The Next Big Thing

by Sadie Hayes

  “Yes,” Ted answered, quickly dropping his embrace and heading behind his desk. Lori sat quietly in a chair.

  T.J. had a love-hate relationship with his father’s study. On the one hand, he admired and someday wanted for himself the always-polished mahogany desk, the rugged leather chairs, and the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with silver awards. On the other hand, he associated the study with his father’s voluntary absence, and with the fact that he only came here when he was being reprimanded or lectured.

  “Roger’s death has made us think more seriously about what happens to you and your sister if something happens to us,” Ted said matter-of-factly. “The last thing I want is for you and Lisa to be burdened with a complicated inheritance. Or, worse, for all the wealth I’ve built to get tied up in court.”

  Ted removed a stack of folders from the desk’s inner drawer. “The past few days I’ve been on the phone with Johan to make sure that your and your sister’s trust funds are in order.”

  T.J. nodded at the reference to the family’s attorney. He didn’t actually know how much money he was going to inherit from his father, and the thought of his trust fund gave him a strange mix of excitement and dread. On the one hand, he’d always been adamant about making it on his own; on the other hand, it was nice knowing there was a big chunk of change waiting for him when he turned forty.

  “Are you sure we shouldn’t wait for Lisa?” Lori asked, obviously disturbed by her husband’s lack of emotion around such a sensitive subject. “Have a family conversation about it?”

  “I think it’s best we handle it separately.” Ted’s voice didn’t open the door for disagreement. “Lisa will have more questions, and she seems so stressed with school right now I don’t want to add something else to her plate.”

  T.J. winced at the mention of his sister. She was stressed, but school was the least of Lisa’s worries. She’d told their parents she had a school project and couldn’t make the funeral, but she’d told T.J. she’d text him tonight after she took a pregnancy test, which she’d finally worked up the courage to go buy.

  “In that case, I’m going to leave you boys to it,” Lori announced, slapping her hands to her knees and pushing herself out of the chair. “T.J., come find me before you leave.” She kissed her son on the cheek.

  As soon as she left the room Ted handed T.J. a thick document titled “The Terrence John Bristol Irrevocable Trust.”

  “We’re going to make some amendments to the documents, but I wanted to get your signature on this as soon as possible. The suddenness of all this”—Ted gestured out to the funeral guests and spoke with urgency—“has made me realize I shouldn’t put off until tomorrow what could be done today.”

  T.J. looked at his father; maybe he was right, but it felt wrong to be talking about inheritance at a funeral. He wondered if Riley was still here.

  “So you know, your current trust is partly cash and partly equity in some of the investments I’ve made. You’ll receive a modest allowance from the cash until your fortieth birthday, at which point you have access to the full sum, which is currently valued at twenty-two point six million.” Ted smiled at the amount, pleased with himself.

  T.J. was surprised by his own numbness to the number—maybe because he knew he couldn’t have it until he was forty, maybe because he knew he’d want to make far more on his own regardless, but the amount didn’t make any of it feel more real.

  “So what’s changing? Why do I need to sign?”

  “We’re adding a few more caveats,” Ted replied in a measured tone. “As you know, the fund is activated early if you get married.”

  “Are you and Mom afraid your grandkids would otherwise starve?” T.J. bristled.

  “But after this week,” Ted ignored his son’s jab, “and after what happened to Roger, we wanted to add a clause that says if something happens to your mother and me the trust becomes immediately available: You don’t have to wait. Also, I opened it so that you can make contributions of your own. If, for example, you wanted to put your Doreye shares into the trust.”

  T.J. didn’t want to hear his father talk about Doreye. He blamed himself for what happened to Amelia and was having trouble motivating himself to care about the company without her.

  “Why would I do that?”

  “To avoid taxes.”

  “That’s legal?”

  “Totally.”

  “So what do I need to do?”

  “Just sign here,” his father said, pointing. “That moves your Doreye shares. And here”—he pointed to another paper—“That makes your trust available immediately if something happens to us.”

  “Okay, sure,” T.J. said, deciding that it was harmless, and that the tax thing made sense if Doreye ever did go anywhere.

  T.J. signed the papers and got up to leave.

  “Is there anything else?”

  “That’s it. Just know I’m trusting you not to kill your mother and me to get to that money early,” his father joked.

  T.J. stared at his father. How could he joke about such a thing? He left the room silently to go find Riley.

  26

  Super Cheesy

  Amelia was lying on her bed looking at the ceiling, where a stain shaped like Florida was growing out of the corner. She was on the top floor of the dorm and imagined the rain pooling above the plaster, then imagined the plaster giving way and the water rushing in to flood her room.

  She’d moved into Alondra, a freshman dorm that gave her free room and board in exchange for being on call to help residents when they had computer problems. She missed her old dorm, but she hadn’t had any other options. Fenway Ventures paid for housing for Doreye employees; now that she wasn’t an employee, and Roger wasn’t there to amend the contract, she had to do something. She knew Adam would have found a way to cover her if she’d asked—he wasn’t that heartless—but she couldn’t bear the thought of asking him for anything right now.

  Someone knocked on her door but she decided not to hear. She knew she should take her job seriously, but right now the prospect of resolving an RSS feed error and teaching a freshman the importance of installing updates felt a lot less important than tracing a crack in the ceiling to its origin.

  “I know you’re in there!” a voice called from outside.

  It took her a moment to register it through the door as T-Bag’s. She continued to silently ignore. Was it just her or was the Florida stain expanding? Maybe the roof’s gutters were clogged? She should call maintenance.

  Amelia heard a key in the door and sat up, startled as T-Bag opened the door and thanked Raj, the RA downstairs who had a master key to access all the rooms. “What are you … Raj, why’d you let him in?”

  “Because he’s required to in cases of emergency, and this is an emergency,” T-Bag answered. Raj stood in the doorway and gave Amelia an it-was-you-he-was-going-to-bother-or-me shrug before leaving to tend to other RA duties.

  It had been three days since Roger’s funeral and Amelia had only left the dorm once to go to a history class that she’d left as soon as she’d arrived, realizing she still couldn’t handle being around people. It wasn’t just Roger she was grieving for, it was everything.

  T-Bag sat a shopping bag down on Amelia’s desk and started emptying its contents. He’d diligently checked in on Amelia each evening since the funeral, leaving notes and texts each time she didn’t answer.

  “You know I’m usually much too prideful to chase after someone who ignores my text messages,” he said, pushing his tortoiseshell glasses up on his nose. “But for you I make an exception. Now,” he said, and pulled the foil off the top of a bottle that looked like champagne and massaged the cork out of the bottle as he spoke, “I assume you haven’t eaten in days and anorexic-thin is so 1996, and I refuse to let you lose your fashion sense just as you’re acquiring it.” The cork popped and let out a stream of white air. He poured two glasses, real ones that he’d brought, and handed one to Amelia.

  She accepted and t
ook a long sip. It was delicious. “What is this?”

  “It’s girl beer. Lambic ale. From Belgium. They make it with fruit so it tastes like delicious fizzy apples instead of pee.”

  Amelia smiled; snobbery around the cheap-beer-drinking habits of American college students was one of T-Bag’s favorite soapboxes.

  “Now that drinks are settled…” T-Bag looked around the room and found the large monitor Amelia and Adam used to use for movie nights. It was stowed on the floor next to her desk and covered in textbooks. He pulled it out and positioned it across from the bed, tossing four DVDs at Amelia.

  “You’re in charge of the movie; I’ll get the fondue started.”

  “Fondue?” Amelia asked as she looked at the movie titles, all foreign names she’d never heard of. One had a picture of a dark-haired girl smiling slyly at the camera under the title Amélie. “What’s this one?” she asked T-Bag, who was plugging a pot into her surge protector and clearing her desk for his culinary feat.

  Even in his kindness T-Bag couldn’t hide his disappointment. “Seriously? You of all people. It’s the one we’re watching. End of story. Get your glasses on, though—it’s got subtitles.”

  T-Bag emptied a bag of cheese into the pot, and it simmered noisily as it hit the heat. He produced a tray of neatly chopped vegetables, breads, and cured meats. “Not sure how the meat’ll hold up in melted fontina, but a meal’s just not complete without a good sausage, don’t you think?”

  Amelia wasn’t sure if this was innuendo or thesis but she smiled either way. She was about to ask why he was here but then reconsidered: Whatever the reason, she was glad, and didn’t want him to leave.

  Noticing her empty glass, T-Bag poured another. “Don’t hold back—I brought three.”

  Amelia let out a laugh.

  “Ahh! A full laugh! I’m winning!”

  When the cheese was satisfactorily hot, T-Bag handed her a skewer and they devoured the fondue, she sitting on her bed and he on her desk chair.

  T-Bag chatted incessantly, filling Amelia in on all the drama she’d missed in the Comp Sci department. Raul had turned down his offer from Google to go work at Microsoft, which was devastating to Vlad, who had wanted the Google position and now had to accept one at Cisco.

  “Dessert?”

  Amelia nodded as she poured herself another glass of Lambic ale.

  “I’ll cut the cake; you get the movie started.”

  The two watched Amélie, which made Amelia feel warm and good for the first time in as long as she could remember. The beer did, too, as did T-Bag’s presence in the room. At the end of the movie, she declared it her new favorite, and T-Bag proclaimed he’d adopt the French pronunciation of her name going forward in recognition of this fact.

  “Go wash your face,” he said, and tapped her leg, recognizing her increasing yawning. “No going to bed with clogged pores.”

  She was tired, but she didn’t want him to leave. She was already dreading waking up tomorrow, alone, back in her misery.

  She went to the bathroom and brushed her teeth. When she came back, T-Bag was inflating an air mattress on the floor.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m staying. It’s raining and I live on the other side of campus. Don’t make me go out there, Amélie.” He smiled. She knew this wasn’t the real reason, and appreciated his lie. “Don’t worry, I only snore a little bit.”

  She smiled wordlessly at him as she crawled into bed. “Thank you,” she whispered, to him, and to whoever else was listening.

  * * *

  The next morning, Amelia woke up to a text message from Adam. She ignored it and rolled over, happy to find T-Bag softly snoring on her floor.

  She climbed quietly out of bed and crept over to her computer. Her head was a little foggy from the beer last night, but her heart felt as light as it had in a very long time.

  She logged into her computer and opened her terminal to a block of code she’d been working on before Roger died. It greeted her with a compiler error, which felt like a metaphor for pretty much everything.

  Before she could get started, a g-chat message popped up in the corner of her screen. It was from T.J.

  Hi, he’d typed. She hadn’t talked to him since the PKC meeting, and her throat burned wondering whether he agreed with Adam.

  Hi, she wrote back.

  T. J. Bristol: How R U?

  me: Fine

  T. J. Bristol: Really?

  She looked at the question: Was he talking about Roger? Doreye? I’m fine, she decided to repeat. Then, finally, How are you?

  T. J. Bristol: I’m failing CS 101. But I bet you could have guessed that (-;

  She smiled at the computer screen. Yes, she did expect T.J. would be an awful programmer, even if it was super basic.

  Do you need help? She was feeling generous after last night, and she missed T.J., even though their relationship was starting to feel weird lately—or maybe because their relationship was starting to feel weird lately.

  T. J. Bristol: Desperately. Are you being serious?

  me: Sure.

  She hesitated before finally keying in: Not like I have a lot else going on these days.

  T. J. Bristol: :-/ When is good?

  me: Now?

  T. J. Bristol: That’s great. I’m just doing some work but can be on campus in 20 mins. Pick u up?

  me: Sure.

  T. J. Bristol: Awesome.

  me: Just one thing.

  T. J. Bristol: Anything.

  me: No talking about Doreye.

  T. J. Bristol: Deal.

  “You little flirt!” Amelia was startled by T-Bag, who suddenly appeared reading over her shoulder. “You saucy girl, tutoring one of my pupils.”

  “I’m just going to help him with his homework.” Amelia avoided his eyes so he didn’t see her blushing.

  “Where is he taking you? Somewhere fancy?”

  “Gates, I imagine.” She rolled her eyes at him.

  “Is he picking you up?” T-Bag asked coyly, dipping his chin and smiling.

  “As a matter of fact, he is.”

  “Date.”

  “No: homework.”

  “Can I get a lift, then?”

  She hesitated. “Yes. Just to prove it to you.”

  T-Bag got up and started refolding the air mattress. “Are you going to wear your nice hoodie?”

  “As a matter of fact, I am,” Amelia said, and pulled the hoodie from the photo shoot around her shoulders. It had become her daily wardrobe.

  “I can’t believe you’ve got the attention of T. J. Bristol. He is so dreamy.”

  “We’re just friends,” she said, ending the conversation and turning her attention to carefully applying mascara.

  “Thanks again for coming over last night,” Amelia finally said. “I didn’t realize how much I needed … a friend.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Was fun for me, too.” He smiled warmly, then added, “Miss Amélie.”

  27

  My Sister’s Keeper

  Adam rolled over and picked up his phone, hoping for a text from Lisa, or Amelia, or Violet, but finding none. He took a deep breath and lifted himself out of bed.

  He grabbed a bagel in the kitchen and rode his bike to the new Doreye headquarters, a spacious old house in downtown Palo Alto that they’d converted into a funhouse workspace. They painted the walls bright blue and brought in two foosball tables and lined one wall with vending machines that accepted fake quarters so you didn’t actually have to pay. There was a cotton candy machine and a Red Bull fountain and a keg that was always tapped. Adam even interviewed chefs and picked the one who made the best beef burrito.

  Adam entered the front door and went upstairs to his office without saying hello to the two engineers hard at work in the living room–turned–programming room. After Amelia left, they promoted Arjun to team lead and hired six new engineers and a designer specializing in user interface.

  Adam sat down at his desk and stared at th
e furniture catalogs in front of him. The furniture downstairs was from the old incubator and desperately needed a refresh. He’d been working for the past week trying to figure out what desks to order to keep the right aesthetic without blowing their budget, not that they were too constrained after the last deposit from PKC.

  A knock on the door interrupted him. Arjun peeked his head in. “Do you have a minute?” he asked.

  “I’m kind of in the middle of something,” Adam said, irritated. “Is it important?”

  “It kind of is,” Arjun said.

  “Okay, come in.” Adam sighed dramatically, putting the catalog to one side and motioning for Arjun to sit down. “What’s going on?”

  “Well, we’re running into some problems with the algorithm.”

  “What kind of problems?” Adam lifted an eyebrow judgmentally. The technical stuff bored him.

  “Amelia’s design is … advanced. She built it so the Doreye app could do a lot of things at once. For example, I can use the radar feature to find my keys while changing the channel on my television and turning on my Wii—”

  “Arjun. What’s the problem?” Adam was particularly annoyed at any mention of his sister or her accomplishments.

  “She developed an artificial intelligence that would sort this out on the fly, except that whenever we test it, the device we test it on crashes.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that there is no device that can run Doreye. No device has nearly fast enough processors or enough RAM. Doreye … doesn’t work on an iPhone.”

  “What about Droid?”

  “Nope.”

  “That’s not possible,” Adam said, certain the engineers missed something.

  “It is, though,” Arjun insisted, hesitating as if there was more.

  “What is it, Arjun?” Adam asked, exasperated.

  “You have to bring Amelia back. We need her.”

  “We don’t.”

  “We’re at a standstill.”

  “Then work harder.”

  “But—”

  “Listen,” Adam interrupted, “if no one on the team is seriously smart enough to figure this out, then we’ll hire someone else, okay? It’s been three weeks since Amelia left; at least give it a try.”