by Jason Letts
The answer left me silenced and somewhat in awe of the situation. If even most of what he said was an exaggeration, that was an incredible accomplishment for a tiny town that even semi-locals weren’t familiar with.
Seth went on to talk more about his team of programmers and financial experts, his vision for the role cryptocurrency will play in the Internet, and what it meant to be a leader in an emerging field. Everything he said was off-the-cuff and relaxed, but that seemed to only further communicate his confidence. He spouted off a number of stats and figures relating to transaction, growth, and exchange rates without even thinking about it. As blatantly handsome as he was, what struck me most was his competence.
After he finished, the person to his left spoke and so on. Darla spent a good fifteen minutes going into excruciating detail about her company, which mostly consisted of PR and social media specialists. The entire thing consisted of keeping up the drumbeat on the Girl Code message, and apparently that alone paid off for them because I didn’t hear anything about if actually teaching code to girls was part of her model. Her verbosity left me in a bit of a stupor, and I noticed Seth already starting to wilt when he realized it was my turn. That only confirmed my suspicion that there was a better tact to take.
“I’m Operations Manager and Culture Designer at Mouse Roar Inc. and I’m in charge of promoting a diverse, tolerant environment that empowers every member of staff to make the greatest contribution they’re capable of.”
After I stopped, it took everyone a second to figure out that I was finished speaking.
“Short and to the point. I like it,” Andrew said, giving me a big smile I didn’t think I fully deserved. It quickly faded. “But remember you’ve got thirty minutes to fill. You’re going to have to expand on that.”
Then a deeper voice emerged from the other side of the semicircle.
“Tolerant culture? What does that even mean?” Seth appeared incredulous. “If I came in and started siphoning out company secrets to sell to competitors, would you tolerate it?”
“It means we’re tolerant of a variety of lifestyles,” I said quickly enough for it to sound like a snappy retort, but inwardly I saw the point and wondered if a more specific word choice or different phrase would save me some similar trouble in the presentation or panel discussion.
Andrew cleared his throat, and I could tell he was taking a cue from Seth that giving me a critique was the right thing to do.
“One quick comment if I may. Terms like diversity and empowerment never go out of style, but to the visitors at South by Southwest, especially those that come here year after year, familiarity and acceptance of those values can pretty well be taken for granted. We’ve had people here talking about that for as long as I can remember. My advice to you would be to not just start past the point of those concepts but to go way beyond them,” he said, closing with a slight air of condescension.
“I’m glad that a lot of people here get that. There are a lot of workplaces that still don’t,” I said.
“I’m just saying…” Andrew went on, nodding suggestively.
“Yeah, I get that,” I said, successfully curbing the discussion.
We listened to the older gentleman describe the company that he worked for that managed social media stars before Andrew began posing various questions that we’d be likely to hear come up during our live session on stage. I took on a couple of questions related to hiring but found that Seth didn’t hesitate to jump on most topics and dominate them all the way through to the end. Other than him, Darla, and I, most of the others in our group didn’t speak at all. I started to get frustrated that Andrew wasn’t doing anything to bring the rest into the conversation.
As I started to become disillusioned with the prospect of getting anything out of this group, Andrew abruptly brought the conversation to an end and announced that we needed to get together for a group picture before we were allowed to leave. A guy with a camera lurked by the door and only crept in when Andrew gave him a vigorous wave.
“Let’s put the twins together in the middle,” he said. “People are going to wonder anyway so we might as well go with it. The rest of us will gather around.”
We stood still on stage for a moment until the flash went off and the photographer gave a quick nod and darted for the exit without looking back.
“I hope it was a good one,” Seth muttered, making me laugh. What kind of a photographer took only one picture and ran out of the room?
We stepped off the stage and I went to my chair for my bag. Mentally I was already back in my room, sitting on my balcony with the sun all over me. Everyone else seemed to have better things in mind to do than hang around, because they were all bustling with me to get out.
“A quick word, Seth,” Andrew called, and Seth dropped out of the herd with an annoyed grunt.
Their conversation couldn’t have lasted long though, because I was barely at the top of the stairs and about to reach the entryway when I heard him call out from behind me.
“Hey, wait up!”
I slowed down, wondering what this was going to be about. Surely not an apology for mixing me up earlier. More talk about his special offer? I turned to glance back as he jogged closer. I couldn’t restrain myself from smiling just a little. Who didn’t mind a man that drop-dead gorgeous nipping at her heels?
And then he trotted right past me. And settled next to Darla, who had also slowed down to watch him approach. And she had probably known he was catching up to talk to her, making me look like an idiot for doing so. And my cheeks were burning with embarrassment and I wanted to dissolve into thin air.
A weird jealous thought struck me, because I wasn’t used to men completely blowing by me as if I weren’t even there. What did she have that I didn’t? Pins and t-shirts? I thought there’d been some energy between Seth and I during our conversation, but maybe it’d been in my head and Darla had some other kind of edge I wasn’t aware of.
It wasn’t much consolation that at least now he could evidently tell the two of us apart.
CHAPTER 3
I didn’t leave my room for the rest of the day. Room service sent up enchiladas that might’ve been shipped straight in from Mexico, and I chowed down on my balcony as the sun set and people paddled around on the lake below. The warm air and city sounds made it difficult to tear myself away and get back to work.
When I finally did drag myself to the desk, all of my annoyances about the introductory meeting returned, and there were a few new ones popping up as well. Getting passed up for a lookalike with a big pink pin didn’t bother me as much at the moment as Andrew did for what he said about my statement. There was only one appropriate response to the suggestion that a single sentence wasn’t going to fill a half an hour. No duh.
But the idea that everyone was beyond diversity and empowerment was frankly offensive to me after everything I’d been through. South by Southwest was about new ideas, but sometimes last year’s ideas hadn’t had enough time to really take root yet. I got that spending thirty minutes saying we needed to hire women and listen to them wasn’t going to be enough, but that could still be the soul of it even if those specific words weren’t used.
I spent the evening tinkering with the draft of my speech but didn’t make too many serious changes. I fell asleep wondering what the next day would bring and woke up with an inexplicable sense of optimism. Perhaps Andrew thought we were all lazy and disorganized about creating our presentations, but mine was mostly done and wouldn’t require me to sit in a hotel room all day to pound it out.
The entire day was there for me to roam around Austin and put my finger on the pulse beating rapidly on the eve of this exciting festival.
I took the elevator down to the lobby and happened to see the back of Seth’s head as he walked into Trio for breakfast. He was alone, but I kept on walking straight out the doors.
South by Southwest hadn’t even officially started yet but already there was this incredible vibe everywhere I went that yo
u could just approach anyone and wow each other with the things you were doing. I must’ve spoken to at least one hundred new people that day, probably more than any other day in my life. Everyone was so friendly and excited.
I even walked right up to Cate Blanchett at a cafe near the Paramount Theater and introduced myself. I felt like I’d stepped into some parallel universe when she said she’d actually heard about me because of that Times profile. We talked for a few minutes before I realized how ridiculous this was and I left her to carry on with her life without further intrusions from someone like me.
But no matter how much imposter syndrome threatened to derail me, everyone I ran into was perfectly nice no matter who they were or what they were doing. I watched a few teams constructing their booths for the tech exhibits, saw a TV that seemed to have an even clearer picture than reality, and took a stroll along the river path for a few moments of repose.
It felt like I was falling in love with Austin and nothing bad could happen to me here, and then I saw the email from Keenan with the subject line Closure.
I was still standing on the path but was in sight of the hotel, causing me to deliberate between reading it while standing right where I was or retreating back to my room before opening it up. I could tell already that this was not going to be good, and that was even before I saw that he’d misspelled my name, Srah.
How little could he care about what he was writing to not even notice that he’d misspelled my name? I’d already been triggered.
“I know an optimist like you can find the good in any situation, and I don’t have any doubts that you’re happier now than you were even a couple of days ago. The weight of it all was taking its toll on me just as much as you, and I thought it important to tell you that this has been a good change for me too.
“The diminishing returns situation we were stuck in couldn’t continue indefinitely. Even though we were working together and being together, I felt like I never got to really see you anymore. I get what you were saying about how moving in might’ve made some things easier, but you were also right that nothing was going to fix the problems we had better than being apart.
“I still care about you and respect you, even more so because you weren’t afraid to walk away when you saw a bad situation. Cassie asked me when the last time I’d been dumped was, and I honestly couldn’t remember. But I don’t hold it against you. I applaud you for it. Have a great time in Austin, don’t forget to talk to Gary Polling, and we’ll see you when you get back.”
If my phone had been only a little more pliable I would’ve crushed it right in my hand. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything that had inflamed me more. Where to begin? Diminishing returns was just a fancy way of saying he was tired of me. And it was so nice of him to go into detail about how much happier he was now that we weren’t together. The only thing that really mattered to him was that I got the deal for his company. From the sounds of it, his ex-girlfriend Cassie was now occupying a lot of his time. The thought that I’d see them when I got back was enough to make me sick.
It seemed like it would go down in history as the absolute worst email I’d ever gotten, but it turned out not to even be the most disturbing email I’d get that day. I’d gone back to my room in the hopes that the solitude would help me fight through the avalanche of feelings. The first day of the festival the next day was completely packed with events and I was trying to figure out what I could do that would effectively take my mind off of Keenan. I’d barely read through half of the options when my phone pinged again with another message.
I’d picked it up quickly, expecting some sort of apology from Keenan, but what I got instead was bizarre and horrifying in an entirely new way. The sending address was one of those disposable SharkLasers addresses, which meant that I couldn’t reply even if I wanted to. The subject was just my name. The body was…well.
“Saw you out in town today. Much sexier than your picture. Couldn’t help but think how good you would look on your knees in front of me. I’ll be in the front row of your talk. They should put in a pole. You bring the g string and I’ll bring the singles. Then I’ll come find you for some alone time afterward.”
As disgusted as I was, I didn’t panic or flinch at the threatening email. Within seconds I’d forwarded it to Andrew, but then after that there wasn’t much for me to do other than stare at it with a grim curiosity about who had sent it. I tried to reach back into my memory and dredge up images of all of the men I’d seen that day, but it was an impossible task. Nobody had creeped me out in person. Nothing had seemed suspicious.
And then there was the thought of this person sitting right in front of me, licking his lips, while I spoke about workplace equality and interviewing tips for identifying candidates who excelled at collaboration. How was I supposed to do that when someone was going to come stalking after me when it was over?
I knew it was unreasonable to expect Andrew to write back just two minutes after the message had been sent, but some part of me thought he would after all he’d said about being on-call all the time. Then two hours passed with no response and no call. I had to stop driving myself crazy picking up the phone to check every second. I didn’t have any appetite, but I had to get some fresh air.
Bringing my phone along so it could bring me more bad news wasn’t going to work, so I left it on the desk space, reasoning that as long as I didn’t leave the hotel it would be fine. The hall was quiet, empty, and I walked around without really acknowledging to myself that I didn’t know where I wanted to go.
The gym and the restaurant were too conspicuous for my mood. All I wanted was a good spot to stare up at the stars and wonder why my love affair with Austin had to come to an end so soon. A stairwell appeared before me, and I began climbing up and up until there were no more stairs. The door opened onto a rooftop lounge, where tables set between romantic couches had flames dancing in the center.
The lights from the city drowned out most of the glimmering stars, which couldn’t hold my attention for long. A soft breeze pushed me to look over my shoulder at some of the people snuggling together in their little nooks. Most of the couches were empty, but a few here and there were enough to send a pang of longing into my heart.
Then I glanced over my other shoulder and saw Seth and Darla sitting only a few paces away from where I’d happened to stop along the balustrade. They weren’t wrapped up in each other or even lying back. Instead they were seated upright at least a foot apart. A table for two at a restaurant could’ve fit between them.
I looked forward at the river again, this time listening to what I could of their halting conversation. Not more than a word or two in a row ever made it to my ear, but the tone and rhythm of it made me sure that they were struggling to find things to say to each other. Risking another glance over my shoulder, I couldn’t tell which of them was least interested in the conversation. If I’d been forced to guess, I would’ve said they hooked up but were finding it impossible to have anything other than a solely physical relationship. Or the sex had been bad. Or the pink pin she was wearing was bothering him.
Then her phone rang.
She muttered a brief apology and answered it, suddenly sounding much more chipper and engaging than she had in any of the things she’d said to Seth. He grumbled audibly. That compelled me to look over my shoulder again, and this time he noticed me standing there. When he tried to say something to Darla, she held up a finger, stood up, and began to walk away in order to find some solitude in which to talk.
I hadn’t looked away, and Darla had barely turned her back on Seth before he’d gotten up and begun drifting my way with something of a sheepish expression on his face. He set his elbows against the balustrade next to me and released a heavy sigh.
“Good thing there’s no shortage of 5’6” late-twenties brunettes with slightly curly hair who work in the tech space around here,” I said. Seth blinked hard and twisted his head slowly as if what I’d said had just woken him up from a dream.
I grinned.
“Considering I don’t have my phone on me, it might be quite a while,” I said. “Who’s to say you won’t get a call and turn your back on me?”
Seth looked up at the stars and shrugged.
“I didn’t even bring my phone with me on the trip here,” he said. “No laptop, no tablet, and you sure won’t catch me on one of those public machines they have around rubbing elbows with the other junkies itching to get their fix.”
It didn’t seem like a good time to bring up that I’d only left mine in my room and I usually treated it like it was permanently attached.
“How long can you go like that?” I asked, trying to keep the astonishment out of my voice. He scratched his cheek and glanced down over the railing.
“Truth is I still have a flip phone and my PC back home runs on electricity generated with a hand crank,” he said without making it sound like an exaggeration.
“Is that even cheaper than electricity from five hydroelectric dams?” It wasn’t my best joke and his lips barely twitched.
“The truth is a while back I made a concerted effort to try to cut out the fluff from my life, the nonessentials, and I found that basically everything connected to my phone was a nonessential. Most of what I need is right in the old noggin. If something’s important, it’ll appear right in front of me.”
He glanced at me, but his eyes continued to drift all the way back to the couch that he’d recently vacated. Darla was nowhere in sight. As much fun as it would be to pry into the mind of a cryptocurrency titan who balked at modern technology, there was something else I wanted to know about more.
“What do you like about her?” I asked. Sure, there was a note of vanity in there as I wanted to know why I’d been passed up, but I was genuinely interested in educating myself about what kind of appeal a motormouth self-promoter like Darla could have. It was hard not to think that if I just spoke a different way and had a slightly different point of view I could be her, literally.