Startup

by Doree Shafrir

  “Oh, right,” Isabel said, though it wasn’t actually clear if she remembered Katya or if she had just grown tired of Katya struggling to explain how they knew each other. “How’s it going.” She took a sip of her drink—it was clear, with a lime on top; probably a vodka soda—through the little cocktail straw.

  “Oh, fine,” Katya said. “How are you?”

  Isabel shrugged. “Fine.” She gestured with her head toward Andrew. “You know how they are. I’m basically invisible right now.” Katya wasn’t totally sure who they meant—startup guys? men in general?—but she nodded in agreement. “Do you need a drink?”

  “I’m okay—” Before Katya could finish what she was going to say, Isabel was interrupting her.

  “Let’s get you a drink.” She turned to Andrew. “Be right back.” He barely nodded. She took Katya by the arm. Isabel was an expert, it seemed, at navigating crowds, or maybe it was just this particular crowd—a throng of men in their twenties and thirties wearing plaid shirts and dark jeans. She had a way of softly nudging them aside, making eye contact and smiling. It was the opposite of how Katya navigated crowds, which was to make herself seem as small as possible and try to squeeze through people so they barely even noticed her. “What do you want?” Isabel asked as they approached the bar. They couldn’t get all the way to it because it was blocked, end to end, by guys ordering drinks, getting their drinks, sipping their drinks. “Excuse us,” Isabel said sweetly, putting her hand on the shoulder of a guy in a Google T-shirt.

  “Oh, no worries,” the guy said. He gestured with his head to his friend, who was wearing a blue hoodie, and they both moved aside to let Isabel and Katya through.

  “Thanks,” Isabel said and smiled at them. Katya generally considered flirting with random people a waste of time—she liked to laser-focus on one person and make him (or occasionally her) her goal, and in any case, there had not been many times in the past eight or so years where she’d been single. But this was a new way of being in the world, she saw now, and it meant getting what you wanted. It was kind of the same as getting a source to talk to you, she realized. Most people, fundamentally, wanted to be liked and to please others. So that just meant putting yourself in the position of being the one to be pleased. “So what do you want?” Isabel asked. The bartender was pouring drafts of beer at the other end of the bar. Making eye contact was going to be impossible.

  “I can get it.” She took out her wallet. Isabel didn’t know it yet, but she was going to be a source, and Katya couldn’t have a source paying for her drinks. Isabel leaned over the bar and gave the bartender an almost imperceptible wave—he nodded and within seconds had materialized in front of them. “Vodka soda, please,” Katya said. The bartender nodded.

  “That’s what I’m drinking too!” Isabel said. Katya’s drink came; she paid the bartender and held her glass up to Isabel’s.

  “Cheers,” she said, looking her in the eye.

  “Cheers,” Isabel said.

  “So…there was actually something I wanted to talk to you about,” Katya said.

  “Huh?” Isabel said. It was really loud.

  Katya raised her voice. “I said, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about!”

  “Oh,” Isabel said. “Okay. Let’s go back there.” She gestured with her drink toward a corner of the room that Katya hadn’t noticed before, one that did, in fact, look quieter, and once again squeezed them through the crowd. “So what’s up? You wanted to talk to me about something?”

  “Yeah. I wanted to talk to you about Mack McAllister.”

  Isabel’s face went blank. “What about him?”

  “Were you guys ever together?”

  “No offense, but is that really any of your business?” Isabel wasn’t looking at Katya now. “Is that why you came over to talk to me, to ask me nosy questions about my boss?”

  Honesty seemed like the best policy. “Well…kind of. I’m…I’m probably going to be doing a story about Mack and, um, possible sexual harassment.”

  “Wait. What? Why are you telling me this here?”

  “It was just a coincidence that I saw you,” Katya said. “I was planning to call you this week, but since you were here, I figured I would at least ask.”

  “I’m sorry, but that’s crazy,” Isabel said. “Even if Mack did sexually harass me, and I’m not saying he did, why on earth would I tell you at a bar?”

  Katya didn’t notice Victor and Nilay until they were practically in front of her. “Hey, babe,” Victor said. He smiled at her and kissed her on the lips. He tasted like weed and beer. “I was looking everywhere for you. My phone doesn’t work down here.”

  “Yeah, mine doesn’t either. And it’s crowded,” she said. “You know Isabel, right?”

  “Of course,” Victor said. He leaned over to kiss her on the cheek. “And do you know Nilay?”

  “I don’t think so,” Isabel said. “But you look familiar.”

  “I’m sure we’ve, like…been at the same meet-ups or parties or whatever,” Nilay said.

  “Probably.” Isabel smiled. “Well…I’ll leave you all to it. Cheers.” She didn’t look at Katya as she walked away.

  “What is this, anyway?” Katya asked. “The guy at the door said it was a private party.”

  “Some Google thing,” Nilay said. “I think it’s like…the Maps engineers’ happy hour? I dunno, my friend Jamil invited me. Weird that he said that, though.”

  Across the room, Katya noticed Isabel whispering in Andrew’s ear and Andrew saying something back to her and putting his arm around her. He leaned over and said something else to her and she nodded. Andrew handed his drink to Isabel and started walking toward them. This cannot be good, Katya thought.

  “Hey, Victor. Hey, Nilay,” Andrew said. “Hey, Katya. How’s it going.”

  “Great, man,” Victor said. “You?”

  “Good, good. You got a second?”

  “Me?” Victor asked. Andrew nodded. “Yeah, sure. Can you guys, uh, excuse us, I guess?” Victor gave Katya a look that said, I have no idea what this is about. She gave him a look back that said, Eeeek.

  “Thanks,” Andrew said as Nilay and Katya walked away.

  “What’s that about?” Nilay said to her as they moved toward the bar.

  “Not sure.” There was no point in bringing Nilay into this. She wanted to look back and see how the conversation between Andrew and Victor was going, but she also didn’t want to. She was feeling hot. She had to get out of this basement, away from these people. “Hey—I think I have to get some fresh air. Can you let Victor know?”

  Nilay looked at her quizzically, but nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

  She fought her way through the crowd—without Isabel’s help, it took her almost five full minutes to cross the floor of the bar to the exit. The same bouncer was at the door as she walked out. “Taking off early?” he said.

  She glared at him and stomped up the stairs two at a time. Once she was outside, she took her pack of cigarettes out of her bag, extracted one, and lit it. Her hands were shaking. She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes just for a moment. This would clear her head. When she opened them, there was a man in a security uniform standing in front of her. “Gotta move away from the entrance,” he said. “Technically it’s supposed to be fifty feet, but if you just move a little bit I won’t say nothin’.”

  She sighed. “Yeah, okay.” Katya walked a few yards away; she could feel the man’s eyes on her as she walked. When she turned back toward the street she saw Victor exiting the building. It took only a moment for him to spot her. His mouth was set in a grim line. He came so close to her face that she thought for a moment that he might hit her. Instead, he just stared at her for a second and shook his head slowly.

  “What…the…fuck,” he said softly. “What the fuck did you say to Isabel Taylor?” He glanced down at her cigarette. “And you’re smoking. Of course.” He made a face.

  “You know I smoke. And you smoke weed every day,” Katya said.
“Anyway, why do you care?”

  “Don’t change the subject.” He was looking at her through narrowed eyes. You’re the one who brought up my cigarette, she thought, but she kept silent. “What did you say to Isabel?”

  “What did Andrew say I said to Isabel?” She took one final drag on her cigarette and stubbed it out against the building, then tossed it on the ground.

  Victor rolled his eyes. “You are impossible.” She didn’t respond. Finally, he said, “He said that you basically threatened her, told her that you were going to publish something on TechScene about her and Mack if she didn’t talk to you, and Isabel said that everything you were saying about the two of them was a lie.”

  Katya stared at Victor. “First of all, you’re just going to believe her? I thought you were supposed to be on my side. And second of all, everything she said is bullshit. Obviously. I would never threaten anyone.”

  “Honestly, Katya, I don’t know what you’re capable of. Sometimes I feel like I don’t even know you.” She bristled at this statement. It was one that had been hurled at her before, mostly by boyfriends but also by friends.

  “Oh, come on,” she said. “What does that even mean? You know me as well as anyone in the world.”

  “Maybe you’re just one of those people who’s, like, not capable of letting anyone in.” He wasn’t as visibly agitated as he had been when he’d come storming toward her two minutes ago, but he still seemed pissed.

  “You sound like a shrink. And what was that just now, anyway? Coming at me basically accusing me of threatening Isabel? What, are you worried that Andrew Shepard is going to be mad at you?” The way that Victor looked at her when she said that told her everything she needed to know. “You are. For fuck’s sake.”

  “Oh, come on. I invite you out, and the first thing you do is confront the girlfriend of one of my friends? You know we have a rule. Anything related to my work is off the record. I didn’t think I had to say that that included not trying to get people to talk to you at events.”

  “It’s not something I do regularly!” She was getting annoyed. Victor was acting like she had violated some sacred rule when all she had done was seize an opportunity. “I just saw Isabel, and it seemed like it would be a good time to talk to her.”

  Victor tilted his head, as though trying to see her from another angle. “It’s like you don’t even think about me when you do this shit.”

  “That’s a really rude thing to say.”

  “It’s true! If you had stopped to think for two seconds, maybe you would have been like, Hmm, I wonder how my boyfriend, Victor, who is currently trying to figure out what his next move is going to be because his company shit the bed and he hasn’t had a job in two months, would feel if I went up to the girlfriend of one of the most influential guys in the whole New York tech scene and tried to blackmail her—”

  “Okay. Hold up. I did not blackmail Isabel. That is completely inaccurate. Honestly, I can’t even believe that you would say something like that. It’s like you don’t understand where I’m coming from. I have a job to do. Which sometimes it seems like you don’t totally take seriously.”

  “That is bullshit! I think what you do is amazing. I just don’t want it interfering with what I do.”

  “Clearly,” Katya muttered. She glared at him. “So you want to know what I really said to Isabel?”

  “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  “I told her I was looking into whether Mack had sexually harassed her. And—”

  “Wait. You what? Mack? Sexually harassing Isabel?”

  “Yes.” Katya paused to give Victor time to process this. He probably hadn’t even known they were seeing each other. No one, it seemed, had known that. “And I have proof. Kind of.”

  “What does that mean?” He sounded wary now.

  Could she trust him? She had to trust him. She felt like they were on the edge of a yawning unknown, that everything in their relationship had been leading up to this moment, when one of them was going to have to make a choice. “It means,” she said slowly, “that I saw a couple of texts Mack sent her. The night we were at Andrew’s party.”

  Victor let out a sharp breath. “So another thing where I specifically asked you not to play reporter.”

  “This wasn’t even my fault! I just happened to see the texts come in.”

  “Well, what were they?”

  “They were dick pics,” Katya said, trying to keep her voice as calm as possible. “Mack said something like, ‘Don’t tell me you don’t miss this,’ and then there were, like, a bunch of dick pics. That I’m assuming were of him.”

  Victor was quiet. He finally gets it, Katya thought, watching him as he apparently processed it all. Then he spoke. “I mean…yeah, that’s bad. I get why that’s bad. But it’s not like…that bad.”

  “What are you talking about. He sent her dick pics while she was at Andrew’s party. After she and Andrew had started seeing each other. I mean, clearly she didn’t want them. How is that not bad?”

  “It’s bad! I said it was bad. It’s just like…I dunno. Forget it.”

  “No. I want to know why sending a woman unsolicited dick pics is not that bad. Really, enlighten me. I’d like to know.”

  “You wouldn’t understand.” She stared at him. “I mean, you don’t know that she didn’t want them.”

  Was her smart, kind, funny boyfriend actually saying the words that were coming out of his mouth? She shook her head. This is not happening.

  “I think I need to go,” she said quietly. “I’ll see you later.” She started walking east.

  “Aw, come on, Katya,” Victor called out. She ignored him. He hurried after her and grabbed her arm. “Wait.”

  “Don’t touch me,” Katya said, and wrested her arm out of his grasp. “See what just happened there? What if you grabbed my arm and I said don’t touch me and you kept grabbing my arm?” She could see in his face that that was what he had wanted to do. That was why she had said it, to see what his reaction would be. It was clear he had never considered these questions before. Good, she thought. Let him think about it. “Seriously, though. I have to go. Don’t text me tonight.” They were standing in front of the entrance to the bar, and just as she said this, Nilay came out. He looked happy, drunk.

  “Hey, man!” he said. He put his arm around Victor. “Hey, Katya! I was looking for you guys. Where are we going now?”

  They are children, Katya realized. They are just little boys, and they can go be little boys together. “Nowhere,” Katya said. “I’m leaving.” Before Nilay could respond, she had turned and was walking away from them. This time Victor didn’t call out to her.

  When she was almost to the Eighth Avenue stop on the L, and the adrenaline that had been coursing through her veins had started to ebb, she felt…yes, those were tears. “Fuck,” she said under her breath, and she wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her leather jacket. She squeezed her eyes shut for another moment. What the hell was she supposed to do now? She didn’t want to go home—Janelle would probably be there, making one of her beauty-tutorial videos. Lately she’d started just leaving all her makeup and equipment on the kitchen table, which was technically in the living room—“It’s not like you use it, and it would just make things easier if I didn’t have to set up each time,” Janelle said, and Katya couldn’t exactly argue because she had sat at the table maybe once in the entire time the two of them had been living together. But still, there was something about the presumption that rankled Katya. Like it was something she should be annoyed about, even if she actually wasn’t. Except right now, when all she wanted to do was go home and lie on the couch and stare at the ceiling, and she knew Janelle would be teaching the world how to put on fake lashes.

  She felt her phone vibrate. It was probably Victor, texting her to apologize. She took it out of her back pocket. It was, instead, a text from Dan: hey k, hope you’re having a lovely evening. this came on my spotify on my way home & it made me think of you. if you don’t know neutral m
ilk hotel…well, you *need* to know neutral milk hotel. totally formative. Katya did not know “Neutral Milk Hotel.” She clicked the link, which opened an album called In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, and started listening. She didn’t listen to a ton of music, but when she did, it was usually whatever new hip-hop Victor was into at the moment. This was something else altogether. She listened to a minute or so of one song and texted Dan back: thx. pretty good! She hit send, put away her phone, and then took out her phone again. Before she could think about it too much, she sent him another text: i know you’re already home but…any chance you feel like a drink? As soon as she hit send, she regretted it. What was she doing turning to Dan for consolation, especially about something like this? But he was the only one who would really be able to understand what had happened at the bar—Victor didn’t get how hard it was to be a reporter, that everyone around you could just go on about their business but you always had to be worrying about, like, offending your boyfriend. She had barely finished rationalizing sending the text when he responded: always. name the place, i’ll grab an uber.

  Old Town? she wrote back. That way, she could just jump on the L at Union Square and go home afterward.

  Sure, he wrote.

  Half an hour later, they were sitting side by side at the bar. She had a vodka soda in front of her.

  “Thanks for meeting me,” she said.

  “Of course,” Dan said. “You’re not really one to, like…cry wolf. So I knew it was serious.”

  She felt tears coming to her eyes again and used a cocktail napkin to dab at them before any real waterworks could start. “It just suddenly feels like nothing is going right, you know?”

  “Want to talk about it?” Dan’s voice was gentle. Somehow this made the tears come quicker. She rubbed her eyes with the napkin, which was getting grubby. Ugh. This was not what was supposed to happen. She hated tears. “Or you can cry too,” Dan said. “That’s fine.”