“What?” she asked, pausing.
He looked up, shaking his head, dumbfounded. Was she leaving? Without him?
“What kind of person do you think I am, Todd?” She laughed.
“I thought you—” he started, his brain trying to compute: she didn’t want to sleep with him?
“Wanted to get a good dinner,” she finished his sentence. “We never get this shit in government. Have a good night, Todd.” She laughed again, pulling the cab door shut.
“Yeah, you too,” he said to the already closed door. “And thanks,” he called after the cab.
He started walking west, his heart emptying with drunken relief that the deal was saved and he didn’t have to sleep with Joan, and disappointment that someone else was going to sleep with Louisa. Whatever: she wasn’t who he thought she was—just another shallow girl who wanted to lock a man down. And Todd didn’t want to be locked down any more than he wanted to sleep with Joan Hillier.
Still: Why didn’t Joan Hillier want to sleep with him? And why didn’t Louisa want to lock him down?
Todd paused on the corner and logged into Hook. He sent a message to a cute blonde:
You have to forgive me if this is forward, but I find you so stunning . . . do you want to have a drink with me?
He copy-pasted the message to six other girls who were within a mile radius. Four wrote back before he got to Fifth Avenue. He picked the one closest to his apartment and met her at the door.
AMANDA
TUESDAY, APRIL 29; SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
Amanda opened a bottle of wine and poured an oversized glass. She sat on the edge of the sofa, taking a deep breath, opening the LSAT study book.
She stared at the words, but didn’t read them. San Francisco sucked.
The weather sucked, which no one had bothered to mention, blatantly lying with their “Oh, lucky you to be going to California and escaping East Coast cold” farewells when she’d left New York. But here she was, trapped in microclimate arctic hell, the damp rain chilling her bones and ruining her shoes. Shoes she wasn’t even sure why she bothered to wear: no one wore heels in this city, or dressed up at all. She could let herself go entirely and would still be the most attractive person for miles and it would still suck because the guys here were all so arrogant. But not like New York guys were arrogant: New York guys at least had fashion and taste to show for their egos. Here the guys derived their inflated sense of self-worth from knowledge of which start-ups had funding and who had been in TechCrunch and which farmers’ market had the best locally sourced raw organic gluten-free sustainable kale chips with biodegradable packaging.
Which is why Amanda was going to law school. It hadn’t been a mistake, coming to California, because now she had more confidence that grad school was the right move. There would be great men in law school, men who were smart in a not-computer-programmer way and—oh, fuck, what did she know? She pushed the books off the table and sat back on the couch, taking a gulp of her wine.
Maybe the problem was her: maybe she expected too much. At the end of the day she hadn’t done anything particularly noteworthy. Sure, she’d gone to a good university and worked at a good law firm, but she’d never led a deal or started a company. She’d never even had a boyfriend. Maybe she didn’t deserve to be remembered by a guy like Todd Kent, or respected by a guy like Ben Loftis.
She finished the glass of wine and poured another, then reached for the remote. The TV came on to CNBC.
They were reporting on the Kelly Jacobson case again. The police had found a water bottle with Molly residue on it and arrested Robby Goodman, accusing him of lacing the water bottle and giving it to the girl so he could have sex with her.
“Do you think he did it?” Julie asked.
Amanda jumped, startled to find Julie standing behind her. She turned back to the TV and shrugged. “Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters,” Julie said seriously.
“Not really. I mean, his life is over either way.”
“But what if he’s innocent?”
“Even if he’s innocent of the murder, they’ll dig up enough to prove he’s a douchebag.”
“That’s not a crime,” Julie said. “Everyone gets drunk in college.”
“And a lot of people try drugs like Kelly did,” Amanda said. “But once the media decides to portray someone as a villain, no one is going to risk his own reputation to identify with him. It’s why the media basically runs the legal system now. It’s so fucked up,” she said.
“Is that why you want to be a lawyer? To fix it?”
“Don’t be naive.” She rolled her eyes. Why did everyone in San Francisco think their purpose in life was to change the world? “It’s human nature to create heroes and villains. You can’t fix that.”
The TV shut off and Amanda turned to Julie, who held the remote in her hand but was looking at Amanda, her jaw set.
“What did you do that for?”
“Get a jacket,” Julie commanded.
“What?”
“You’re being a bitch,” she said. “Now get a jacket. We’re leaving.”
“But I’ve got to—”
Julie cut her off with a glare.
“Fine,” she said, standing from the couch and picking up her fleece.
She followed Julie out the door onto the street, walking quickly to keep up with the girl’s irritated clip. She’d never seen Julie in a less than deliriously exuberant state and wasn’t sure what to make of it.
—
THEY GOT TO THE TIPSY PIG and Julie led Amanda to a table on the patio in the back, where a heat lamp warded off the damp evening air. The patio was pretty, strung with flowers and arching trees above the wooden picnic tables where groups and couples dined.
“I’ll have a Kentucky mule and she’ll start with water. We’ll share a mac and cheese,” Julie told the waitress, before turning to Amanda. “Now,” she said, “what’s the matter?”
“What?” Amanda said defensively.
“You’ve been moping for the past two weeks, and it’s getting annoying to be around,” she said bluntly. “So why don’t we talk about whatever set you off, so you can start to get over it and put us all out of your misery.”
Amanda’s jaw dropped. Where had this Julie come from? “I—” Amanda started.
Julie waited.
“There’s a guy,” Amanda finally said. “Todd Kent. One of the bankers working on your IPO. We used to date. When I was in New York.”
“Did you really date?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, did you actually go on dates.”
“Not exactly. But it’s different in New York. Men don’t—”
“So you used to hook up with Todd Kent,” Julie corrected. “You did not date him, although you wanted to.”
“Yes,” Amanda conceded. She made it seem so . . . uncomplicated.
“Then what happened?”
“Then I moved here, and I saw him,” Amanda said, then corrected, “I mean, I heard he was here, and I went to see him, and he didn’t”—she’d never said it, even to herself—“remember me.”
“So he’s an asshole,” Julie said.
“No”—Amanda shook her head—“he’s just—”
“Conceited, self-centered, thoughtless and rude.”
“But he could be—”
“But he isn’t,” Julie corrected.
“I think guys like that can change, when they meet the right girl.”
“Which you clearly are not, given he didn’t remember you after you slept with him.”
Amanda looked at her hands. Was it really that simple? And that obvious?
“If it makes you feel any better, Beau was exactly the same way,” Julie said. “You know he hasn’t texted in two weeks? We finally had sex and then, poof
! Gone! Just leaving me to wonder whether I wasn’t good or something.” She rolled her eyes. “What a waste. I’ve probably spent ten hours thinking about it this past week—can you imagine how much happier I’d have been if I spent that time on something productive? I think I’ll take a year off of men.”
“You’re twenty-six.” Amanda made a face. “You can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“You’ll miss your window.”
Julie looked straight at her, her eyes full of pity that made Amanda feel vulnerable and exposed. “Please don’t tell me you actually believe your value has an expiration date,” she said.
“I—” she started, caught off guard. “I guess I’m just afraid of ending up alone,” Amanda finally admitted. “My mother,” she added, “is alone. And she’s . . . pathetic.”
“Are you like your mother?” Julie asked softly.
“God, no.” Amanda recoiled at the thought. Her mother had dropped out of a tiny college in Florida to marry her father. She’d lived off alimony since the divorce, always too much of a snob from her decade of marriage to a doctor to get any of the jobs her modest education made available.
“So how could you end up like her?”
“If a man—” Amanda started, then stopped. She’d never thought about it that way before.
“Even if you did end up alone—and you won’t because you’re gorgeous and smart and nice when you’re not all up in your own head—you still wouldn’t have to have your mother’s life.”
Amanda sat for a long moment considering the thought.
“Here you go,” the waitress said, delivering their mac and cheese with two forks.
“She can have a drink now,” Julie told the waitress.
The girls ate the mac and cheese and drank another round. They talked about how jealous they both were that Juan got to go to London for the Hook road show, and Julie opened up about how she had started Stanford as a computer science major, but could never get anyone to take her seriously. She’d taken the job at Hook as a receptionist so she could see all parts of the business. And she had: no one paid attention to the receptionist, so she’d quietly become privy to how things got done in the organization, and which employees were set to bounce after the IPO.
Two guys came up and asked if they could join and Julie said “yes” before Amanda could say “no” and after fifteen minutes they actually weren’t so bad, even though all they talked about was the company they were starting that made no sense but had apparently gotten one million dollars in funding.
The bar closed at one o’clock and the girls said good night to the guys and walked home in the fog that no longer seemed so grim. It was late and Amanda had had a lot to drink, but her mind was clear and energized, and she was happy in a way that felt real.
“What if we started a company together?” she mused.
“What?” Julie asked.
“We’re way smarter than those guys we just met, and they got one million . . .” Amanda said, the idea feeling like one of the more reasonable ones she’d ever had. “And with all the extra time we’ll have if we both take a year off men . . .”
Julie’s lips curled into a smile and Amanda felt her heart flutter, seeing a new—better—path unfold before her.
NICK
THURSDAY, MAY 1; LONDON, ENGLAND
This was how life was supposed to be, Nick thought as the plane touched down in London. He was meant to be taking international trips on private jets, heading to meetings where the most important fund managers in the world gathered to listen to him speak about his company’s potential, while guys like Todd and girls like Tara catered to his needs. Finally, the universe was recognizing his importance within it.
A black limousine was waiting to drive them to the hotel, a Four Seasons on Park Lane.
“I thought I asked that we stay at a Starwood property?” He turned to Tara in the car.
“You’re going to spend all of three hours in your room, Nick,” she said.
“All the more reason to stay somewhere I can collect points.” He’d made a firm commitment that no matter how rich he got, he was never going to be the kind of person who threw away money by disregarding loyalty programs. “Can you make sure that we’re properly booked for other cities?”
“I’ll see what we can do,” she conceded.
“Next time, please don’t make me ask twice,” he pressed. “Tiffany, can you make sure she follows up?” he said, turning to his new assistant.
“Sure thing, Nick.” Tiffany smiled warmly.
Snatching up Tiffany, the assistant at Darrell Greene’s office, had been Nick’s first move as CEO. She’d been expensive—$275,000 a year—but it was worth it to have someone you could trust. Plus she was a certified notary.
Nick wasn’t trying to be difficult by asking about the hotel, he just knew it was critical, in this early stage as leader, to set the right precedents. All eyes were on him, watching to see how he’d handle his new responsibility, making judgments based on every little move. People were going to test him, and if he let them get away with the slightest mediocrity, they’d think he was weak.
And Tara Taylor was at the top of that list. She’d snuck her way onto CNBC to talk about the changes at the company—a privilege and responsibility that clearly belonged to Nick. She’d said it was Rachel’s idea, but he sensed she was behind it. Tara was more clever than he’d originally thought: she hid behind her nice, pretty, play-dumb-girl persona, but she knew exactly what she was doing going on CNBC, and he was not about to let her steal any more of his moments to boost her own career.
—
THE FIRST PRESENTATION went off without a hitch. As did the second, and the third. All the fund managers loved Silicon Valley and wanted to be part of the world Nick was creating. At six o’clock, the black cars whisked them across London to Shoreditch House, the members-only club where they were having dinner with an exclusive list of British fund managers. Everything else had just been a warm-up for these guys.
Nick checked his phone for Facebook “Likes” on his job status change to CEO: only three. Maybe he had accidentally disabled something? He checked his settings, then went to his own news feed.
Grace had posted on her wall: Kelly Jacobson Memorial Fund Hits $2 Million!!!!
There were 328 “Likes” and 200 comments on Grace’s post, the first of which was from some guy named James: Awesome work, Grace. You are such a Rockstar!
Nick’s stomach turned. He clicked on James’s profile. SAE, on the golf team, last job: summer intern, J.P. Morgan. He clicked on his photos and found a whole set from some formal he went to with Grace, both of them obviously drunk and having a good time.
Nick fumed, shutting off the phone. Screw her.
The cars stopped.
“This is it?” Nick glanced out the window: the sidewalks were grimy, intersecting with concrete walls covered in graffiti. Grungy pedestrians passed by without noticing the black cars, save a girl in a flannel shirt and hat who spat on the car ahead of Nick’s.
“Welcome to East London,” Beau said as the driver opened the door.
Nick hesitated before getting out. “Is it safe?”
“So long as you leave the Timbuk2 bag in the car, you should be fine,” Beau said, pointing to Nick’s Hook-monogrammed briefcase. “It kinda screams ‘I’m packing Apple devices.’” The associate grinned playfully and Nick glared back. How dare he mock the CEO of Hook?
But Nick left the bag as a precaution, after pulling out his hand sanitizer, and moved quickly to follow Beau inside.
Once they got in the door, things were better, but still not to Nick’s taste. They followed the hostess through the bar. The people there looked ridiculous. They wore clothes that tried too hard. Why couldn’t people just wear suits, like he was?
Calm down, Nick told himself, feeling the dampnes
s under his arms and admitting he was nervous. They got to a private room in the back, where he took the seat at the center of the table and greeted the fund managers as they entered, relieved that they were all wearing suits.
“What is it you do?” Nick asked one of them.
“I’m at Clyde Capital,” the man said in an English accent.
Which one was Clyde Capital? Nick was losing track. He needed one of those earpieces like the president wore, so someone could feed him information and he’d always look smart.
They sat for dinner but Nick remained standing, coughing to indicate he was ready to deliver his remarks. “Juan, can you please pass out the presentations?”
Tara shook her head, but he ignored her. She’d said they shouldn’t give the full presentation at this meeting, but Nick knew she was just trying to keep the attention on her. He could read the crowd, and they wanted to hear from him.
TARA
THURSDAY, MAY 1; LONDON, ENGLAND
Tara sat back in her seat and sipped her second glass of wine, careful not to drink too much even though she wanted nothing more than to be drunk enough to find this all amusing.
Nick might actually be the most annoying guy on the planet. She hadn’t thought he could get any more arrogant, but man, oh man, was she wrong. The CEO title had taken his ego to astronomical heights, without lending any degree of self-awareness or sociability or skill. He’d spoken for twenty-five minutes at this dinner, as if any of these men cared at all about the presentation. As she’d told Nick a dozen times, they were already buying shares: she’d gotten verbal commitments from all of them, and she offered this dinner as a thank-you to stroke their egos and meet them all in person. Now she worried that seeing Nick would make them change their minds.
Rachel had been right: Shoreditch House was the perfect choice for the dinner. It was edgy enough to make the investors feel young and give them a sense of the crowd that used Hook, but the private members’ club still had the kind of overpriced menu and designer hand soap in the bathrooms that made them feel comfortable. And now that the men—it was all men, of course—had had six cocktails apiece and Todd had taken center court from Nick, they seemed to be plenty comfortable.
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