by Jason Letts
“Did you forget something?” His question made me squint.
“Sorry, what?”
He swallowed and raised both eyebrows, drawing my attention to his deep brown eyes.
“Car keys, directions, credit card?”
“I haven’t forgotten anything,” I said. The clerk appeared to be printing something out.
“Then what are you doing here?”
I almost laughed despite myself.
“I’m checking in,” I said.
“But you already did that,” he said.
This caused me to turn and look at him as if he’d just sprouted a second head as attractive as the first.
“Umm, no.”
The man snorted and shook his head. I realized that the clerk was waiting quietly for our conversation to end.
“You checked in the same time I did, at least forty-five minutes ago!”
His incredulousness was full of amusement, but I couldn’t tell if I should find it funny or be concerned.
“I’m pretty sure I would know if I’d already checked in. The first time I’d set foot in here wasn’t more than two minutes ago,” I said. A smile cracked my lips of its own accord.
“Sure, whatever you say,” he said, pushing off from the counter. “Just remember my offer is still on the table.”
He drifted away, and I couldn’t help but glance over my shoulder as he went, hands in his pockets as if he owned the place. A moment later I lost sight of him behind a group of people.
“Do you know who that was? Here, I can sign that,” I said, suddenly feeling flustered. The girl behind the counter shrugged as she handed over the paper.
“I believe he’s one of our guests,” she said.
I waited a moment to see if she’d go on to give his name, but that was all she had to say on the subject. There was a bit of a coy nod though, which I took to be a comment on his appearance. The thought of names reminded me of another one I needed to come across.
“You don’t happen to know if a man named Gary Polling is staying here, do you?” I asked.
“No, I don’t,” she said, producing a small sleeve with a pair of cards in it. “Here’s your room key. You’re in guest room 518. Inside you’ll find information about all of the amenities the hotel has to offer, but you can also stop by our concierge desk over there if you need more specific help.”
I took the key cards and left the desk for the elevators, but I didn’t make it more than two feet before my mind went back to that guy who’d been talking to me at the counter. What an idiot. I couldn’t have been harsher. Was that some kind of gaslighting pick-up routine? Hey, we were just talking about coming up to my room. Don’t you remember? From the look in his eyes I didn’t have to guess that the only offers he’d be making would involve my legs in the air. It just seemed completely pathetic. From the way he looked, he probably didn’t need to invent crazy stories to get attention from women. Rankled was the only word I could think of to describe how I felt.
The elevator swept me up to the fifth floor, and when its doors opened I already had a yearning to see my room that eclipsed all other thoughts or desires. When I popped the key card in to trigger the lock and pushed open the door, what I saw was so charming it made me lightheaded. The guest room had to be a full three times larger than my apartment, with a cute sitting area, enough desk space that it would be enough to sleep on if I had to, and a bathroom that was only a little hot wax short of being a spa. I stepped forward toward the large open windows and the rounded balcony on the other side, pretending to touch the bed to get a feel for the fabric but practically using it to support my stumbling hobbles. My eyes were consuming one-hundred percent of the energy in my body, but I still couldn’t believe what I saw when I looked at the stunning river view below.
Little kayaks were paddling around in the shimmering water. The green of the grass and the trees on the banks were beyond vibrant. It looked like a painting come to life.
I remember being crushed that Keenan’s modest apartment was so far out of my reach, and yet again I was confronted with a lovely space I would’ve killed to live in, this one in a hotel. Was it so bad to want to live in a place where the bed didn’t have to touch two walls? I couldn’t hear a sound from any of the other rooms. It felt like I’d entered my own world.
The first thing I did was open the large glass door to the shower to admire its multi-colored tiles. Even the grouting was attractive. It didn’t seem like I had a choice but to get in, and I let the water run and run. I hadn’t felt this clean in years. When I got out I saw that forty-five minutes had passed, but I wouldn’t have questioned it if it had been three hours.
The next stop was the bed, which was certainly more on the soft side than the mattress back home that could’ve been filled with play-doh. I hadn’t intended to fall asleep, but the next thing I knew it really was three hours later and I had to succumb to the truth that I hadn’t come here to enjoy a do-nothing vacation. The conference introduction was in less than a half an hour and being late was not a possibility.
After being so relaxed, I was suddenly thrown into a state of panic yet again as I scrambled to get myself ready and figure out where I had to go.
I had been so sideswiped by the time and so disoriented by my deep foray into a state of bliss that I’d completely forgotten that the Austin Convention Center was right across the street from the hotel. I imagined patting myself on the back for a job well done as I conveniently crossed the street and approached the massive building with its flanking escalators housed in spacious glass towers. The main entrance featured shorter staircases and tall inner walls of mortared white stone. It was a beautiful nod to what I imagined must’ve been the look of early monastic structures erected by missionaries.
On the way to my designated meeting room, I passed one of the huge presentation halls. The door was propped open and I stole a look, finding no one inside in any of the thousand or so seats. The stage and projection surface behind it all gave me the sense that they were waiting for action. It was hard to believe that in a few days time I was going to be sitting on the stage in a room like this with countless ears listening to what I had to say.
Glancing at my phone told me that my time for touring was growing short. I trotted away from the presentation hall, along a long and winding corridor, and down a set of stairs to a room labeled B2. The room’s entryway doors were both open and light was pouring out from inside. Voices followed, laughter. Name tags were set on a desk right inside of the doors. My name and about three others remained untaken, and a quick count of those inside gave me an inkling that there were about a dozen presenters and panelists in this group.
“Sorry I didn’t come right over,” I heard a voice say, causing me to turn and see a man in his early thirties with a close-cropped goatee come right over. He was an inch or two shorter than I was, and he was so thin that his tucked in sweater seemed to be the only thing holding his pants up.
“Hi,” I said as he extended a hand. But when I turned to look at him he stopped, appearing startled. Blinking and squinting, he did everything short of rub his eyes at me.
“I didn’t realize you were sisters,” he said.
“What about my sister?” I said, immediately puzzled by his comment, but it hit me when I glanced over his shoulder and saw a woman who could’ve been my clone running her thumb over her phone by some chairs set in a semicircle. The same nose, shoulder-length brown hair with a bit of curl at the end, same eye color and skin tone.
Even her outfit was eerily similar to what I’d worn coming off the plane. This woman still had a pair of jeans on and gray jacket. The shirt underneath was a different color and had more of a v-neck to it, and the boots she had on weren’t anything like what I would ever wear, but the similarities were mesmerizing and unnerving at the same time. The most apparent difference might’ve been that she had a sizable pink pin on her chest.
“She’s right over there,” the man said, glancing quickly over his should
er. “The married name threw me off. You should’ve said something!”
I was barely paying any attention to him or what he said.
“Oh, I’m not married,” I said.
It struck me a moment later that he’d responded to my comment not with words but with a particularly hungry gaze that I was anxious to dispel.
“Who is she?” I asked. “I’ve never seen her before in my life.”
The man started laughing and even playfully gave a light push on my shoulder and shook his head.
“That’s a good one. I say the same thing about my younger brother. Haven’t seen him since I left for college about fifteen years ago,” he said.
I started walking forward toward her, half expecting my reflection to merge with me as we got closer together. Still snorting his amusement, the man who hadn’t actually bothered to introduce himself was following closely on my heels.
“You two have been playing a nasty little trick on me,” he said loudly enough to make the woman lift her eyes from the phone in front of her face. When she saw me, the effect was immediate and telegraphed through her widening eyes, but she quickly slipped into a cordial smile.
“No, I really don’t know who she is,” I said without taking my eyes off of her. “I’m Sarah Faverly.”
“God bless. What an angel?” Her voice had the slightest twang to it, and as I got closer I could see some other tiny differences setting us apart, like her thinner eyebrows and shiny earrings that had to be real diamond. The pink button on her chest read Girl Code. “But I’d forget myself if I wasn’t attached. Darla Maple.”
“You’re kidding?” The man buzzing around us slapped his knee. “I can’t believe you two aren’t related.”
“ And who are you with?” Darla asked.
“I’m here by myself,” I said, quickly realizing she wasn’t referring to the guy with the goatee. “Representing Mouse Roar.”
“Mouse Roar,” she said, acting impressed. “That is so great. Good for you.”
“And what about you?” I asked.
“I started Girl Code,” she said, gesturing to the button on her chest before reaching into her pocket and producing another one. She held it out for me to take.
“Cool, that’s awesome. Thank you,” I said, but she gave her head a jerky shake.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Those are twenty dollars a piece. The perfect way to say that you’re part of the movement to bring women into tech,” she said.
I looked at the shiny pink pin to see if there was anything special about it to make it worth twenty bucks. Darla was looking at me expectantly as if I should reach into my bag for my wallet.
“Sorry, twenty bucks for this?” I asked, trying to be politely skeptical.
“A portion of the proceeds goes directly to programs aimed at introducing girls to coding,” she explained with a nod that sent her hair bouncing around her ears and making her earrings catch the light.
“And what percentage is that?”
An awkward moment passed until Darla started chuckling.
“Where did you find her? She’s hysterical,” she said to the man still hovering by our side as if he were part of the conversation.
“I know. I love it already. This is going to be amazing and I’m dying to get started,” he said with a look at his watch. “Speaking of which I thought I was pretty clear on when we were supposed to be here. Oh well. Time and tide wait for no man. Not even him.”
The guy seemed glum about abandoning our conversation but he finally drifted away.
“You can just hold onto that,” Darla said to me with a wave of the hand. “If you wear it when you’re on stage. They’ve been selling like mad and I doubt there’ll be a woman at South by Southwest who won’t have one on, but you know what they say about the value of good marketing.”
“Yes, I do,” I said, ready with a comment about how that’s what we did at my company, but she was too fast.
“But if you get into the habit of wearing it and start feeling the solidarity of the cause, you can find t-shirts, hats, mugs, mouse pads, even umbrellas with this on it. They all look great,” Darla said cheerily.
For a second I wondered how I’d ever managed to be an advocate for women without having it emblazoned on every article of clothing and object I owned. Still, clearly she was passionate about fighting for women in tech, and I couldn’t fault her too much for being entrepreneurial about it. I made a mental note to give Lena the pin; she would love it.
The man’s voice coming from a smaller stage on the side of the room brought my conversation with Darla to a close. He had a microphone and didn’t seem to have any intention of missing the chance to use it even though there were only about ten people in the room all of whom were fairly close to him.
“Welcome, welcome, welcome,” he said, beaming. “I know I’ve introduced myself to you all but if your memories are as short as mine, my name is Andrew Lisk, and I’ll be coordinating your presentations and panel discussion for The Future of Work in Tech, which I believe will be the marquee topic of this year’s conferences at South by Southwest.
“Simply put, you’ve been asked to come here because you’re emerging leaders in your sectors and we believe you have valuable insights to share with our audience about what work will be and how we’ll be working together as technology advances. My job is to work as closely with you as necessary to make sure you’re able to effectively communicate those insights while you’re on stage starting Monday and then again on Wednesday.
“You should know that I’m on the clock twenty-four hours a day until the festival is over, so contact me at any time over the weekend if you need assistance preparing or practicing. I know it’s easy to feel nervous if you’re not used to speaking in front of large numbers of people, so I wanted to start by having an informal chat here together. The more comfortable you feel around each other, the easier it’ll be when we’re all under the lights.
“I was hoping our keynote speaker would be here by now, but it looks like something’s held him up. Let’s go ahead and take a seat.”
Andrew finally let the microphone go, setting it on a narrow podium at his side. He then stepped off the stage and pulled another folding chair around to the front of the semicircle so that no one had any choice but to look directly at him as we sat down.
Just then the door behind us abruptly swung open, causing us all to look over our shoulders at a tall, well-built man striding into the room. I recognized him at once as the man who’d thought I’d already checked into the Four Seasons as I was checking in. The polo shirt he’d been wearing then must’ve been too dressy, because he’d downgraded to a t-shirt featuring an 80’s metal band and a pair of jeans with some tears around the thighs.
I heard Andrew grumbling as he got up, sparing a moment to look longingly back at the microphone before navigating around the semicircle to meet the new entrant, who hadn’t bothered to pick up his name tag.
“This is our keynote speaker everyone, Seth Travers. Better late than never,” Andrew said.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” Seth said without any sign of concern.
“We’ll let it slide this once,” Andrew said. “Why don’t you go ahead and take a seat in the empty chair and get us started with an introduction?”
But the instruction was redundant as Seth was already wheeling around to the chair, which was on the opposite side of mine. He stretched out, legs apart, and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. He didn’t have a briefcase, a pen, or even a phone from what I could tell, but his sunglasses were hooked to a loop on his jeans.
“If you’re familiar with the cryptocurrency world, you’ll know my company, BlockBank. We’re from East Wanatchee…”
“Sorry, where?” I blurted out my question, surprising myself. Seth stopped and looked at me straight on for a solid moment. He then looked at Darla who was spaced out between us and had another moment of trying to differentiate us. He cleared his throat.
“East Wanatchee is i
n Washington State,” he said, but he was cut off again by an older man wearing a suit and tie who could’ve been the grandfather of anyone else in the room.
“I travel all around Washington on walking tours and I’ve never even heard of that place. Is it even on a map? Where is it?”
Seth blew through his nose.
“Yes, it’s on a map and it doesn’t matter where it is. It’s everywhere. This is the epicenter of the cryptocurrency world, bigger than New York, London, Tokyo, Beijing, anywhere you like. This is where the revolution is going to come that’ll upend the financial markets, banking. In another five years no one will even be using paper money anymore, and we’re leading the way with our sophisticated exchange. And the town’s not that small. We do have thirteen thousand residents and more coming in every day,” he said, clearly a little irked.
I was scratching my head. Coming from where I did, I couldn’t imagine anything having to do with money of any sort wouldn’t benefit from a connection to the financial capitol of the world.
“But why East Wanatchee though? Why not New York where you can actually interact with the major exchanges and markets?”
Seth gave me another glance, this one with a merciless gaze that was a little intimidating.
“East Wanatchee has a whopping five hydroelectric dams along the Columbia river. Electricity there is cheaper than anywhere else in the world, and it takes a lot of electricity to mine BitCoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies. Our exchange already handles one trillion in assets. We don’t need to go to New York. New York needs to come to us, and they are at a tremendous velocity. Money is pouring into East Wanatchee from all over the world at an unbelievable rate. This is where the transformation of civilization is going to happen.”
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.