The atrium was set up in a semi-circle of sections around a central podium. There were fifty chairs set up and the sections were divided by product teams. People were filling the room quickly, including Taneesha’s own team.
“Hi, Steven,” she said to the senior programmer who took the seat right in front of her.
Steven was the Starwisp vet they’d brought in to take over Galactic Assassin, and despite the fact that he sat two desks away from her, she knew next to nothing about him. He was above her in the hierarchy, but he had yet to pass along a single request or suggestion. She’d heard him talking to other guys, bragging about his World of Warcraft skills and trying to organize a company guild, but he’d barely registered that she was speaking when she’d said that she, too, played.
“Yes, hello,” he replied vaguely.
She wondered if he even remembered she was on his team. Did he look at her and think, girl programmer? Random coworker? Technically, she reported to him. Before she had too much time to think about it, the CEO began to speak. Everyone took out their tablets or laptops and began to take notes. Taneesha unlocked her own tablet and even pulled out the stylus, but soon found that her mind wanted to doodle instead of wrestle with Q3 goals and projections. Her coworkers took turns standing up and asking questions or making boring suggestions.
This wasn’t the work she wanted to do; let someone else decide fund allocation and stockholder appeasement. Taneesha was here to write some badass fucking code. It was all she’d ever wanted to do. Before she knew it, twenty minutes had gone by and all she’d drawn was a Dalek blowing Steven’s head off. It was a pretty well-articulated Dalek, too. She sent it to Christina before clearing her screen again.
“… Bottom line for us needs to be fan engagement, right from the home page. We want our players to feel at home from that first click,” came the CEO’s voice from the podium.
This made Taneesha’s ears prick up. User engagement had always been a passion of hers. She was a fan, first and foremost, and making the worlds more fun and intuitive was her top priority.
“And I expect all of you to come to me with your best ideas. I want everything from UI/UX suggestions that will more effectively draw users to our lead games, to search improvements that make it easier to find our deeper cuts.”
Taneesha nearly jumped out of her chair. She had exactly the code he was looking for—and it was already written.
“I’m Greg Milliken, from AdOps,” one of her coworkers said as he stood up. “Could we implement retinal heat programs to see where the eye is drawn on the page?”
“Way ahead of you there, Greg,” the CEO replied. The room rumbled with polite (if irritatingly fake) chuckles. “We’ve already started—so great suggestion, exactly in line with our thinking. But what we really need is a way to draw the eye and bring our users deeper into our worlds, not merely measure response.”
Given the last week of feeling like her coworkers could just pass right through her, Taneesha had misgivings about standing up in the meeting. But the real Neesha wasn’t afraid to stand up and be heard. She could bullshit and throw down with the best of them; she was disgusted by this weaker version of herself. Before the CEO could move on to a different topic, she stood up.
“Taneesha Adams, developer on Galactic Assassin,” she said, introducing herself as the rest of her colleagues had. “Less than a year ago I contributed code for an increasingly personalized dashboard. It’s adaptive, based on the preferences that users show each time they’re on. We originally intended it for online multiplayer within a game, but Maniac felt it had larger potential. I’m happy to provide any of my earlier code to the front-end devs and share my ideas.”
The CEO offered her a patronizing smile and she knew what to expect before he even uttered a word. “Thank you for your contribution, Taneesha, but we’re not planning to integrate any aspect of Maniac’s dashboard—we’ll stick with the Starwisp dashboard and login and migrate your users over to that. The old Maniac Games dashboard is a bit outmoded now. But I love your enthusiasm. Keep working with us and I’m sure you’ll start to understand how we like to do things.”
Taneesha was stung. Someone across the room stood up and began to speak, but she could barely hear them. It took a moment before she even had the presence of mind to sit back down. Outmoded? This asshole had no idea who she was or the kind of work she was capable of producing. He’d simply dismissed her.
Steven turned his head and whispered to her, “Not cool, trying to show up a lead programmer in front of the CEO.”
He felt slighted by her speaking up? So he did know she reported to him. That was something, at least. Taneesha looked at him, stunned. “What? No. It’s code I wrote a long time ago. I only thought of it because the CEO mentioned user engagement.”
Steven made a face that said he didn’t believe her. “Right.” He turned in his chair so that he was half-facing away from her.
God-fucking-damnit. Blown off by the CEO and then knocked by her own superior for trying to contribute. This job was getting better all the time.
CHRISTINA
By the time they broke for lunch at twelve, Christina was starving. Vivi was rail thin, but that girl could handle her weed. They’d gone through two joints before the actress’s second scene, and soon after, she’d produced THC gummy bears from her bag. Christina was never one to turn down a little herbal refreshment, but this was baked, even for her. She struggled to follow any conversation at this moment, and had gotten lost on the way to the same set she’d been on every week for nearly two years. But she and Vivi had discovered a storage closet packed with seventies porn, so it wasn’t a total loss.
The biggest surprise about Vivi so far wasn’t the pot or her enormous trailer, but how much the chick could eat. She’d sent Christina out for a breakfast burrito while getting her makeup done and then, after her first scene, they’d raided craft services together, stealing the day’s worth of M&M’s and chocolate-covered pretzels. Now it was noon and Vivi was demanding more food.
Christina ran down the lunch menu. She’d had to write today’s options down on the back of her sides, as she was too high to remember more than one or two things. “Javi has lasagna, breaded chicken, and halibut as the main dishes, but he’d be happy to work up something else for you.”
“What, like a salad?” Vivi snorted. “Everyone around here’s so worried they won’t look good in their loincloths. I want the lasagna. Oooh, is there any garlic bread?”
“I’ll see.”
“And you’ll have lunch with me, right? Those other actors are so boring,” Vivi said. “All they talk about are their Insta sponsorships and how many hours they spend in the gym every day.”
A less high Christina would’ve kept her mouth shut, but the words popped out of her mouth before she could stop them. “Didn’t you tell me you’re in the gym by four a.m. on shooting days?”
“Yeah,” Vivi answered. “But that’s an hour, not five.”
“How do they even sleep if they’re in the gym five hours a day?” Christina asked. She hastily scribbled Vivi’s lunch choice on the piece of paper she held, as she could feel the words slipping out of her head already.
“Blizzards of cocaine, honey,” Vivi said. “Mountains and mountains of snow.”
One of the perks of being assigned to an actor was getting to go through the food line first, though Christina did need to corral a second PA to carry her own lunch. Atticus, one of the lead bronzed gods of Youngbloods, jogged up to Christina as she was choosing between pudding and chocolate cake.
“Hey, can you tell Vivi we’ll all be eating in Blake’s trailer today?” he said. The actors tended to cluster together at mealtimes, lest their views be spoiled by slovenly crewmembers. It probably wasn’t anything that dramatic or rude, but that’s how the crew felt every time the cast separated themselves.
“Uh, sure.” Christina’s sludge-filled brain struggled to find a suitable lie. “But I think she has calls to make.” People
still made phone calls, right? Or was she just remembering that from old TV shows?
“Oh, cool,” Atticus said, nodding. In Christina’s current state, he looked like an over-tanned bobble head. “Tell her I said we should catch up. We presented together at the Kids’ Choice Awards a few years ago.” Bobble-head Attie was still nodding, and not walking away. He clearly had a crush on Vivi.
“I’ll be sure to mention it.”
“Thanks.” Atticus looked down at the dessert table and shook his head, roughly patting Christina on the back. “Don’t do it, Chrissy. Chocolate is not love.” And then he jogged away.
In two years, Atticus had never called her anything but Chrissy. He was nice enough, but had the mental capacity of a lawnmower. Every week when the scripts were sent out, she read hers hoping Attie would be the next to get a spear to the chest. His character had once gotten gangrene from a knife fight, but sadly, he’d recovered.
Christina brought the food back to Vivi’s trailer and took her own plate from the other PA, who quickly made himself scarce. She then stood awkwardly for a moment, unsure whether it was okay to sit at the table with the actress. This was Vivi’s personal space, and people had gotten berated or fired for far less. This was one of those times that the full weirdness of Hollywood hit her.
“Sit. Eat,” Vivi commanded. The impossibly slender actress was already a third of the way through her brick of lasagna.
“Atticus wanted you to know they’re eating lunch in Blake’s trailer,” Christina told her.
Vivi laughed so hard she almost choked on her food. “I’m sure we’ll all have time to compare our laxative and teeth-whitening brands later.”
There was a knock at the door and Josh opened it without waiting for Vivi to respond. His expression soured when he saw Christina. But then his eyes flicked back to the actress’s lunch and narrowed suspiciously. From the frown alone, Christina knew what was coming even before Josh opened his mouth. This douche-canoe was so tiresomely predictable.
“Hey there, Viv,” Josh started, his tone condescending.
“Vivi,” she replied, offering him a fake smile. Christina knew Josh wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
“Right. Vivs. Just wanted to make sure you knew your fight scene was first up after lunch?”
Vivi locked eyes with Josh and took an enormous bite of lasagna. “I’m aware,” she replied, her mouth full. The actress was already beautiful, but in that moment, Christina found her irresistibly hot.
“Okay,” Josh replied, shrugging. “So you’ll be in costume and ready for… close-ups?”
Watching Vivi’s face, Christina saw fury flicker across the actress’s gaze. “Yup.”
“Good, good.” Josh turned away, seemingly unwilling to look directly at Vivi. “Because it’ll be a lot of choreography, roughhousing. I just want to make sure you’re feeling okay in”—he pantomimed rubbing his stomach—“here. Lasagna can be a little… heavy.”
Somehow, it was even worse than Christina imagined. Vivi swallowed her food a beat before her face morphed into hurt and desperate insecurity. Tears welled up in her eyes. “What are you saying? That I’m fat?” She began loudly sobbing and slammed her forehead onto the tabletop. “That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? I’m a big, fat, disgusting hog and you want to dress me in a garbage bag!”
Josh went white. “Um, of course not. You look… amazing, Vivian. I’m just here to make sure you have everything you need.”
“My name is Vivi!” came the actress’s shrieking reply.
Josh shot a panicked look at Christina, then booked it out of the trailer. He tripped on the first step, nearly face-planting onto the asphalt. “Well, see you on set! Let Chris know if you need anything!” And then he was gone.
Christina wasn’t much of a consoler, but she was about to reach out a hand to Vivi (hey, it was her damn job), when the actress’s head popped back up. She was smiling. She quickly wiped away the tears, laughing. “Jesus fucking Christ, that was fun.”
If Vivi had looked sexy a minute ago, she was a five-alarm fire of crazy-hot right now. Christina had waited years for someone to own Josh like that. “That was brilliant,” she said.
Vivi shrugged as if to say, Don’t I know it. “Listen, I’ve gotta go vom up the pasta before my body absorbs the calories, so you might want to step outside. I know if I hear other people puke, I puke too.”
Christina was taken aback by this, but she didn’t know why she was surprised. Bulimia was a cottage industry in this town. It had just seemed like Vivi was above that shit. It did explain how the actress managed to eat like a maniac and stay so thin, though. “Of course. Do you need me to get you anything? Maybe a mint?”
Vivi reached out a hand and squeezed Christina’s arm, looking truly touched. “Aw, that’s so sweet. But don’t worry, I have toothpaste and mouthwash to take care of it.” As Christina stood to leave, Vivi called after her, “You’ll come right back, won’t you?”
MICHELLE
A week after the “divorce text,” Michelle went to a party. She’d gone to lunch that afternoon with an agent who had invited her—something about their agency’s fifth anniversary, maybe? Michelle hadn’t really been paying attention. But it was a publishing party. She didn’t particularly enjoy parties, per se, but publishing parties were different. It was like she was still working, only with more alcohol.
Right now, that sounded perfect.
She headed over to the address, smoothing down her claret-colored dress and pulling her black trench coat around her. It had been a week since Ted had moved out, and in that week, they hadn’t spoken. They’d exchanged the occasional terse text or curt email, all logistics-related. She’d spent the past few evenings boxing up his stuff and labeling it carefully. She knew, spitefully, that he’d never do the same if their positions were reversed. But that was why she’d always mistakenly presumed they “worked.” She was details, she was minutiae, she was order. He was grandiose, big ideas, big sweeping deals.
Apparently, his big picture no longer included her.
She frowned a little as she hit the elevator button. The thing was, she wasn’t devastated. That fact was both puzzling and painful.
She loathed that he’d sent Jamie to do his dirty work, that he’d told her their private business. He knew how important her reputation was. Her mother would have shriveled up and died at such a public airing of dirty laundry, and she was still currently ducking Pam and Andrew, who had tried to coax her into going to lunch with him for some “girl talk” to help her feel better. But she knew that Ted would turn it around—insist that it was only because she’d been dodging his calls. That if she’d been more available to him, it would have gone differently.
Somehow, it was going to become her fault. All of it was somehow her fault.
That made her spine stiffen, her hands tense into unconscious fists. That was why she wasn’t devastated that he’d gone. She was only dreading the recriminations afterward.
How long had she been living like this? They used to be happy, didn’t they? The shiny, young, powerhouse publishing couple always in playful competition with each other. Back in the beginning of their marriage, going to these sorts of functions had another dimension of fun—seeing people vie for their attention. Ted would tell larger-than-life stories to their captive audiences, and she would interject with well-timed commentary. They’d been a great team, once upon a time. The craziest part was that it wasn’t so long ago, no more than a few years. But it felt like a different life.
The elevator doors opened and she stepped into a nondescript hallway, but she could hear the din coming from a plain white door down the hall. Looking at the plaques by the door, she realized that this was a floor full of several literary agencies. Rent in the city was expensive, so they were all sharing workspace… and even if only one of the agencies was celebrating its anniversary, it sounded as if all of them had spilled out to join in the fun. She didn’t bother knocking, simply opened the door.
It was chaos. There were several cheap coatracks by the door, where people had hung their coats pell-mell, some already falling to the floor. Over the collection of cube farms that made up the different agencies, a warren of cloth-covered walls and narrow hallways, there was a streamer that read: CONGRATS ON 5 YEARS. All around her were the familiar signs of publishing: ARCs piled up on the floor, manuscripts teetering on desks, cheap canvas swag bags and promo items strewn everywhere.
Anybody who ever wrote about publishing as being glamorous, she thought with a grin, obviously didn’t work in it.
She moved toward the loudest area, which was where the alcohol would be. If she was going to last at this party, she was going to need some liquid fortification, and she wanted to last. She wasn’t ready to go home just yet tonight.
She nodded to a few agents, shaking hands with them. “Hey Michelle,” a woman said, and Michelle struggled to remember her name. Alice? Allison? Something with an A. “How are you liking it at Faraday?”
“They’re keeping me busy,” Michelle said easily. “But I’m always looking for new authors if you’ve got anybody in mind.”
“I might,” the woman said, her blue eyes alight. “Space opera.”
“Sounds good,” Michelle replied. “I’d love to have more sci-fi.”
“It’s not hard sci-fi,” the woman hedged, “but it’s got some great personal dynamics, and the world-building is incredible. And the protagonist is female. Latina.”
Michelle felt a tingle. “That sounds great,” she said.
Geek Actually Season 1 Omnibus Page 7