Screen Queens

by Lori Goldstein

  “Okay then.” Maddie moved her finger along the trackpad, showcasing the easy-to-navigate menus leading to games, build-your-own apps, programming tutorials, and lectures. Pride built as she talked of color theory and how the palette she’d chosen—bright but sophisticated—would appeal to tweens and teens, unlike so many of the programming games on the market that were currently targeting younger kids.

  She opened Ada’s Alley and began to use the drag-and-drop components to create code, code that began to play a song, for among Ada’s writings was the possibility that the device that would one day become the computer could compose music and be integrated into the arts as well as the sciences.

  “Hey, hold your hat,” Sadie said. “That’s not coding, that’s music.”

  “One and the same. If you know how to do it.”

  “Will you teach me?”

  “No, but you can teach yourself.” Maddie gave Sadie her seat. “Now, tell me, Sadie, have you ever played this before?”

  “Nope.”

  “Perfect. Then see what you can do in the next couple of minutes while I talk to these nice folks.”

  “How do you know they’re nice?”

  “Just play.”

  “Okey dokey, but if you need backup, you know where to find me.”

  More laughs, and Maddie once again was grateful that Nishi had sent them to the day camp. What she’d said to Sadie was true. She’d have missed Danny even more than she already had without her.

  Maddie crossed to the center of the stage and launched into her prepared talk on how she made the design simple enough to be accessible to girls of all skill sets, yet aesthetically pleasing, increasing in sophistication as the games and programs progressed from beginner to advanced.

  “Much like the Gumberoo series,” she said, “Girl Empowered grows along with our user.”

  “Roo!” someone cried out.

  Maddie looked out into the crowd and did a double take. It couldn’t be. But it was. He was sitting in the third row in between Delia’s parents. Danny.

  Danny.

  But how . . . ?

  Her chest tightened as she recognized the girl beside Claire from Delia’s photos. Cassie, her best friend. Danny high-fived her and waved to Maddie. Maddie could barely wave back.

  Paralyzed onstage, she couldn’t remember what she was supposed to do next. The part that followed hers was Delia’s.

  * * *

  * * *

  Delia’s heart lodged in her throat the moment Maddie laid eyes on her brother. It had been Lucy’s idea. On top of everything else, Lucy had handled the logistics: reaching out to Maddie’s parents and the camp and arranging the unaccompanied minor status. Delia’s only contribution had been Cassie as an escort from the airport.

  But it had all worked. Same as this was. With the minor hiccup that Maddie had stopped speaking. From the side of the stage, Delia watched Sadie swivel her head, waiting for Maddie to kick back into gear, to finish the design section before Maddie moved on to the coding. The clock was ticking, and yet Maddie simply stood, staring at Danny, stroking her four-leaf clover.

  Delia turned to see Lucy, who was further backstage, deep in conversation with Emma, both of them checking their phones. She’d yet to realize anything was wrong. Delia had to tell her. She took a step and reached for a lock of hair, winding it around her finger, remembering the day she left Littlewood. The day her father told her she’d eventually find what she could do, not what she couldn’t. Because there was a role for every actor and for every actor a role. And right now, Delia’s role was that of friend.

  She gulped down enough air to last her the next two minutes, steeled herself with a brief closing of her eyes, and walked out onstage.

  “Sadie,” she said, her voice shaking more than she’d hoped. “What do you think?”

  Sadie raised an eyebrow, looking from Delia to Maddie, then eased back into her performance, same as Cassie and her mom had done.

  “You tell me!” Sadie hit the trackpad, and a recognizable “Who run the world?” refrain reverberated through the room.

  “Does that mean you like it?” Delia asked as Maddie jolted back to life.

  “Like it?” Sadie tapped her finger against her lip. “Let’s just say . . . I’m in!”

  A look of panic consumed Maddie’s face, and Delia smiled to set her at ease.

  Sadie hopped on the scooter, and with a final circle, veered offstage.

  Maddie moved closer to Delia, who reached for the mic in her hand.

  Before letting go, Maddie mouthed, “you sure?”

  Delia nodded despite the butterflies dive-bombing in her stomach. She knew what she’d written out for Maddie to say about the code, about how Delia had designed the games to work, how they progressed in level of difficulty both as a game and in the code being taught, but none of that seemed important anymore. Not as important as what Delia really wanted to say.

  She rolled the microphone in her hand and brought it to her lips, which felt so unnatural. A barrier between her and the audience that her mom would never allow. Delia hooked it back onto its stand and stared at her feet. She pressed her heels into the bottom of the sandals she’d bought at the campus bookstore to replace her sneakers, Mountain View U written across the straps. Despite everything, maybe because of everything, she still wanted it. Because she believed in moonshots.

  “I didn’t grow up like Lucy.” Delia rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet. “I didn’t have a mom or dad in the tech world. They were—they are—the best mom and dad anyone could have—I could have.” She let herself steal a glance, one, quick, and broke away, because too long and she’d lose her nerve. She would picture how poised her mother would be doing this and she’d never continue.

  “I just—” She caught herself. “I loved computers. From the time I could sit in front of one. I did anything I could on them, even if it was paying my parents’ bills.”

  “And there were a lot of ’em!” her dad cried, and the audience gave an uncomfortable laugh.

  “But I wanted to do more. I wanted to not just pay the bills but pay them better—faster, easier. I wanted to be on the other side. But my school didn’t teach coding; it didn’t even have a club for it. I mastered the free games and apps online pretty quickly, ran through what my library had, and was left with nothing but myself and a stack of coding books. They were dense. Designed for adults, not kids my age, and definitely not girls. If it weren’t for my mom encouraging me, I would have given up long ago. But now I’m here. At ValleyStart. With the most talented people I’ve ever met.” She looked at Nishi. “Ones I could only hope to become one day. I know what it’s like to want something so much you can’t breathe. It’s a wonder I’m alive considering it’s been five weeks of me doing just that.”

  The ripple of laughter spurred her on.

  “We want girls to learn, we want them to have fun, we want them to be empowered, to realize they can be a part of a world like tech that maybe they can’t see themselves in as easily as other fields.” She rested a finger on the gift her dad had given her the day she left home. “A world that uses marketing copy to advertise something like this—this pendant I’m wearing that’s a piece of a circuit board—as perfect for fathers, sons, and your favorite tech lover. Not girls.”

  The audience was silent, listening, and so she continued. “It’s how we got here, with girls thinking math and computer science aren’t for them. When home computers hit stores in the mid-1980s they were marketed as toys—for boys. In one commercial, half a dozen guys are having a blast using a computer. The only girl is shown in a bikini, diving into a pool. We like to think these images don’t matter. But when they’re reinforced by ads and TV and movies, over and over, they tell a narrative. One that doesn’t include us. That’s why our app is for girls. And that means all girls. Girls like me who couldn’t afford to buy
programs and attend expensive camps. Girl Empowered fills this void by including free daily games, so there will always be a portion of the app open to everyone. We would offer more complex games at a low cost, with discounts for schools and libraries. We’d seek sponsorships from businesses and organizations for users, in the hopes that more girls like me would be able to do what they love.”

  Her eyes traveled from Nishi to Eric, to Cassie to her mom and dad, to little Danny between them. They were all beaming, and finally, Delia understood how her mom must have felt every time she took the stage, her words and actions making others feel the passion she did.

  Delia pushed her shoulders back, pointed to the logo on the screen, and said the words Lucy had written to close out the presentation. “Now let’s get those girls empowered.”

  * * *

  * * *

  The applause started slowly. Jeffrey Meyer’s hoot could be heard ringing through the auditorium followed by Danny’s imitation. By Eric’s whistle. By Cassie’s woot woot. But Lucy, Maddie, and Delia barely heard it. Because the second Delia exited the stage, their ears were covered by arms and shoulders and necks and chests as they collided in a group embrace.

  “We did it,” Delia said.

  “Together,” Maddie said.

  “But we’re not done yet,” Lucy said.

  THIRTY–FIVE

  BIG HAIRY AUDACIOUS GOAL • A startup founder’s grand vision to change the world

  LUCY STRAIGHTENED HER DRESS, a simple white shift with blue embroidery across the hem, befitting who she was now and the founder she was on track to become. Strategize, stylize, socialize. She still believed it—so long as it was on her terms. She walked back onstage.

  “Thank you,” Lucy said to the auditorium. “I know we’ve likely hit our time limit, but we wanted to take a moment to focus on this program. Because what has happened here, with us, at ValleyStart is exactly what we hope to replicate with Girl Empowered.”

  Delia and Maddie joined Lucy onstage, hanging off to the side.

  Lucy motioned for them to come center stage. As they did, Lucy continued, “Delia mentioned part of our business model, but we also want to foster girls working together, having Girl Empowered be the staple for coding clubs that already exist as well as encouraging girls to team up and form their own groups.” Lucy found Nishi in the audience and smiled. “Because collaboration yields excellent results. And Silicon Valley will continue to be a boys’ club only if we let it. Or don’t start one of our own—a girls’ club.”

  Emma walked onstage and stood beside Lucy. Together, they looked at Ryan. His head rocked back, and he adjusted the collar of his button-down.

  The Pulse logo appeared on the screen. Controlled by Sadie in the back, who’d done as Lucy had asked and attached her phone to the projector, the images flipped from Pulse 10 to Pulse 10.

  “A generation of kids—my generation—has been obsessed with our ratings, posting more, trying harder and harder every day to be the funniest, hippest, strongest, smartest, est, est, est in a desperate attempt to be Crushing It. For all the perks that come with it. But who’s actually getting those perks? Is it these people?” Lucy gestured to the rotating faces on the screen. “These incredibly picture-perfect users, or are they, are we all, actually being used? Because who’s really benefitting? The people getting new barbecues and bicycles and tickets to Fungus . . .” Lucy checked out Ryan and his quickly paling face. “Or the ones paying for it—the advertisers? Paying Pulse for product placement. But that placement . . . it’s better if it’s with people who look like all these 10s, right? Thin, young, athletic. But how could it be possible that all of the most popular Pulse users look the same? How is it possible?”

  Lucy nodded to Sadie, and Eric and Delia’s slide appeared on the screen. An animation of how 10s would appear in Ryan’s secret table beside Delia’s rendering of how it would work in the code.

  “Something like this, perhaps?”

  Murmurs spread through the audience as those who knew coding began to run through what they were seeing.

  Ryan shot up out of his seat. “This is absurd!”

  Nishi rose with him, Lucy’s mom just a second behind. The look on her face . . . she knew.

  “Where did you even get—” Ryan cut himself off and balled his fists. But then his tone shifted, and he laughed with contempt. “Creative, I’ll give you that, girls. Though I doubt this is even your idea. Can’t trust a team who steals apps right off the Internet and tries to pass them off as their own. A competitor put you up to this? I hope they paid you enough to make it worth denigrating what all of these brilliant students have spent their time doing this summer. Now off my stage. You’re done.”

  Ryan began to head for the stairs, but Nishi and Abigail intercepted.

  Speaking quickly, Lucy continued. “This is an approximation, but it’s enough to show it could be done. The why is easy. Money, power, prestige. But the motivation, something like this, well, the leader sets the tone.”

  Lucy whispered, “Emma,” to Sadie, who logged back in to Pulse and pulled up Emma’s profile.

  “Take Emma here,” Lucy said, turning toward her. “She tore up the scale at a rapid pace this summer. From a 5 to a 7, and then soon, she was Crushing It, and just as fast—”

  “Faster,” Emma said.

  “She was Comatose. Yet she never lost fans. All her likes and favorites on all the sites feeding Pulse remained at the same level as before.”

  “Higher,” Emma said.

  “The same happened to me. I was Crushing It just in time for my ValleyStart beta test.”

  “Mine was in time to play at Pulse-a-palooza,” Emma said.

  “Coincidence? None of us are naïve enough to think that.” Lucy pointed to the screen, now showing how the table Delia found would look with the 0s and 1s at the top, with Emma’s and Lucy’s names highlighted. “And yet the only thing Emma and I have in common is—”

  “Enough!” Ryan shouted.

  “Exactly,” Lucy said.

  Sadie poked her head onto the stage. “It’s live!”

  This wasn’t what they’d originally planned. How they intended to do this piece of it. But Ryan’s threat against Maddie and Delia changed things. Lucy suspected he was bluffing, but she’d misjudged Ryan before. She wouldn’t be surprised again.

  “Put it up,” Lucy said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “If this interests you, if you’re concerned about businesses and business leaders taking advantage of their position, you can read all about it.” The banner for Teen Vogue filled the screen, and underneath, an essay with a joint byline by Emma Santos and Lucy Katz.

  Abigail gasped as she read the headline.

  PULSE FOUNDER RYAN THOMPSON GIVES NEW MEANING TO “PAY TO PLAY”

  Everyone started talking at once. Heads bent over phones, searching for the article, someone yelled, “Link through Twitter,” and Ryan spat a string of expletives through clenched teeth.

  But that was as much as Lucy saw, because then her mom had her by the elbow and was dragging her backstage.

  Tears sprung into Lucy’s eyes, the exhaustion of the past few days mixing with the adrenaline of being onstage and all of it coated with the trepidation of what her mom would say about everything.

  Yet Abigail Katz said nothing. Abigail Katz simply pulled her daughter into her arms and wept right along with her.

  * * *

  * * *

  When they both stopped shaking, Abigail breathed into Lucy’s hair. “We don’t talk. We never have. But we need to start.” She pushed herself back. “I want to start.” Her lower lip disappeared into her mouth. “But, Lucy, I need to know . . . did he . . . did something happen?”

  New tears trickled down Lucy’s cheeks as she shook her head. “I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure? You’d tell me if you weren’t?”

  “
I may not have told you before, but I would now. Because I didn’t understand—before this, I didn’t get it. You’ve dealt with this your whole career, haven’t you?”

  “Dealt with what?”

  Lucy watched as behind her mother, Delia’s parents rushed to her, bringing Danny with them. He collided with Maddie with the force of a bulldozer.

  Emma had Sadie beside her. Lucy caught Emma’s eye and tipped her head toward the exit. She and her mom then moved from the auditorium to the benches outside, and as they sat, facing each other, Lucy told her mom everything. It was the first time she’d ever seen her mom simultaneously cry, threaten a lawsuit, and wonder how much a hitman cost.

  She was kidding on that last one.

  Lucy hoped.

  (Only a little.)

  “I’ve underestimated you, Lucy,” her mom finally said. “Putting this all out there for the world to read. I’d have never done it at your age. Or my age.”

  Lucy fixed her gaze on her fingernails, coated in Girl em-Power-ed mauve. “Because of what everyone will think of me. That it’s my fault.”

  “No, Lucy, don’t you even think—”

  “I don’t. Not now. But I did. At first. You always said how important it was to present myself a certain way and now this . . . it defines me.”

  “Only for them. And maybe that’s a good thing.” Abigail clasped her hands in her lap. “It shows you’re the kind of woman who won’t put up with bullshit. All I could think of were the repercussions for speaking out at the Women in Tech talk, but what I’ve put up with, Lucy . . . what I’ve donned a smile as fake as all the VCs in this place combined and sat back and allowed to happen, be it jokes about colleague’s breasts, or the ‘oopsy’ brushing of them, or listening to the sports reports on the radio so I could have something to contribute to the conversation at lunch . . . or pretending I was as happy to be working late and missing putting my child to bed as they were.”

  Lucy looked at her, surprised.