted floor of the conference room, but what exactly it was I couldn’t recall. “It felt like someone boosted the saturation level of the world all the way up. The office was transformed into this lush business paradise with super plush carpets and chairs so comfortable I felt like they were manufactured for my body specifically. The pictures on the walls were so vivid they seemed to move.”
“Wow.”
“It was great but also kind of terrible. You know when you drink too much and time compresses and you’re not really sure what happened when or for how long, all you can remember is how you felt during that time, and you’re not even sure if you can trust that?”
Arthur let out a long exhale. “Sounds intense. But I wouldn’t know. I don’t drink.”
“You don’t drink?”
“My dad’s an alcoholic. Kind of scarred me.”
I froze in place, unable to come up with a response. I thought back to our interaction at the DrinkMaiden party. He’d been drinking water then, though I’d assumed it was just to cut the other drinks. If Arthur didn’t drink then he couldn’t have written me the message on the night of the DrinkMaiden party saying how drunk he was, which meant that he wasn’t ObjectPermanence.
“I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I didn’t know.”
“Oh, it’s okay. No one ever knows what to say when I blurt stuff out like that. I kind of like how dumbfounded people look when I spring it on them. It’s funny.”
I needed to leave, to sit by myself in a quiet room and think. “Well, thanks for the drink recommendation.”
Arthur tipped his hat. “Enjoy having the jitters.”
I mentally crossed him off my list and made my way toward the study rooms when a man called my name. “Xia.”
It was the last person I’d expected to see in the hallway, a bleach-blond ghost fro
m the night before back to haunt me. Lars Lang.
He strode toward me, his pale locks flouncing as he walked. It was rare to see him around the classrooms. I’d only seen him on campus twice since the Welcome dinner—once speeding around the driveway in his Tesla and a second time pattering down the steps of the main building while talking on the phone and eating an apricot, both him and the fruit glowing in the slanting afternoon light.
I blinked and remembered the night before, when I’d walked into the bathroom only to see him leaning over the bathroom counter, snorting coke off a manila folder with a bunch of strangers. He’d looked up at me, his eyelids red around the rims, his hair sweaty and loose around his face, his expression wild like a cat caught eating the carcass of an animal. Had he recognized me? And if he had, did he remember?
“Hey, Xia, I’m glad I caught you.”
I was surprised he knew my name. I’d assumed he’d forgotten or had never learned it, since we hadn’t interacted one-on-one since our initial phone call when he’d offered me a spot at the Foundry.
“I’ve been meaning to check in with you. I have to hop on a quick call in a few, but would you mind meeting me in my office in fifteen or so?”
Check in? What did that mean? I wondered if I was in trouble. I had to be. Why else would the director of the Foundry want to see me privately? “Sure.”
He gave me an affable smile. “Great. See you soon.”
When I got to Lars’s office, the door was locked, and oddly enough, Arun was waiting on a bench outside. I wondered what he was doing there. When he saw me, he scooted over to make room.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
It occurred to me then that his name was on my list. If Arthur wasn’t ObjectPermanence, could it be Arun?
Of all the people at the Foundry, Arun looked the most like a professional. Tall, generically handsome, well-dressed but not overdressed, with a commanding voice that was ready for television. He had a firm handshake that could crack the knuckles in your fingers, and favored loafers without socks, the true mark of a rich person who could afford to sweat in their shoes at the expense of fashion. I could easily picture him as the CEO of a company. I could imagine magazine profiles calling him likable, because it was hard to find fault in him, but really, as a result of this he always seemed bland, without any unique characteristics beyond being pleasant and amiable.
“How are you holding up?” he asked.
The way he asked it felt intimate, like we were closer friends than I’d known. “I’m fine,” I said slowly. “Why?”
“Well, last night you weren’t doing so well.”
Last night? What did he know about my evening? He must have been referring to the photos. “Oh, it was just a party. The pictures made it look worse than it was.”
He gave me a puzzled look, as if I had missed some key component of our conversation.
“Do you have my coat?”
It took me a moment to realize what he was referring to. “That was your coat?”
“Yeah, you don’t remember?”
“I—I remember,” I said, trying to recall any passing glimpse of Arun, but after the conference room of Joshes, my memories were blurred.
Arun laughed. “It’s okay. I’ve had nights like that, too.”
“So you were at the party?”
“Yeah. I showed up halfway through. You were already . . . on the carpet.”
I winced. It was only a mildly generous euphemism.
“Don’t worry. You didn’t do anything that I wouldn’t do.”
“If that’s true, then why are there pictures of me online and none of you?”
He gave me an amused shrug. “Because I’m a guy and no one cares what I do.”
“How were you even invited?”
Arun looked at me like it was a dumb question. “Karlsson’s a good friend of my dad. He comes to my house; we go to his. I’ve even been on his yacht.”
Classic Arun boasting. “Must be nice,” I muttered.
“I’ve seen nicer yachts.”
I rolled my eyes. It was hard for me to imagine him shedding his wealthy persona to write the messages I’d received about wanting to break free from the constraints of his social circle and feeling too much pressure to succeed. Still, a little voice in my mind kept repeating the same line from one of his messages: I don’t know if you’d like me if you met me in person . . . I’m different with you. I’m a better version of myself.
Maybe Arun was constrained. Maybe being so adjacent to money and success made him feel inadequate. Maybe his father had unrealistic expectations of him.
“What’s your dad like?” I asked.
My question seemed to confuse him. “He’s global head of operations and strategy at LineCart.”
“That’s what he does. What’s he like?”
Arun frowned, like he’d never been asked such a thing. “He’s a hard worker. He’s always working, really.”
“Okay, but do you get along? Do you like him?”
Arun looked at me like the answer was obvious. “He’s my dad.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to like him. I love my mom, for example, but she doesn’t really get me, you know?”
For a moment, his mask of confidence and wealth vanished and he looked at me as though he’d wanted someone to ask him about his father for a long time, but before he could respond, Lars strode down the hallway toward us.
“Come in,” Lars said, unlocking his office door and beckoning us to follow him.
His office was sunny and minimally decorated, as though he rarely spent time there. He motioned to two chairs across from his desk, then swiveled in his chair, looking like a college kid goofing around in his professor’s office.
“I just wanted to have a check-in with both of you. I know we ran into each other at the Karlsson Barrow party. Let’s just say I wasn’t wearing my Sunday best.”
I glanced at Arun. He must have seen Lars snorting coke in the bathroom, too.
“There’s a saying in the start-up world: Everything that can be enhanced should be enhanced,” Lars continued. “That includes the human mind. Do you know what I mean?”
It took me a moment to translate. It was an incredibly convoluted way to say that he liked to do mind-enhancing drugs.
Arun nodded vigorously. “Sure,” he said, his voice likable and corporate, as though he were in a job interview.
“It’s pretty common practice,” Lars continued. “Mind enhancement. For creative purposes and for productivity. I know that might be jarring to you, and in the spirit of open dialogue, I wanted to give you the opportunity to bring up any thoughts or questions you might have.”
Lars smiled and looked at us expectantly. Did he really want us to ask questions about drug use in the start-up community? The last thing I wanted to do was linger on the party, for fear that it might come out that I, too, hadn’t been “wearing my Sunday best.”
“I don’t have any questions,” Arun said, leaning back in his chair as though he were making himself comfortable. “I’m pretty used to this world. My dad always says, what happens in the boardroom stays in the boardroom.”
I felt grateful for Arun then, and his fluency in corporate politics.
A look of relief flashed over Lars’s face. He rocked in his chair. “Great.”
Lars spent the rest of the meeting asking us how we were liking the Foundry and our classes. I let Arun talk, since he seemed better suited to giving inoffensive answers. Though I was thankful to have someone else take the lead, I couldn’t help but notice that neither Lars nor Arun were really saying anything of meaning or value. Their sentences were a jumble of buzz words and corporate speak. The experience has been transformative. It’s integral to connect with innovators who understand the importance of data-driven marketing and dynamic content, considering the ever-evolving consumer base. Our work is to disrupt current markets and shape the present into the future.
After we left, I turned to
Arun. “Did any information get transmitted at all in that meeting, or was it just filler?”
“Filler serves a purpose, you know,” Arun said. “It’s a way of signaling that you’re on the same page. When you start a business, all you really have are ideas. You don’t have anything concrete. Filler allows you talk about your ideas when you don’t have anything to show for them.”
It was the first time I’d heard Arun be even mildly thoughtful. Maybe he wasn’t as banal as I’d thought.
“I can’t bring myself to do it. My body has a physical reaction when I try.”
“I wasn’t born with the natural ability to speak corporate. You have to practice. What do you think I’ve been doing all these years hanging around with my dad’s business partners?”
For a moment, I could almost imagine Arun in his dorm room, typing a message to me in the dark.
“Well, thanks for defusing that,” I said.
“My pleasure.”
“I need to give you your coat back. Can I drop it off later?”
“Sure.”
“How did I get it, by the way?”
“I went out to the patio at Karlsson Barrow to get some air and found you lying outside on one of the tables, staring at the stars. You insisted you weren’t cold, but I gave you my coat anyway because I could tell you were just being polite.”
I wasn’t sure if I should feel embarrassed or appreciative. Maybe both. “I was staring at the stars?”
“You said you could rarely see them where you grew up, and that’s why you liked California so much. It’s where stars became visible.”
It was something I might have written to ObjectPermanence. I looked up at Arun. He had changed over the course of our conversation. He didn’t seem plastic anymore; on the contrary he looked thoughtful, and dare I say—attractive?
“Thanks for keeping me warm, even when I didn’t want you to.”
“Any time.”
We were standing in the hallway, neither having a reason to stay, but neither trying to leave, and I found myself surprised to realize that I was enjoying our conversation. He was different than I’d assumed, and a part of me wanted to ask him if he wanted to get a coffee, but I had to meet Kowalski.
