by David Bell
I went in, and she bolted the door shut behind me. I looked around the room. Two beds, the carry-on bag next to the hat and sunglasses on one of them. The TV played a black-and-white movie with the volume muted, a Henry Fonda Western I’d once watched with my dad. Wyatt Earp had just married a beautiful schoolmarm, and the two of them danced with joy while the crowd clapped. A world apart from the way Morgan had greeted me.
“Are you alone?” I asked. The minifridge cycled on and then off with a rattle.
“Of course I’m alone.” She came closer but didn’t sit down. “You shouldn’t be here. You really, really should leave. Go back to wherever you have to go.”
“You told me to quit my job,” I said.
“Fine. Go do that. But you can’t do it here. Really, Joshua, this isn’t good for you.”
“Is it good for you?” I asked. “You’re using another name, traveling in disguise. Your friends think you’ve disappeared.”
“Those are my problems. Not yours.”
“You agreed to have a drink with me. You kissed me, and then you called me at the airport.”
“And told you to leave me alone,” she said, making a dismissive gesture with her hand.
“I couldn’t,” I said. “Not when it seems like you’re in danger. Not . . . not when we connected the way we did.”
“Oh, God . . .”
“If you tell me everything is okay, I’ll turn around and go. But I don’t think you can tell me that. I think there’s something going on, something bad, and you seem to be dealing with it alone.”
“And what does that make you? The second coming of Sir Galahad?”
That made two times that day a woman had compared me to a knight on a quest. I wished for such a sharp, clear purpose.
She continued to stare at me. Her eyes were red and raw. I saw a box of tissues on the nightstand, and some crumpled ones littered the floor. She looked very alone and very anxious.
“Are you going to throw me out?” I asked.
She took a deep breath. “Not yet.”
I felt a small measure of relief.
“So why don’t you tell me what’s going on?” I asked.
She turned away, paced to the door, and then came back, her hand lifted to her mouth. She was shaking her head, her hair bouncing across her shoulders.
“You don’t want to know,” she said, but she sounded softer, less determined to dismiss me.
“I do, Morgan. Look how far I’ve come.”
“You’re an idiot, then.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“You’ll be implicated. Do you know that?”
“Implicated? In what?”
“I’m not trying to be cruel. . . . I just . . .”
“Look, try me. Okay? Just try me.”
“Okay,” she said after a long pause. “I haven’t told anybody, so I might as well tell you.” She pointed to the minifridge. “I bought a six-pack. And you might need one if you want to hear it all.”
I grabbed a beer for myself and one for her, the bottles cold and slick against my palms. I opened them both and handed one over. We sat across from each other on opposite beds, and I waited for her to begin.
23
She didn’t drink her beer, but her grip on the bottle was tight. I saw the pressure being exerted by her knuckles against the glass.
“Do you know anything about the way women can be treated in tech companies?” she asked.
“I’ve heard stories,” I said. I waited for her to say more, but she didn’t. She stared at the ugly green carpet, her feet planted on the floor. “Is that what happened to you? Were you . . . harassed or something?”
She shook her head. “No, nothing like that. I’m talking about the way women get taken advantage of in terms of their work. We get shut out and overlooked. Or ignored.”
I told her I understood. She might not have been drinking her beer, but I drank mine. Even though I felt dehydrated from being in the air and in the car all day, the beer tasted good. It kept me calm, made me patient.
“Remember this morning, how we talked about making a difference?” she asked. “How we come out of college all idealistic and hoping to make a difference?”
“Sure.”
“That’s what I thought I was doing.” She paused. “I went to work for this tech company called TechGreen. All one word. TechGreen. They make apps and do Web design. The kind of stuff that’s really been taking off over the last few years.”
“Where was this?” I asked.
“In Laurel Falls, Kentucky. A midsize town about thirty minutes east of here and an hour north of Nashville.”
“I saw it on the map,” I said. “I didn’t go through it, but I took a state road that went west of there.”
“That makes sense. I got the job at TechGreen a year after I finished college here at Henry Clay. I moved to Laurel Falls just knowing a few people. But it sounded like a good place to work. They were trying to help the environment through tech, and they said they treated their employees differently. You know, healthy, catered lunches in the break room. Massages or yoga on special days. That kind of thing.”
I compared her experience to working for my dad. We had no real office outside of our homes. I spent most of my time cramped in airplanes or hunched over a laptop at my dining room table. Dad didn’t know what yoga was, and the closest thing I came to a catered meal was when he took me to his favorite diner for greasy eggs or a patty melt and regaled me with stories of his early days in business. To be honest, I liked hearing the old man talk about his past. I learned more about him at those breakfasts than at any other time.
“I’ve heard of companies like that,” I said.
“It was great. I met people I liked. We all wanted to create technology that helped the planet. Things that reduced our impact on the environment.” She met my eye. “Like I said, idealism. Making a difference.”
“Right.”
She looked at the beer bottle as though she hadn’t realized it was in her hand. She studied the label and then took a long drink. Her throat bobbed, and when she was finished, she smacked her lips with satisfaction.
“That’s good. Better than that crappy Bloody Mary in the airport.”
“No surprise.”
“Thanks for paying for that, by the way. I know I stuck you with the tab.”
“I’ll write it off on my taxes.”
She let out a small laugh. “So, I’m working for TechGreen. And everything is going well. I get involved in some fulfilling projects, make some decent money. I feel like I’m moving along the way I’m supposed to. Then it was time for me to take a step forward. It was time for me to take the lead on an app instead of just following along and helping other people in the company.”
“That sounds like progress.”
“Moving on up. Becoming a big girl.”
She sounded cynical and disappointed. Maybe we’d both seen what was behind the curtain of adulthood and found it wanting. But what was the alternative to going to school, getting a real job and your own place to live? Dad wouldn’t have let me sleep in my childhood bedroom with the Peyton Manning poster and the GI Joes forever.
She drank from the beer again, then said, “I came up with an idea for an app, something the company could really get behind, something they could take and run with. It was simple, so simple it was brilliant.”
“The best ideas usually are,” I said.
“Right. It was an app that allowed you to enter products you found in the store—clothes, food, cleaning supplies, whatever—and then the app would tell you the product’s environmental impact. You know, are there poisons in the product? Or was pollution generated as it was made? Were workers being mistreated somewhere in the world?” She shook her head as she thought about it. “We called it LifeShoppe with an ‘e’ on the end, and, da
mn, it was good.”
“I’m sure they were happy,” I said.
“Oh, yeah, they were. It’s a small company, founded and run by just a couple of guys. A really good app like that, a really good idea, could make the place take off like you wouldn’t believe.” Her face suddenly became less animated, taking on the same lost, distant look it had earlier. “They were desperate for an idea that would set them apart and make everything they did stand out. It’s a crowded field.”
“That all sounds good,” I said. “I sense there’s a ‘but’ coming. . . .”
“Oh, there is,” she said, taking another drink of her beer and suppressing a small burp. “There most definitely is.”
24
I finished my beer but stayed on the bed, not wanting to throw off her train of thought. I remained still, waiting for her to go on.
“You can see where this story is going, can’t you?” she asked.
I had a pretty good guess at the most likely outcome.
“LifeShoppe was a huge smash,” I said. “Everybody loved it.”
She was nodding before I even finished my sentence. Then she tilted her head back and finished her beer.
“Do you want another?” I asked.
“Please.”
I went to the minifridge and brought out two more, the bottles clinking against each other as I held them in one hand. I carried an opener on my key chain, so I popped the two tops and handed one to her. Our fingers brushed as she took the bottle from me, and then our eyes met briefly.
I didn’t say anything, but I damn sure remembered that kiss in the airport . . . which seemed like it had happened about a month earlier. I moved my tongue around in my mouth, trying to find some remnant of that Bloody Mary flavor from her lips, but too much alcohol and time had passed for me to summon it again. Had we really met only that morning at ten o’clock? I checked the large red numbers on the bedside clock: 7:21. It was getting late, too late. I had to call Dad soon.
Dad. Shit. I couldn’t avoid him forever.
I took my seat again, and Morgan kicked her running shoes off and scooted back on her bed, folding her long, slender legs under her body. I became acutely aware of the silly work clothes I still wore—my button-down shirt, my jacket, my dress shoes. We looked like we existed in two different worlds.
“The app was a smash,” she said. “It sold and sold. And got written up in a few industry magazines. It did better than anything else TechGreen had ever done. By far. It was . . . really just great. I mean, I felt like not only had I come up with an idea and worked on something that actually made the world a better place, as cheesy as that sounds, but I’d also done something to help the company. It was a win-win for everybody.”
“A rising tide lifts all boats,” I said.
“Yeah.” She took a drink of her beer. And then another. “God, this tastes really good. I mean, really. I’ve been craving this ever since I left Nashville but didn’t know it.”
Morgan started picking at the label on her beer bottle. She used her thumbnail, which was covered with chipped pink nail polish. She performed the act aggressively, almost as if she were taking something out on the label. And she seemed to have forgotten I was in the room, even though I was watching her from just a few feet away.
I waited as long as I could, not wanting to interrupt her private reverie. But a deadline loomed—the call to my dad—and I wanted the story to resume if there was more. And I strongly suspected there was.
“So, the app was a smash,” I said, trying to jar her back to reality. “What happened after that?”
She kept picking away, her nail making a small pinging sound against the bottle. I thought she hadn’t heard me, but she said, “You’re a business guy. Clearly. You must know that when you sign on to work for a company like that, whatever you design or create for them becomes their intellectual property. Right?”
“Sounds pretty standard,” I said.
She stopped picking and nodded. “I knew that. I may have been young and idealistic when I started working there, but I wasn’t stupid. Or naïve. I wasn’t a dumb kid. I knew how the world worked. I knew that if the app did well I could go find a job somewhere else and make more money. Or get a raise. Or start my own company. Hell, I knew what I could do.”
“So what went wrong?” I asked.
She heaved a big sigh, her shoulders moving up and down. Out in the hallway, I heard cubes tumbling through the ice machine and hammering a plastic bucket. An all-too-familiar noise considering how many nights I’d sat in a hotel room and listened to its percussive rhythm.
“They’d had successful apps before,” Morgan said. “Not quite this big, but things that had done well. Every time—every time—the owner of the company would give the person or team who came up with the idea a nice bonus. I never knew exactly how much they got, but I heard rumors. It was a healthy piece of compensation for work well done. Nothing like what the company made, but enough to say that the company valued what those people had accomplished.”
“Seems normal,” I said. “Bonuses always help morale.”
Morgan became quiet again. I watched her intently, choosing not to say anything to speed her along because of the troubled look that had just come over her face. Tears formed there, filling her eyes. She reached up with her free hand, the one not holding the beer, and brushed them away. Then she sniffled.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“This is way more than you bargained for, isn’t it?” she asked. “You probably knocked on my door hoping for a quick lay, right?”
“This is a long way to go for a quick lay,” I said. “I’m supposed to be in Florida right now. Remember? I could have gone there and found a seventy-five-year-old widow at the hotel bar if I’d wanted a quick lay.”
She laughed but wiped more tears away. “Shit. I don’t want to be crying.”
“We can stop talking if—”
“No,” she said. “I want to tell you. It actually feels good to have someone listening.”
“Okay. I’m a captive audience.”
She drank from her bottle. “You can guess, right? I didn’t get the damn bonus. Nothing.” She shook her head. “And here’s the kicker. Those other developers, the ones who had received bonuses when their apps did well? They were all men. I was the first woman to make them this much money, and when it came time to get the bonus, there was nothing for me. Nothing at all.”
25
Morgan scooted across the bed, holding her beer away from her body so nothing spilled, and stood up. She rushed to the bathroom without saying anything, closed the door behind her, and locked it.
I walked over, my steps cautious. But I heard running water and then coughing. I couldn’t be sure if she was getting sick or crying. I knocked gently.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “Do you need anything?”
“Just leave me alone,” she said.
A pretty clear answer. I checked the time again and saw I needed to call Dad. I didn’t want to. I had no idea what I could say to him. But I couldn’t leave him high and dry, wondering where I was.
“I’m going to step out and make a phone call,” I said through the closed door, hoping Morgan heard me. She made no response, but the water still ran. So I undid the locks and went out.
I took the stairs at the end of the hall down to the first floor, my steps echoing like drumbeats in the closed space, and found a sitting area in the lobby. No one was there, which meant I’d have a little privacy. I sat at a small table in the corner and took a deep breath. Then I called.
When Dad answered, he sounded cheery. His tone told me the afternoon meetings had gone well.
“Hey. Did you just land? Was the plane late?”
“I haven’t landed.”
A pause. “Joshua, what’s going on?”
“Well, I’m not coming to Tampa.”
“Okay . . .”
His voice sounded gravelly and low, uncertainty bordering on disapproval bleeding through the phone. He was going to give me the benefit of the doubt . . . but for only about twenty more seconds.
“Dad, a friend of mine is going through a personal crisis right now.”
“A friend? What friend? A friend from home?”
“No. It’s a long story, and I don’t have time to tell it now. But what matters is I’m not going to make it to Tampa tonight. I have to be here. It’s the best thing, and I know you can handle what’s going on down there.”
“I don’t like this, Joshua. First you tell me one thing and then you decide to do something else. Are you in some kind of trouble?”
“No, I’m not.” But I wasn’t sure. I remembered the word Morgan had used. Implicated. Not a pretty word, not at all. “Dad, remember earlier today when we talked, and you said you could sense that I was a little dissatisfied?”
“Sure. We said we’d talk about it when you got here.”
“I know. And I appreciate that. But you were right, so I’m trying to take care of something, with this friend, because it seems more important at the moment than work does. Does that make sense?”
A man in khaki pants and a sweatshirt came through the swooshing automatic doors and into the lobby. He looked around, nodded at me, and then went to the desk. I couldn’t say why, but I wondered if he was looking for Morgan. It seemed like an irrational thought, not backed up by anything he’d done, but given her clandestine movements across the country, it didn’t seem far-fetched. Might someone be looking for her? She sure acted like it.
“Is this friend a woman?” Dad asked, placing an arch emphasis on the word “friend.”
What could I say? Did it matter if I lied?
“Yes, she is.”
“Oh, Joshua,” he said. “A woman?” He let out a rough sigh. “Look, Joshua, I know what it’s like to be on the road. Hell, your mother left me so many years ago. . . . I understand the temptations. The hotels and the bars and the late nights. And I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t indulged myself from time to time over the years.”