The Next Big Thing

by Sadie Hayes

  “Well, I tried to talk about it in private, but you wouldn’t—”

  “If there was anything to talk about, I would have spoken to you in private. But there wasn’t, so I didn’t.”

  “Is it mine?” he pleaded. “If it is, we—”

  “We,” she interrupted, “are absolutely, one thousand percent finished.”

  “But I—”

  “You are an even worse person than I thought.” Now she was really going. “I don’t know who you’ve become, Adam, but it’s intolerable. Your sister doesn’t know how lucky she is to get away from you, but I’m really starting to figure it out.”

  “I’m the same person—”

  “Leave, Adam,” Lisa said sternly.

  “I will take care of it. If it’s mine.”

  “Leave!” she screeched.

  Adam turned on his heel and stomped back out into the rain.

  When he got back to his room at SAE, he took off his wet clothes and fell in bed, annoyed by the pumping music of partiers outside.

  He stared at his phone, hoping it would ring. Lisa or Amelia or Violet, though she wasn’t really the consoling type. Nothing. He turned the volume up and positioned the phone next to his pillow just in case and went to sleep.

  30

  Board of Detractors

  “I think it’s time for us to take this company public,” Ted Bristol announced firmly to the others at the table.

  He was seated in the conference room of Berlin Partners, a venture capital firm with whom he’d done several co-investments.

  The company in question was Jamify, a social network for sharing music. It started as an avatar-based social game where users had access to free music tracks they could then spin into new compilations. Due to a clever social engagement loop it quickly grew, and the founders leveraged their audience’s enthusiasm to transform it into a music-sharing portal. Within a year, certain demographics were using the Jamify iPhone app more than iTunes. Ted currently owned a tenth of Berlin Partners’ 51 percent ownership in the company.

  “We’ve been sitting on the filing docs for months, but timing is never going to be better. The bank’s already told us we can get twenty dollars a share, but I think, given the market, we could push that number closer to twenty-three.”

  “Ted.” Susan Rawlings, a firm partner who perpetually looked pissed off, tilted her head. “The point still stands that the company doesn’t need the money. The cash would just sit there, and the Street would eventually react negatively.”

  Ted sighed in irritation. “There’s always something to be done with more money. Why not expand globally? Why not pay for celebrity sponsorships? The point is not to miss the opportunity to make Jamify bigger and maximize our gains.”

  “The company’s gains, or our own?” Susan spat back. She’d always been a martyr for putting companies’ interests before investors’.

  Michael Berlin, the firm’s founding partner, stepped in. “I think we’re all smart enough to see each other’s points. Ted’s is a reasonable one for us to consider. Why don’t we have the management team pull together a list of potential uses for the cash and plan to regroup with them on this next week?”

  “Fine,” Susan said as she closed her notebook.

  Michael looked around the table. “If no one else has anything, Mandy’ll circulate minutes and calendar a follow-up with the Jamify team.”

  The six other partners followed Susan’s lead out of the conference room. “Hang on for a sec, Ted,” Michael called after him.

  Ted kept his seat and rubbed his neck as he looked out the window onto Sand Hill Road. He was glad he’d left his old firm to go out on his own, but he did sometimes miss this view and the power of knowing it was yours.

  “We go back a long way,” Michael started. “So I hope you won’t mind me asking: What’s going on?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Pardon if I’m overstepping, but it feels like you’re a bit desperate for cash.”

  Ted felt his face flush. He didn’t immediately answer.

  Michael pressed, “I’m not trying to pry into your personal finances, I just need to know what’s influencing your suggestions for Jamify.”

  This made Ted’s neck prickle. “I don’t need to tell you,” he said firmly, “that Gibly did not provide the windfall I expected.” He paused. “But I resent the implication that my suggestions for a company’s growth would be marred by my own self-interests. I am a professional.”

  “I know that,” Michael said without changing his tone, “and I know that this is a volatile business. And I just want to remind you, as a partner and a friend, that in the long term things will sort themselves out, but you cannot rush things.”

  Ted concentrated on his breath and tried not to think about how impatient he truly was for the millions he’d make if Jamify went public at its current valuation. Six months ago he would have insisted the company hold out for more, but today, as he considered his balance sheet, devastated by the loss from Gibly’s failed sale, he just didn’t want to lose what they had.

  “That TechCrunch article really screwed you over, huh?”

  Ted nodded.

  “You ever find out who it was?”

  “Sure. I met the hacker before the article was published. I offered a hundred thousand dollars to keep quiet after our systems were hacked,” Ted confessed for the first time.

  Michael raised an eyebrow. “Who wouldn’t take that?”

  “Should’ve offered a million. Would’ve saved me two billion.”

  “What’s he doing now?”

  “Suffering.” Ted didn’t correct Michael; it was somehow more shameful to admit that a teenage girl had dismantled his entire career and legacy.

  “Suffering?” Michael laughed. “Hell hath no fury like Ted Bristol’s scorn. Are you filing a lawsuit?”

  Ted had, of course, talked to his accountant about filing a lawsuit. What no one except Ted and his accountant knew, however, was that Ted Bristol had invested all of his personal assets into Gibly the day of the sale. It was a secret transaction, the kind that was only illegal if you were caught. The outcome was supposed to give Ted Bristol ten times the profit from the deal, which, until Amelia Dory’s e-mail to TechCrunch, had been a certainty. So when the sale didn’t go through, Ted didn’t just lose the payout, he lost every penny and every stock he’d accumulated up until that point. The only money left was in his property, his cars, and in his kids’ trusts. Suing Amelia would expose his own infraction. In the meantime, though, he had about six months of cash left to figure out what to do.

  “No, I’m not suing. I want it to hurt worse than that,” he said calmly.

  31

  Newest Profession, Oldest Profession

  Lisa shut off the engine and checked her reflection in the rearview mirror one last time. She looked herself in the eye and breathed “Okay” before handing her keys to the valet and heading down the stairs to the Rosewood’s private dining room.

  Lisa was typically nervous before starting new things, and tonight was her first session as a “Focus Girl.” Despite Lisa’s trepidations, Patty assured her friend there was nothing to be nervous about, and her sorority sisters who had become regular Focus Girls insisted it was “just what she needed” after the Adam incident last week.

  Reflecting on it, Lisa was proud of how she handled it—she had, in retrospect, said exactly what she wanted to say given the circumstances and Adam’s erratic behavior. Despite her best face, the whole incident rattled her, and the what-ifs made her heart race with anxiety.

  The pregnancy scare had been a nonissue in the end. In retrospect it seemed silly. Her encounter with Adam was the only time she’d had sex; it was forgettably, drunkenly brief, and they’d used a condom and it had been more than two months ago. The tests had come back negative and, as though the universe was telling her to just be patient, she’d woken up with her period the next morning, giving her double affirmation that it had all been an ugly fal
se alarm.

  Her doctor told her that her missed periods were probably her body’s reaction to the stress of so many changes. And there had been a lot of changes. She walked carefully in her heels down the stairs to the Rosewood basement. As if starting college wasn’t enough, she’d gone from two boyfriends to none. And now she was starting her first paid job: being a Focus Girl for Patty Hawkins’s new and increasingly talked-about company.

  She checked the nameplate on the door of the Sequoia Room before entering to join four girls her age and five older men, all in their thirties, all dressed in nice suits and with slick hair. Everyone had a cocktail in hand.

  One of the men approached and reached out his hand. “Lisa?”

  “Yes,” she said, and let his thick fingers enclose her slender ones. “I’m so sorry I’m late.”

  “Not a problem at all,” the man said. “I’m Mark.” Then, turning to the others, “Everyone, please welcome Lisa.”

  The group tilted their heads in acknowledgment and turned back to their conversations.

  “Can I get you a drink?”

  Lisa’s eyes darted to the other girls, noting they all had wineglasses in hand despite also being underage. “Sure,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t betray her surprise.

  “Pinot Grigio okay?” Mark asked. His hair was thick and dark and carefully combed on the sides. His suit was expensive looking and there was a polka-dotted pocket square in the front pocket. He wasn’t fat, but he was broad. And he was at least ten years older than her brother.

  “That’s great,” Lisa said, taking the glass he’d already poured.

  “So which sorority are you in?” Mark asked.

  “Delta Gamma,” she answered. “Well, I hope so. I’m a pledge.”

  “DG … let’s see … do you know Tiffany Jacobsen?”

  “Sure! She’s our vice president of communications.”

  “She’d be great for that,” Mark said, sipping his drink. “I like her and her friends a lot. You’re joining a great group.”

  Mark had a large brown mole on the left side of his jaw that moved with his chin when he spoke, and Lisa concentrated on his eyes when he spoke so that she didn’t stare at the mole.

  “What is your major?”

  “I haven’t decided yet,” she said, not sure if there was a correct answer she was supposed to give. Patty had told her she’d matched the criteria for this Focus Girls session, but she was still unclear what those criteria had been. “What do you do?” she asked in exchange.

  “I’m an angel investor,” Mark said proudly. “I made some money off a company I started a few years ago and now I’m helping other aspiring entrepreneurs achieve their visions.”

  “That’s great,” Lisa said.

  “You know,” Mark continued, “it really is, Lisa.” He reached out his hand and squeezed her shoulder. “I never thought anything could be so wonderful as succeeding myself, but turns out helping young people is even more rewarding.”

  Lisa took another sip of her wine and offered a polite smile. Something about this guy creeped her out.

  “Do you want to sit down?” He moved his hand to indicate the table where the other girls were starting to sit down in every other chair, the men filling in between them.

  “Sure.” Lisa followed him to the seat he pulled out for her and sat down, adjusting the pashmina around her neck to fully cover her chest, which had a tendency to show a bit too much in the V-neck dress she was wearing.

  Once everyone was seated, a waitress arrived with salad plates, which she presented before each diner, ladies first.

  “Oh, I didn’t realize dinner was involved,” Lisa said to Mark.

  “Of course!” He laughed, his mole shaking. “You didn’t think we’d let you go hungry, did you?”

  “I wasn’t sure what to think,” Lisa admitted.

  “And what do you think?” Mark asked, leaning in a bit too close.

  Lisa instinctively pulled her face back a few inches and turned her eyes down as she reached for a fork. “I guess I’m wondering what product you’re testing,” she said honestly.

  “Oh, we’re just looking for your perspective,” Mark said calmly, reaching for the butter at the center of the table to dress his roll. “We’re interested in finding out what interests you, you know?”

  Lisa took a sharp breath in and concentrated on her salad.

  Mark reached his arm around the back of her chair and reached beneath her pashmina to squeeze her shoulder. “Just relax,” he said, “I promise we’re not going to hurt you.”

  She couldn’t stand the feeling of his thick fingers on her skin but she forced another polite smile. She looked at the other girls: She vaguely recognized one of them as a junior in Pi Phi. The other men were leaning in to their conversations and the girls were laughing merrily as the waitress filled up their glasses.

  “So what are you investing in?” Lisa asked, leaning forward for the butter so as to move from beneath his arm.

  He reached quickly to get it for her. “Allow me,” he said importantly as he buttered her roll for her. She took the roll, which she didn’t really want, and bit into it, nodding in false appreciation.

  “I invest in all sorts of things,” he said, wiping a hand alongside his slick hair. “I look for technologies that are really disrupting the industries they’re in. And for superdynamic founders. That’s the key, you know? The founder.”

  Lisa nodded in agreement. “Yeah, definitely.”

  “So what do you do for fun?” Mark leaned in again. She could smell his breath when he spoke. It smelled like peppermint-sprayed onions.

  “Well, right now I’m focused on school, and trying to figure out the whole college thing,” she answered honestly, “but I used to do theater, so I’m thinking of getting reinvolved in that, or maybe auditioning for one of the a cappella groups on campus.”

  “That’s neat,” Mark said disinterestedly, his body turned in his seat to face her. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  Lisa blushed and looked down at her frisée, a lock of hair falling down across her shoulder. “No, not anymore.”

  Mark reached his finger over to brush the hair back behind her shoulder, letting his finger linger on her skin. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

  “Is everything all right?” he asked gently but in a way that made Lisa nervous.

  “Yes, of course,” she lied.

  “I mean, with your ex-boyfriend. You said ‘not anymore’ as if there was a lot behind it.”

  How did he know that?

  “Is there anything I can do to make it better?” He leaned in again with his peppermint-onion breath.

  “I’m so sorry,” Lisa said, “I have really got to use the restroom. Do you know where it is?”

  “Sure, let me show you,” Mark said, standing up from his chair.

  “Oh, that’s okay,” Lisa insisted, “you don’t have to get up. I’m fine. Really.”

  She stood up and walked toward the door, praying that Mark wouldn’t follow her. When she got to the bathroom, she leaned over and gripped the counter. Her head was spinning and she felt like she had had the wind knocked out of her.

  Nausea overcame Lisa. All she could see was Mark’s mole moving up and down as he spoke, and it made her queasy. She splashed her face with water in the sink. She wasn’t sure what was wrong with him, but she couldn’t go back in there.

  She shook her face, trying to regain her presence, took a long look in the mirror, picked up her purse, and headed out to the parking lot, holding her breath until she was in her car with the doors locked.

  32

  Cruise, Control

  Jim poured Adam another Jack and Coke and he sipped it absentmindedly.

  “You okay, Adam?” Jim was the bartender at Rudy’s, a dive bar on University Avenue. Ever since Adam had moved the Doreye headquarters a few blocks away he had become the bar’s youngest regular and Jim’s biggest consumer of Jack Daniels.

  “Fine,” he sai
d, which was a lie but one he didn’t care to explore.

  Like all good bartenders, Jim picked up on this and moved away with a simple “This one’s on me.”

  Adam’s hunched shoulders pulled his line of vision below the bar, rather than straight ahead at the bottle-lined mirror. Adam studied the fluorescent lights of the refrigerators that held row after row of Bud Light, all of which would be consumed tonight by customers eager to pay.

  Maybe he should have gone into a product business, Adam thought. Maybe if there were a physical, tangible something he could sell he’d do better than having this ambiguous software no one—especially not him—really understood.

  But the product wasn’t the issue and he knew that. The issue was him. He wasn’t as smart as his sister, plain and simple. He wasn’t hot and rich like the other guys in the frat whom Lisa dated. He wasn’t as adventurous and exciting as Violet, and he also felt increasingly uncertain her attentions would last. Insult to injury: Even Arjun, their pudgy technical lead who walked funny and had a constantly dripping nose, had a girlfriend and a measurable skill.

  Adam finished the rest of his drink and gestured for another. It was his third? Fourth? He couldn’t remember. It didn’t matter: What else was he going to do tonight? Go back to the office and solve problems he couldn’t solve? Go back to campus and hook up with Lisa? All the pipe dreams he’d had six months ago were shot and he knew it.

  He thought back on the lunch with Professor Marsh. He’d had such unconquerable confidence then; what had happened? He didn’t want to, but the drinks let him into the part of his brain that knew exactly what had happened: He’d fired Amelia. He’d offended Lisa. He’d had a chance to elevate his social status via the frat, but he’d prioritized the company and now he was the same poor loser from Indiana he’d been on day one at Stanford, except now he didn’t have anyone to commiserate with.

  Adam’s palms started sweating and the sweat seemed to hang on his skin, making him suddenly feel claustrophobic sitting in this empty bar. I’ve thrown it all away, he thought. He had to get out of here. He stood up from the bar and rushed for the door and the fresh air it promised.