Enter Title Here

by Rahul Kanakia

  AN INTERVIEW WITH SUSAN LE

  ENTREPRENEUR MAGAZINE

  Q: And what’s next for you?

  A: I’m going back to speak at my high school’s graduation!

  Q: Wow, that must be a trip.

  A: You bet. Bell is and was a crazy place. I love it to death: it made me what I am. But it also drives people insane. Remember that girl who spit in her teacher’s face? She’s the salutatorian at Bell.

  Q: Didn’t she lose her case?

  A: Yep. But she pulled some mysterious shenanigan and got the slot anyway. I’m looking forward to seeing her: she’ll be speaking, too.

  After reading that snippet of Susan Le’s interview, my mind made strange clicking sounds all day. It was so strange that Susan Le, of all people, was the only one who was excited to hear me speak.

  Every time I talk to my parents, there’s a weird silence underneath. I told my mom I was going to be speaking at graduation, and she said, “Acha, acha,” but I don’t know if she really understands what happened.

  Honestly, I don’t know if I really get it, either. I got caught up in some titanic impulse, and, oh God, it felt amazing to sit across from Ms. Ratcliffe and batter her until she cracked. That was the first time in months when I really felt like myself.

  But now what? School is basically over. I sat for my final exams. I probably failed everything, not that it matters. I mean, my almost-perfect grades didn’t get me into any colleges, so why should—no, even as I write that, it feels wrong. Too self-pitying, you know? It’s something the old Reshma would’ve said.

  I looked up the final exam schedule for George’s classes, and I waited for him outside the door of his last final: an American history class. It was the last day of school for seniors, and it felt like we were already halfway through the summer. Air was blowing through the courtyards and corridors, and even though it wasn’t that hot, I was sweating. Except the sweat didn’t feel dirty or gross; it evaporated instantly in the breeze, and left behind a faint dampness, as if I’d been freshly washed and hung out to dry.

  And as I stood outside that door, a stream of people put down their pencils and handed in their tests and grabbed their backpacks. They came out and milled at the edge of the courtyard, standing back so they’d be in the shade of a nearby apricot tree, and chatted with each other. A few nodded at me; I’d seen them at some party George or Alex had taken me to. But they were mostly there for one another.

  I could feel life tugging them away. They would keep edging outward from one another, but then someone else would come out, and they’d press tighter together. They weren’t even friends, I think. Not mostly, anyway. But they were smiling and laughing, because they felt something. An ending. They’d never be here together, again. One girl, a black girl with poofy, natural hair grabbed a white guy, leaning up to hug him, and the way he stiffened and waited a long second before putting his arms around her made me wonder if they’d ever even talked before. But it didn’t matter, because right at that moment they had a connection.

  And I felt so…desolate.

  After my last final, I’d run out without talking to anyone. Alex and I were friends again. I’d gone over to her house a few days ago, and she’d told me how she’d stuffed the online ballot box with fake votes for me. She was unhappy that I hadn’t told her sooner about the real situation with Susan Le and my family.

  And then we had a nostalgic moment, I guess, where we regretted how it’d taken us so long to become friends.

  But even that was…I don’t know. It was a closed friendship. It was an alliance against the world. It was shared jokes and secrets and mutual enemies. It wasn’t anything like what I was seeing in the courtyard. Those kids laughing together and hugging. That sense of community was something different I’d never experienced here.

  And meanwhile, I waited for George to come out. He stayed at his desk until the very end, even though he spent the last fifteen minutes staring at a blank question and chewing on his pen. But after the teacher began collecting tests, he wrote a rapid string of words in that empty space and kept writing until she snatched the paper away.

  When he emerged, there was a little cheer, and two of his track teammates rushed him and grabbed at him. I waited there at the edges while they wrestled with him, and I thought maybe he was going to let them carry him away from me, but finally he tapped them on their shoulders and asked to be let down. And then he came over to me, and he said hey, and I hugged him, and it felt really natural, except that I hugged him for too long, and when I laid my head on his shoulder, he pulled away.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have pressured you like that.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’s okay.”

  Then he looked over his shoulder. His teammates were staring at me like I was an enemy.

  I don’t know what I expected to happen, but this wasn’t it. All I wanted was to feel connected to him again. When he looked away from me, I frowned and said, “Is that it? ‘It’s okay’? That’s all?”

  He shrugged. “Come on, Resh.”

  “I just don’t get it,” I said. “I made some mistakes, yeah, but you knew who I was. I told you all about myself. You…you even read my book. And you said you were okay with that. And, when, you know, you said that stuff about how I’d never had to work for anything…well…I thought you were the one person who could see the real me.”

  He blinked his eyes a few times, as if I was a speck he was trying to wash away, and then he stood there in silence for a bit, before he said, “Yeah, I don’t know…I guess I’m sorry, too. You…you maybe need someone a lot different from me. Someone who…” He shook his head and shrugged.

  “Wait,” I said. “What were you going to say?”

  “Nothing, it was stupid.”

  “Come on,” I said. “You had something to say.” I pointed to his teammates. “You’ll probably say it to them later. So why won’t you say it to me?”

  “Resh, I just…you’re too intense for me,” he said. “I’ll admit that I liked it at first. But after a while I felt like I spent more time worrying about your problems than about my own, you know? But, hey, that shouldn’t…that doesn’t mean you need to change. I really mean that. You’re special. And there’s something really…it’s hard to describe. When I talked to you, nothing felt impossible. And I think you’ll eventually find a guy who loves that invincible feeling so much that nothing else matters to him.”

  And then he hugged me and mumbled about how he was looking forward to hearing me speak at graduation. And then he was gone. Afterward, I went to my car and cried a bit, but not as much as I could have.

  It’s funny how some things hurt more than others. I suppose I’d always suspected that my real self would be too much for any guy to handle, so when George said those things, it wasn’t that bad. Instead, I was like, Oh yeah, I already knew that.

  Graduation is tomorrow, and I still don’t know what I’m going to say, but last night I banged out a copy of my speech and today I brought it in so that Colson could review it.

  The speech was full of contrition and hope and joy for the future, and when I wrote it, I felt absolutely nothing. I sat there as he read through it, and I expected him to be suspicious about it, but he looked up at me and blinked a little bit and said, “Wow, Reshma. This is…Thank you.”

  I’d included a part in there, just for him, about how happy I was that the school had always had my best interests at heart.

  I don’t know. It’s a good speech, I guess. Short and emotional and true in its own way. And maybe I’ll deliver it. But I also have another speech. And another plan. One last plan.

  Susan Le is a public figure now: a CEO. And she can’t afford to be embarrassed. What would happen, I wonder, if I was to threaten to unveil all of her machinations? What would she give me in order to make that potential embarrassment go away?

  Sometimes I can hear myself standing in front of my mom and saying, I would’ve done anything.

  The
re’s something very appealing about the word anything.

  Anything. Anything. Anything. I am capable of anything.

  My cap and gown were a bit too large. They’d belonged to my sister, although I’d had to take off the valedictorian’s fringe that Meena got to wear. Even though it’d been a good tactical move, I still sometimes regretted giving up the number one slot.

  A bunch of teachers were ushering the grads into the auditorium. Jumbled together, we streamed through doors and hallways. It was so weird for the whole class to be in the same place.

  I bumped into someone, looked up, and noticed that it was a guy whom I’d spent an hour talking to during the first week of school, four years ago. I think his name was Greg. It was a wonderful, deep conversation (by ninth-grade standards). We talked about how weird it was to go from a middle school where we’d been the eldest to a high school where we were the youngest. I left it thinking that I’d made a friend for life. I don’t think I ever saw him again after that.

  Greg said, “Oh, hey, Reshma! Remember me?”

  “Of course!” I said.

  We walked abreast for a few moments. “So, we’re graduating,” he said.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Silence. Then I sped up and pulled ahead of him.

  Alex was wandering around with a cup full of peanuts, and for the first time since I’d known her, she looked distracted and anxious. When I said hello to her, she shook, as if startled, and said, “Oh, hi.”

  “Those are for her, aren’t they?” I said.

  Alex nodded. “Room one twenty-eight,” she said.

  We’d never talked about what I was going to do at graduation, but Alex obviously had her suspicions. She shoved the cup of peanuts into my hand, and we locked eyes. We were standing in the corridor behind the auditorium, and people in caps and gowns were walking everywhere around us. A girl shouted some sort of greeting, and Alex flashed her an automatic smile before turning back to me.

  “You, umm, you probably shouldn’t do whatever you’re planning,” Alex said.

  “Come on,” I said. “You’re telling me to back off? You? Really?”

  “I’m kind of serious,” she said. “I mean, I love the idea of jamming up Susan Le. In fact, I’m a bit annoyed that you haven’t included me in the plans, whatever they are. But—”

  “Well, I think I’m about to commit a crime. And I thought that with your political aspirations…”

  She shrugged. “Sure. I appreciate that. But doesn’t the same thing go for you? You could be a huge success someday, too. Do you really want to risk that by pissing off a billionaire?”

  The cup of peanuts rattled. My hand was shaking. Her confidence meant a lot to me, but I’d gone too far to back down. So all I said was “Thanks,” and then I went in search of Susan Le.

  It wasn’t hard to find the room. The vice principal was hovering around just on the other side, like some combination between a prison guard and a butler. He stepped in front, blocking me, but when I waved the peanuts at him, he sighed. “Don’t be in there for too long,” he said. “We’re about to start seating everyone.”

  The handle to the door of room 128 had a strange heat to it, as if the room beyond was on fire.

  A voice screamed, “I can hear you breathing out there, bitch!”

  I threw open the door.

  Susan Le was a tiny woman—no more than five feet—whose graduation gown billowed around her like the shroud of a ghost. She was sitting in one of the dressing rooms that I guess they use for school plays. She was on a stool in front of a white countertop. And when I came in, she didn’t turn around or anything, just kept staring at her own reflection in the mirror. She had a broad metal band on her left wrist. At first I thought it was just jewelry, but then I saw bright text scrolling across its interactive case.

  “Where’s the twit? I want my fucking peanuts.”

  I closed the door behind me. “Do you really want them? Or is this a test?”

  “Ahh, the spitter,” she said. “You came to see me. Isn’t that sweet?”

  As she spoke, her mouth made strange pouting shapes. She wasn’t talking to me. She was talking to her own reflection in the mirror.

  “Yeah,” I said. “But this isn’t the first time we’ve met. You know my parents, too.”

  “Of course,” she said. “I think I knew that. You’re one of those Kapoors. Yes, yes, yes. They’re good people. Good engineers. I bet they hate you.”

  “I’m not their favorite person.”

  “No.” Le shook her head. “No, no, no. I bet you’re not.”

  She smiled. Which, of course, meant her eyes drifted to the mirror. She grinned at herself for a moment. Her black hair was cut even shorter now, and it clung to the curve of her skull.

  Colson’s voice called through the doors, “Excuse me, Ms. Le…how’s it coming? I’m afraid we only have ten more minutes before…”

  “Well,” I said. “I thought I’d give you a little advance copy of my speech.”

  I hiked up my graduation gown and pulled the printed-out sheets out of the pocket of my jeans.

  “I’m speaking right after you,” I said.

  Le took them offhandedly and was about to toss them onto the countertop, but her hand paused while her eyes scanned across the page. Then they went across again. She unfolded the paper and began to read. This wasn’t the speech I’d given Colson. That speech had been sweet, but this one was venomous.

  It was all about the hypocrisy of slamming me for cheating, and then inviting a thief and a cheater to speak at graduation. It detailed exactly what Le had done to my parents and pulled together a few other things I’d found online: cases where she’d forced out founders or violated contracts. Her entire fortune was built on broken promises.

  Halfway through, she glanced at me. “None of this is secret.”

  “No,” I said. “But there are cameras out there. And they’re going to film you sitting next to the podium while I say this stuff.”

  She looked at her wristband.

  “Colson’s right outside,” I said. “And we’re starting in three minutes. If you escape, I’ll give the speech anyway, and everyone will know you ran.”

  “You think I can’t take being embarrassed?”

  “I think you don’t love it,” I said. “In fact, I think you’re afraid of it.”

  She laughed. “Oh, I get it. You know me better than I know myself? Well, come on then. Tell me. What happens now?”

  I gulped. I’d gone in there thinking that all I wanted was for Le to give my parents their company back. But in that moment, something very different came out of my mouth.

  “I want you to give me a job.”

  I still can’t believe I said it. I have no idea where that came from. I swear that I hate Susan Le. I’ve always hated her. Even now, when I think about her, hatred boils up out of the edges of my mind. But in that moment, all I wanted was her approval.

  “Any job,” I said. “Executive assistant. Trainee. I don’t know. But something where I can learn from you.”

  She held my speech between the tips of her thumb and forefinger, as if it was something dirty and smelly. “Really?” she said. “After all this, you want to work with me?”

  “I read that interview with you in Entrepreneur. You see a bit of yourself in me. And I think it’s the part of yourself that no one else sees or acknowledges. They all want to pretend you’re a visionary or a hard worker, and maybe you are. But there’s another part: the ruthless part.”

  “This is pathetic.”

  “I know. I’m sad. I’m pathetic. I’m stupid. But I’m also ruthless. And that counts for more than the other stuff. You’re the one who taught me that.”

  As I said the words, they sounded so right, like I’d finally unlocked the secret of myself. You know, you write a whole novel, trying to figure out who you are, when really it’s so simple. The only thing that makes me better than other people is the fact that I’ll do anything, and they won’t.
I tried being noble—tried sparing my mom—and all I created was a vacuum. The absence of being. Without my ruthlessness, I was nothing.

  Susan Le ripped up my speech and ripped it up again and again and again until it was a collection of inch-long squares that she very carefully deposited in her purse.

  “You know,” Le said. “When I went here, I hated everyone. Every single person. They were so stupid. So compelled by petty bullshit. Even the smart ones were stupid. And I hated them the most, because they spent all their time and all their brainpower doing exactly what they were supposed to do. That was the most annoying thing about them. The sheer waste of it all. And I kept thinking that as soon as I got out of here, it’d be different, but it wasn’t.

  “Your mom and dad were just the same. I told them they were sitting on a billion-dollar idea, but they didn’t believe me. They thought it had no commercial applications. They were good engineers, but they had no vision. They kept going behind my back, trying to unload the company before I could build a demand for what we were selling. If it’d been up to them, we’d all have made pennies. So yes, I forced them out. It was one of the best decisions I ever made. And if you want to bring it up again, I’ll be happy to defend myself to whoever wants to know the details.”

  She turned back to the mirror and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

  “Please,” I said.

  Her wristband lit up, and she tapped a short message into it.

  “You’re lonely,” I said. “I know you’re lonely. Can’t you see what a concession I’m making? You harmed me and my family, but I’m willing to overlook that, because I can see that we need each other. And yes, maybe I’m not as brilliant as you. Maybe I’m asking for something I don’t deserve. But you have to see that you’re not going to find another person like me.”

  “Hey, get in here!” she shouted.

  The door flew open, and I whirled around. Did she have security somewhere?