by Rob Reid
Raj shakes his head. “A serious asshole would’ve picked some more interesting things from your background to discuss in front of your co-workers that night.”
Danna flares. “Like what??”
Raj waggles his finger in a tsk, tsk gesture. “Not for mixed company,” he says. “And, since I’m not a serious asshole, your secrets are safe with me. But no secrets are safe from…” He adopts the stentorian voice of a cartoon narrator. “WingMan!”
“What’s WingMan?” Kuba asks icily, quietly ready for another brawl with this jackass.
“It’s the, um…name of the glasses hardware,” Tarek says miserably. “Raj and I are its product managers.”
“And let me guess,” Danna snaps. “They’re designed from the ground up to help douchebags meet girls in bars?”
“I’m not fond of the term douchebag, but…pretty much!” Raj says without a wisp of embarrassment.
Tarek is shaking his head violently. “They actually have countless socially redeeming uses,” he says. “You just saw one idiotic application! The hardware’s amazing, and I swear it’ll do a lot of good in the world.”
“Tell them the nickname of that one idiotic application,” Raj taunts.
“Not a chance.”
“Well, you can call it whatever you want, for all I care,” Raj says. “Because I’m looking to bail on you and start another product.”
Tarek looks like this is the best news he’s heard in weeks. “Seriously?”
Raj nods. “I got inspired by a blog post last night. Very inspired! I’ll be pitching Jepson on a whole new business line in about fifteen minutes. And—whoa, incoming!” A willowy Nordic goddess clutching a plate of greens is passing their table. Raj yanks the WingMan specs he had at the bar from his bag, then gapes at her through them. “Nothing,” he snaps. “Fucking lawyers!”
All annoyance forgotten, Danna lights up like a kid in a Wonka scene and reaches for the magic glasses. “Can I?”
Raj dances backward. “Whoa, down girl!” He looks at Tarek. “NDA?”
Tarek shakes his head unhappily. “No. They’re not even officially employees yet. The acquisition’ll take a few days to close.”
Sighing with mock disappointment, Raj fends Danna off. “Sorry, but no can do. Until you’re an employee, then sign an NDA, and get a Homeland Security clearance, you can’t even fart on these things.”
“Ewww!” Danna says, instantly remembering that she hates this guy.
“A security clearance?” Kuba asks, looking at Tarek. “Seriously?”
Tarek shrugs. “I told you it’s weird around here.”
“I’m not picking up anything on her anyway,” Raj says, gazing hard at the blonde again through the WingMan glasses. “All data blocked. It’s because she’s not eighteen yet, and our lawyers are lunatics! I mean, who’d ever know?? It’s a totally internal product!”
“You need to explain this right now,” Danna says sternly to Tarek.
“That’s the intern Raj was talking about when he came up to the table,” he says, pointing at the blonde teen, who could easily pass for twenty-four.
“The hottest intern in tech,” Raj repeats. “Serena Kielholz.”
“Wait—as in Damien Kielholz?” Kuba asks.
“As in, his daughter,” Raj says, chomping theatrically on his palm like a fifties greaser ogling a cheerleader.
“And she’s seventeen?” Danna says. “She’s a child, you perv!”
“Eighteen in a week,” Raj says, as if this changes a thing. “Stanford freshman! We have an internship program over there. Probably started the day Jepson saw her picture in his InFlow.”
“But don’t Jepson and her dad…” Kuba puzzles.
“Hate each other? Oh yeah,” Raj says. “But Serena’s a rebel! Exactly how much of one we’ll find next week, when WingMan starts revealing her interesting data.” He turns to Danna and leers. “Of course, it won’t be as interesting as yours. But she has years to catch up, right? Anyway, gotta hop. Time to pitch Jepson!”
“What the hell are those glasses going to tell him about that girl?” Danna asks Tarek hotly as Raj takes off. And what did they tell him about me? she needn’t add.
Tarek just shrugs miserably.
“And what’s the nickname of the app he used on me in the bar?” she presses.
Tarek rises. “Does anyone want some nachos?” he suggests brightly. “They’re orgaaaaa-nic! And, gluten-free.”
“Don’t change the subject, you coward! What’s the nickname?”
“Heck, I’ll get us some truffle popcorn, too!” Tarek offers. He tries to bolt.
“Ohhhhh no, you don’t,” Danna says. Her arm darts out like a ninja frog tongue, latching onto his wrist.
“I seriously can’t tell you anything about WingMan until you’re a full-fledged employee,” Tarek pleads.
“Then you,” she says, her free hand latching onto Kuba. “You need to finish the Mitchell and Ellie story!” He agrees, as she clearly needs (and certainly deserves) a distraction.
The morning after Mitchell and Ellie’s late-night, X-rated text fest, Creative Writing rotated into first period. Approaching the classroom, Mitchell was as amped and nervous as he’d ever been for a big game or final exam. Nearing the door, he looked up, and—Here comes my girl. A line from a cheesy eighties song popped into his head when he saw her. Because that’s what Ellie was! Or was about to become. My girl. They knew each other so well, and loved each other with such Platonic intensity, that shattering the sexual barrier could only result in couplehood. A serious, intense, and magical one! Surely, a lasting relationship. And maybe even—
Ellie spotted him and lit up precisely as she did upon seeing anyone she cared about. “Hey, Champ! Goin’ my way?” They started down the hall together.
When they texted their good nights, Mitchell said he doubted he’d manage to sleep that night. She’d signed off saying, Me neither :-)
“So, how’d you end up sleeping?” Mitchell asked. He’d thought hard about this opening line—a subtle but unmistakable call to pick up right where they’d left off.
“End…up sleeping?” She seemed genuinely puzzled.
“Well, yeah. How’d you sleep?”
She smiled awkwardly, plainly even more confused, then brightened and shrugged. “Oh, the usual methods. Downed a fifth of vodka, shut my eyes, and let the ol’ cytoplasm do its thing!” Cytoplasm jokes dated back to seventh-grade biology with a sexist teacher who thought all pretty girls were dolts. After giving up on changing his mind, Ellie shifted to amusing herself by saying the ditziest possible thing whenever called on. By June she was attributing almost every biological process to cytoplasm, and the whole class was in on the joke. But true revenge finally came last spring, when she scored five out of five on the national AP Biology exam. She now hoped to fully grind their old teacher under her heel by one day becoming an MD/PhD.
But for once, the old cytoplasm joke didn’t make Mitchell smile. Instead, he felt chilled. Ellie was acting…totally normal! Sure, discussing things that were easier texted than spoken was awkward. But this felt like denial! What the hell?? “Well…my cytoplasm must be broken because I slept like an hour max,” he parries. “You know. After all that?”
“After all what?” Ellie stopped walking and clutched his arm, regarding him with intense and genuine concern. “Is everything OK?”
This threw Mitchell utterly, and kind of pissed him off. He was about to call her on it when Heather Cassidy—Ellie’s frequent lover-of-convenience, and co-conspirator in several bisexual adventures dating back to NINTH GRADE, for God’s sake, the most recent one with a MARRIED COUPLE!—approached. And yes, Mitchell felt a twinge of jealousy (and sure, one of arousal, too). “Hey, girl, didja find it?” Heather asked.
Ellie shook her head. “It’s driving me nuts. I know I had it yesterday morning. And I didn’t leave it in the car this time.” She and Heather exchanged exasperated shrugs.
Mitchell had a horrifying
intuition. “What’d you lose?”
“My cellphone. I haven’t seen it since, like, midday yesterday!”
And so, Mitchell’s world—in which profound and magical depths yawned briefly beneath still water, and bright phosphorescents fleetingly replaced every flat hue—collapsed right back to its timid two dimensions and Crayola eight-pack palette. It was once again a logical place in which he and Ellie would not be screwing all winter, local hot-chick slumber parties had not devolved into orgies since middle school, and Ellie and Heather were no doubt virgins who had perhaps never fondled each other to climax in a Victoria’s Secret changing room! Mitchell wanted to unleash a primal scream mighty enough to shake the school’s very foundations; a cri de coeur worthy of the self-involved heroes of the turgid, archaic novels assigned in English! But with the bell about to ring, all he managed was “Huh…”
Creative Writing class began with “peer workshopping.” This meant huddling with your nearest neighbors to discuss all pressing gossip (yeah, sure, and your work). Mitchell turned his desk to face Ellie and Paul Sanders (aka “Pall”), the sullen artsy Goth who sat next to her. He wore a T-shirt which read JOY DIVISION (huh?) under some dark, heavy plaid thing.
Mitchell was fixing to tell Ellie that her phone was in the hands of some loon who was seducing kids in her name. Only…wouldn’t she then ask to see proof on his phone? Though it was a cheap-ass model with almost no storage, it cached his last few dozen texts, which included the filthiest stuff he’d managed to send her (or rather, send someone). As he’d quite literally choose death over her reading that shit, Mitchell maintained a shameful silence about her phone as they discussed their class work.
As it happened, Ellie adored the Higgensworth reviews. Mitchell’s heart fluttered as they locked eyes, her face radiating delight with his cousin’s screwball wit. And so, he made the morning’s second horrifying discovery: just one day of being bogusly poised to become Ellie’s lover had shattered years of Platonic indifference and hurled him headlong into a virulent crush on the girl! That none of the perspective-shattering text porn actually originated with her was utterly (and maddeningly) beside the point.
Meanwhile, Gothy Pall was equally fascinated by the Higgensworth reviews. “Is this guy real?” he asked.
“Distant cousin of mine,” Mitchell said, rather proudly.
“And is he serious?”
“Not a chance,” Ellie said. “He’s messing with the reader!”
“Oh no, those really are the facts of his life,” Mitchell said. “New wife, money gone—”
“Well, sure,” Pall derided. “But that doesn’t mean he’s not messing with the reader.” His tone unmistakably appended a duh.
Ellie lit up. “Or maybe he and the reader are messing with Amazon??”
Pall nodded. “Yeah. Yeah! I mean, look at all these people, rating his reviews as ‘Helpful.’ No way he actually helped 816 people make a purchase decision about that prison book. Right?”
“Right!” Ellie said, now oblivious to Mitchell’s presence. “They’re all in on it! It’s almost like…collective literature?”
Pall considered this. “Well, kind of. But it’s still very one-to-many.”
Ellie nodded eagerly. “It’s more like he has an audience, which has a way to…applaud! By hitting the Helpful button!”
“Right!” Pall said. “It’s…it’s semi-interactive literature!”
Mitchell just listened, increasingly miserable. Sure, he could follow their conversation. But he had nothing to add to it. Despite triggering it with the work of his own damned cousin (Well, fine—his own damned somethingth cousin twice or thrice removed. But still)!
Pall and Ellie prattled away until Ms. Tharp silenced the class for quiet work and 1:1 consultations. What the HELL do you see in PALL? Mitchell wanted to scream. But if the rumors were true (and they usually were), Ellie’s answer would have been a smart, promising depressive who needed a friend. Realizing how selfish it was for someone like him—who’d had all the breaks socially and athletically—to resent Pall’s rare ray of sunshine, Mitchell turned his anger toward someone who deserved it: the asshole behind all that texting! He furtively grabbed his phone and texted WHO THE HELL IS THIS? to Ellie’s number.
“No screens, Mr. Prentice,” Ms. Tharp commanded from across the room.
Dammit—Mitchell had never been busted for texting in class before! Clearly, he was losing it. And so he turned his full attention to the inescapable fact that the girl he’d adored for hours on end now just wasn’t interested! And was also (let’s be real, here) way too smart for him.
And I, for one, will not dispute this. Despite being Mitchell’s biggest fan since shortly after he came to work with us. And despite opposing almost every anti-Mitchell thought that ever crosses his dear little underpowered mind (and I’m privy to so many of them)! Despite all of that, I cannot deny that Ellie was (and remains) way too smart for the likes of him. Pall may’ve been smart enough for her. And Kuba definitely is. But Mitchell? Mitchell?
After some sulking, Mitchell refocused. He was here to write! And Ms. Tharp had approved his project to imitate the Higgensworth stuff on Amazon! So. What to review? While he wasn’t a mean guy, Mitchell was suddenly in the mood to write something a bit mean-spirited. Still with the puns, rather than a full-throated Higgensworth mimicry (he was too grumpy and unsettled to take on anything truly challenging). Although also landing some punches this time! But be funny, he urged himself. Funny and playful. Not flat-out cruel. Something to make Ellie laugh and Pall gag on his rhetoric and admit the Higgensworth magic might be partly genetic! Pre-armed with a list of books he’d found online whose titles made good fodder for goofy reviews, Mitchell chose a target. Honing his piece took the rest of Creative Writing, most of lunch, and a good chunk of French. But by last bell, he had something decent. Not Ms. Tharp–worthy—but certainly Kuba-worthy, and possibly Ellie-worthy.
The day’s other excitement came when “Ellie” replied to his texted question: Just call me Cyrano, bitch. And then (nonsensically and enragingly), PS Youre welcome.
Most people probably buy this book because they want to look as great as Sally Struthers, but I bought it for the thick autobiographical section, as I’m a mammoth fan and always want to know more about her background. Herein we learn that Struthers grew up in an old New England whaling village, the eldest daughter of a jumbo jet pilot. She first became a national celebrity in the 1970s, and since then she’s just gotten bigger and bigger. Older fans will never forget her massively successful debut in the huge TV hit “All in the Family,” a show that bravely took on the weighty social issues of the day, winning tons of fans in the process. In her role as daughter Gloria, Struthers was often reduced to blubbering at her father’s enormous insensitivities. Bulging sacks of fan mail started flooding in, and Struthers was soon living large on her fat paychecks and starring in lucrative commercials for giant brands like Chunky Soup, Hefty Bags, and Michelin tires.
Struthers’ colossal profile landed her parts in numerous films, including a touchstone role as a powerful villain in “The Empire Strikes Back.” She has since become a truly enormous philanthropist, taking on all kinds of meaty problems. This has sadly eaten into her training schedule, leading some to whisper that she has let her physique slip somewhat. These whispers became a roar in the mid-90s when Struthers went jogging in the small California town of Northridge, with notorious repercussions. A subsequent NASA investigation into whether her gravitational field was in some way responsible for the Challenger disaster made matters worse. But Struthers overcame these hard times by heaving herself into her charity work. The countless awards that she has received for her philanthropy have no doubt softened the pain of earlier years, particularly the U.S. Postal Service’s recent decision to award her with her own zip code. As this sterling book makes clear, Struthers’ voracious appetite for success is wholly unsated, and as the years go by it will be increasingly hard to miss the vast footprint that she is leavi
ng on her profession.
The idea that Google was still a “startup” in 2002 was rather absurd, viewed from the standpoint of its revenue, head count, cultural weight, or tech industry might. And it was downright insulting viewed from 34E (middle seat, right side, beside the ever-occupado toilets in the plane’s rectum) on United’s 7 A.M. Chicago/Oakland nonstop. “Startups,” you see, travel Coach. And while Pugwash would’ve upgraded if he’d had the miles, he didn’t, because his boss never sent him anywhere! He only pulled this Chicago trip because someone wanted a warm body at Internet World—a conference that peaked with freakin’ Netscape six years ago! But as the lowliest member of the quite-lowly Business Development team, Pugwash did as he was told.
His department was probably only created after someone heard that BizDev was a key part of Yahoo’s playbook. Because while everyone from the CEO to the receptionists would now deny it with beet-red faces and bulging corneas, there was much for Google to envy about Yahoo early on. There was Yahoo’s market share (which was hegemonic—the race for #2 being a pointless tussle between forgotten wraiths like InfoSeek and Lycos). Its market capitalization (about $100 billion at peak). And, its BizDev team. Yahoo BizDev’s job was shaking down Ponzi schemes disguised as companies—ones that could almost go public merely by larding their SEC filings with the words “Internet,” “Java,” and “disintermediationalistic.” Almost. But the connivance of top investment banks hinged upon getting a “distribution deal” from a “leading portal.” The leadingest portal of all back then was Yahoo. And a “Yahoo deal” in a doomed company’s S-1 was like a ten-year, multi-entry visa signed by the Generalissimo himself in an otherwise unwelcome passport.
And so the suckers lined up. Want to be the most-favored marmalade peddler on the world’s most trusted website? For just $25 million and 20 percent of your company’s stock, a BizDev yuppie would gladly scrape some of the fading luster from Yahoo’s crown and whore it out to you. And then, whenever someone typed a marmalade-related search term into Yahoo, it would be your banner ad making the user’s eyes bleed with its DayGlo palette and blinking fonts! True, you’d be lucky to recoup 5 percent of what you spent on the deal. But profitability was a tired, first-wave metric; and these days, it was all about eyeballs, see; and that’s what Yahoo was hawking, see; and as long as your stock didn’t crater for six months after its IPO, you could sell, baby, sell; and then its rickety share price would be some dumb dentist’s problem and not yours; so provided that you went public before September of ’99 or so, you were golden! Finger-wagging moralists who live to take the fun out of everything might’ve viewed this as some kind of extortion racket. But with the words “protection,” “underboss,” and omertà carefully omitted from all final contracts, that’d be might-y hard to prove!