by Jade Bitters
“Have you seen Romeo? Today? Thank God he wasn’t here for this,” said Arial with a sigh, leaning against one plush burgundy velvet wall of the elevator before the doors opened and they exited. As usual, a cab was waiting for them out front.
Ben opened the door for his bosses. Even though he’d been promoted through the ranks, he still felt subservient to the Thisbia founders. “I had a lot on my mind this morning, so I went into the office early. I saw him taking a walk in one of the empty floors, but when I walked towards him, he pretended not to see me and went into an empty office, pretending to work. I guess he wants to be alone, but he’s also tired of being alone. It’s funny, what the heart wants, and I’m not about to push myself on the poor boy.”
“He keeps hanging out by himself, and I swear I caught him crying once, but he’s always functional by the time we start work,” said Ferdinand with a sigh as Arial gave the cabbie directions. “Or maybe he’s not so fine...he’s been working alone, in the smallest of the conference rooms, with the blinds all shut, and the lights off. There’s a glitch in his system, and somebody needs to patch it.” The cabbie drove them through the streets of Potrero Hill to the Mission, to the loft that Romeo was sharing with some other Pyrymyn employees, including Ben.
“Do you have any idea what’s eating him?” asked Ben as they walked up the stairs. He couldn’t believe that the tech interns still liked living in the Mission, when they could live in one of the company condos in the headquarters’ high-rise. It was such a waste of their money. He was doing Caliban a favor, living here and supervising his interns during summers and the school year.
Sometimes, it felt like Ben was basically a glorified RA, but he’d also gained a loyal cadre of followers who had worked at Pyrymyn and stayed in contact with Ben afterwards. To be fair, though, he was only living with one intern this year, and with his friend Mark, an old friend from the finance circuit who had brought him to the startup world years ago, whose rent was covered by Pyrymyn as a “thank you” gift for all his investments and advice...even though he was also an investor and board member at other companies, including Thisbia. It was a fact that everyone overlooked.
Ferdinand said, “If I knew, I’d tell you.” He didn’t like to get too buddy-buddy with his assets: that’s what he hired Ben to do, to make sure the interns were behaving and taking care of themselves. Of course, Ferdinand had made an exception for Romeo.
“Have you asked him everything you can?” asked Ben as they all stopped and stood outside the door to the shared apartment.
“I’ve tried, I’ve asked HR to talk to him, I’ve sent him to the company therapist, but there hasn’t been any improvement in the situation. He just wants to be left alone, but I don’t think that’s healthy. It’s like he’s empty inside and he’s afraid that if he opens up, we’ll all find out. If we could just figure out what the problem was, we could help him,” said Ferdinand.
Before they could knock, they heard one of the interns on the other side of the door. Ben whispered, “He’s coming. Just go, and I’ll handle this. If I can’t fix him, nobody can.”
Ferdinand sighed. “I hope you can figure it out.” He turned to Arial. “Let’s go.”
As the two descended the staircase, Romeo opened the door. “Hey, bro, how are you?” asked Ben.
“What time is it?” asked Romeo. Ben looked him over: he was in sweatpants and a tight shirt that hugged his muscles. He had to admit, Romeo looked good, but not great. At least his outfit messed his messy, rumpled hair.
“It’s only midnight,” said Ben. “You should be out tonight.”
“And yet you knew to come here. Am I still asleep, or was that Ferdinand with you, when I answered the door?”
“Ferdinand and Arial, yeah. So what’s getting you down, bud? Why aren’t you out with your friends?” asked Ben awkwardly. He was trying his damnedest to relate with Romeo but he was the executive that was sent to deal with interns. The youngest of the execs at thirty, he still had little in common with Romeo.
“There’s no reason to go out, not anymore,” said Romeo, as Ben entered the apartment. Exposed brick? Hi-fi stereo system? Leather Eames chair knock-off? Check, check, and triple-check. He resisted the urge to chuckle: it was typical “baby’s first furniture” junk.
“Ah, so you’re in love,” said Ben, siting on the Eames knockoff. Was that 2007-era emo music playing in the stereo? Ugh. Romeo’s straight black hair was emo enough.
Romeo took a seat on a distressed leather couch. “Out.”
“Of love?” asked Ben. These moody interns were all the same, even though he knew why Romeo was technically different.
“Of Vitamin Water. Of Foodler points. Of space on my hard drive. Of fucks to give, what do you think? Out of her sight, of her mind. She doesn’t even like me back,” said Romeo with a sigh, leaning back and pulling out his phone. A green notification light blinked and he thought back to his American literature class. Should he succumb to the temptation to open it up and see what was begging for attention, although not his? Or should he just open it up, cancel the notifications, and make the lights go out for good? He had to swipe right eventually, but for now, he just held the phone between his pinkie finger and thumb, turning it over and over, his fingers touching the opposite edges over and over.
“That’s too bad. A lot of people are in love with the idea of love, but actually being in love isn’t easy,” said Ben, thinking back to his own days as an intern. There was a reason he was still unmarried, a grand total of three, in fact, and they’d all moved on after leaving him alone in the dirt with nothing more than his cushy jobs and savings and tears, but without his heart.
“No, what sucks is that love is supposed to be great, but it just makes your life harder. Do you wanna order takeout?” Romeo looked at Ben’s suit: usually, Ben was neat and tidy, but today, there was a stain on the shirt. Actually: more than a couple stains. “What happened?”
“The usual,” said Ben. “Thisbia interns causing shit.” Ben rolled his eyes. Thisbia had always been a fan of that touchy-feely crap, and before, interns picked the companies they worked at based on their specializations, and companies picked interns based on merit. There wasn’t all this “company culture” bullshit like they had at Thisbia. Did they even have a building with more than six floors?
Romeo sighed and looked at Ben, whose suit was rumpled and stood out against the smooth wood frame of the change. “That rivalry is ridiculous, Thisbia and Pyrymyn value the same things. We hate each other, because of what we love, and yet we love that rivalry. Love sucks, and it drives people to fight, it drives people to hate, and nobody even knows why we love what we love. Love’s a burden and a blessing, beautiful and terrible, good and bad, here and gone, and it’s nothing and it’s everything, except for that it’s not. This is my love, the love that goes unreturned,” said Romeo with a sigh, scrolling through his phone, on the profile of the girl that would never love him back, swiping left and right, not on Tinder but on Instagram, but to look at her, over and over. “Ben...are you laughing at me?” he asked, without looking.
Ben wiped a solitary tear from his eyes. “No, I’m crying.”
“Good God, why?” asked Romeo, putting the phone away.
“Because this is what love has turned you into, an emo kid,” said Ben, wiping the tears that just wouldn’t stop flowing. It had to be all the drinks he’d had, there was no other excuse.
Romeo had no idea what it was going to be like when he was eventually like Ben: an executive, more concerned with numbers and charts than with kisses and dates, obsessed with investors and not with girls. He was so smart but so innocent, and so naïve. He thought that this was just about two companies, but he had no idea how deep this really went, how far the rabbit hole could really go, and he didn’t want Romeo to be thinking of that, not yet, although Ben knew it would inevitably happen, sooner rather than later. If he could’ve protected Romeo from those awful truths, he would’ve, but instead, the alcohol took over
and he turned up and away so that Romeo wouldn’t see the silent silver trails tracing down his cheeks.
“That’s what happens with love, doesn’t it? It’s not like I want this burden, but now, I’ve got to feel guilty about making you feel sad too. Fuck, this sucks. I hate having emotions, and now I’ve got even more. Fine,” said Romeo, getting up from the couch and turning off the background music. “You know what love is? Smoke made of the sighs of lovers. The smoke clears. Love’s that fire, in her eyes. And if you forget about it, it’ll disappear, put out by her tears. What else could love be? It’s some sort of socially acceptable madness, the sweetest candy but the one you’ll always choke on. I’m gonna go back to bed, fuck this.”
Ben stood and put his hand on Romeo’s shoulders. “Don’t. I’m not about to stay at your apartment like this. What about when Mark gets back?” Ben looked at the time: Mark hadn’t gone to Alex’s party, even though he was Alex’s cousin, because he’d gone across the Bay to check out some kosher organic gluten-free food truck festival.
“I’m not myself anymore, Ben. I’m not here. This isn’t Romeo – he’s elsewhere, and I have no idea where to find him,” said Romeo, sitting back down.
“Who is she, really?” asked Ben. He thought back to all the girls he’d seen Romeo show an interest in outside, in the concrete playground of San Francisco, but he drew a blank: none of them really stood out to him as being especially special, and Romeo was a flirt, so it was hard to tell if he was really interested in a girl or was more interested in practicing his charms on her.
“Really? You want me to whine about her, with you?” asked Romeo with a laugh.
“Whine? No, not whine, but you can tell me about her,” said Ben.
“You’re really about to tell me not to whine, when I’m going through heartbreak? Some friend you are,” joked Romeo. “But seriously...I am in love, with a woman.”
“I already guessed that, remember?” asked Ben.
“Right on target. She’s beautiful,” said Romeo.
Ben rolled his eyes. “As are all the targets that get hit on.”
“Well, now you’re off target. She refuses to let anyone pursue her because she’s only here for the summer, working. She’s hot, but she isn’t looking to date just anyone, so she’s staying single right now. She won’t reply to me on Facebook, or let me follow her on Instagram, or send her things, beautiful things fit for a beautiful girl like her. She’s amazingly beautiful, but she’s never going to notice me, and her beauty’s wasted, given that she’ll just be gone at the end of the summer,” said Romeo.
“So she’s not going to date? At all?” asked Ben.
Romeo said, “That’s right, and it’s a waste. She’s so gorgeous. If you don’t date, you can’t make memories, and what are we if not our memories? She’s too gorgeous and smart to stay single, and it’s depressing. She’s said she’s not going to date, even casually, and that promise is killing me, but still, all I can do is think about her.”
“So don’t. Don’t think about her. Trust me,” said Ben.
“Do you have some method to get her out of my head?” asked Romeo.
“It’s easy. She’s gorgeous. Find another beautiful girl, and look around you: you’re in San Francisco. It’s called the Bay Area, but it should really be called the Babe Area,” joked Ben.
“Yeah, well, all those babes can’t compare to her, and I’ll just keep on comparing them to her. That’s the problem. Beautiful women like her don’t go out to parties, they stay hidden away at work and behind their large sunglasses and headphones as they take the BART, and that’s what makes them so amazing: they’re not just playing hard to get, they are hard to get. I’ll never forget how beautiful she is, ever. Show me someone amazingly beautiful, because until you do, every time I see anyone pretty, I’ll just think of her, and beauty in any form will remind me of beauty in hers. Goodnight, Ben. You cannot teach me how to forget. Not beauty. Not love.” Romeo got up and walked to his bedroom, but before Ben left for his room, he stuck his head into Romeo’s bedroom door. He had one final promise for his friend:
“I promise you this. I will teach you to forget, or I’ll die trying.”
Chapter Two: Act One, Scene Two
William Stratford’s office, unlike Romeo’s apartment, did not contain fake Eames chairs. Instead, his office, in the top floor of the center of the Thisbia complex, had been made to inspire a feeling of calm and serenity. That’s what made his current conversation with Paris so difficult.
“Caliban and I both swore to Escalus that we would keep the employees in line, so I don’t think it will be that hard for us to keep our word,” said William, running a small rake through a miniature sand garden on his desk, tracing small circles and lines and waves in the liquid particles. “Or the peace.”
“You both are respected men, it’s a shame you’re old rivals, but what do think of my proposal?” asked Paris. The investor didn’t like to come to San Francisco often, but his proclivity towards new toys, and owning new technology before anyone else, had made complete avoidance impossible. Old friends, new toys: those were the two things most important to him, and Stratford and Caliban fell under the former and could always be relied upon to provide him with the latter. He knew William well enough to know why he was playing with his sandbox: William only fiddled with things when he was nervous, like he had been that summer after graduate school, when they’d lost their passports on the catamaran.
“We’ve been over this a thousand times, and nothing’s changed. I can’t trade you Juliet, not for ten interns, not for a thousand. She’s not ready for you yet. Let’s wait at least two more years before we think of a trade,” said William with a sigh, looking out over the other buildings.
The Thisbia complex’s buildings were all around the same height, although the executive building containing William’s office was ten stories tall and overlooked all the rest. He didn’t have to look for Juliet in the crowd: he already knew she was probably off in the HR building, as usual, such a curious intern. Ever since Thisbia’s genius intern had gone from being a secret to the topic of conversation among various CEOs, he’d been fielding employment requests, but Paris was the only man he’d even think of trusting with her. She was still too young to be let out into the real world.
William wasn’t stupid: he knew that interns flocked to live in San Francisco to work at tech companies that they felt were exciting, and while the work might be interesting, they didn’t face the same challenges that most other young people in the city did. They had no problems meeting their rent, often comped by their companies, and the gentrified neighborhoods were nothing like their aesthetic counterparts in other cities, even within California. It was no wonder there were those looking to split off the Silicon Valley from the rest of the state, as its own state: Silicon Valley wasn’t the real world, and there were those that wanted it to stay that way. The real world was too harsh for things like Juliet, for things that were made for the tech wonderland.
“There’s women younger than her running companies on Prospero Island already, prodigies who become very, very happy,” said Paris, leaning back in the chair, but Stratford wasn’t about to relax.
William turned to look at his guest. He and Paris had changed so much over the years: they’d gone from geeky undergrads, with glasses as thick as their bodies were thin, into two very different men. Although both physically fit, Stratford’s body was honed in a gym, not from working on a sailboat, and he was nowhere as tan as Paris. He kept his hair dyed, so it looked even more vibrant in his middle age than it had in his youth, in varying shades of brown with highlights and lowlights that almost made it look like stained wood, whereas Paris had let his salt and pepper hair naturally gray in streaks and patches.
William sighed: Would an intern happy in his world truly be happy living on a tropical island in the middle of nowhere? At least she’d be safe. At least she’d be with a friend. “And they grow up too soon, but you can try and convince her to
leave Thisbia, make her love that culture. At the end of the day, my permission for a trade is only part of the deal. I can’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to do, but if she does indeed want to transfer to your company, and move to the island, I will give my blessing. There’s a party tonight, the company summer party,” said Stratford, strategically changing the topic. “Anyone who’s anyone will be there, and I’d be honored if you’d come. It’ll be held at Tempest, of course, and the interns are going to be there. Look them over. Check them out. They’ve all got interesting side projects, that’s why we ask to see their portfolios during recruitment season. There’s sure to be one that you might like, and maybe Juliet won’t be the only one you’re interested in poaching from me. Let’s walk.”
Any further chitchat with Paris could be saved for the evening. They’d have plenty of time and plenty of liquor, but he knew by day, Paris was a businessman first, not his friend, and that he would be doing him a disservice by keeping him much longer. He wasn’t naïve: he knew that Paris was going to be meeting with other businessmen, including his rival at Pyrymyn, during his visit in SF.
Stratford rose from his chair and walked out his office door with Paris, carrying a folder. He passed it to the first intern he saw. “Here. Take this, and contact everyone on the list. Invite them to the office party tonight.”
Before the intern could protest, Stratford and Paris had already left. He wasn’t a social media intern and he was about to go on his lunch break. He looked inside the folder; there were lists of numbers and usernames that he had no idea what to do with. The human resources training hadn’t prepped him for this. He’d been an employee for two summers now, but he still felt like it was his first day ever so often, and he had so many things he was supposed to be doing that night, like actually helping set up the company party at Tempest, he didn’t have time to deal with one of Stratford’s misplaced requests.