by Sienna Ciles
“Lanie!”
I snapped out of the daydream, yanked back to reality by the harsh voice.
“Uh yeah, Todd?” I asked, looking up.
Todd was in his fifties, and while some guys that age could still look good if they took care of themselves, Todd hadn't taken care of himself. Ever. The years had not been kind to him. He had a shiny bald pate, with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair (far more pepper than salt) that still clung tenaciously to the sides of his round head. He had terrible posture, and walked around slumped over as if carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. He was short, maybe five and half feet, and had a bad case of “skinny fat”—thin, pale arms and legs, but a very round, protruding paunch that threatened to burst through his cheap shirt with its missing button and permanent sweat stains under the arms. Oh, and to top it all off, he had a god-awful case of halitosis. Usually you could smell him before you saw him. I don’t know why my father kept him around.
Well, all right, he was unattractive and kinda creepy, but he had a great nose for investments, I guess. He had helped my father make a lot of money over the years. Still, as talented as he was in that area, I still felt a little shiver of disgust crawl down my spine every time he leered at me. He was always trying to peek down the front of my blouse, and I had caught him staring at my ass plenty of times as well. Instinctively, I pulled the front of my blouse closed when he stepped into my office.
“Your father wants to see you,” he grunted. “Something about the Meyer file, I think. I dunno. Just go see him. You don't look like you're too busy there.”
“Uh, thanks Todd, I'll do that.”
He just kept standing in the door, staring at me.
“Is there anything else, Todd?”
He opened his mouth, as if he wanted to say something, but then promptly closed it and shook his head. He turned and shuffled off, his round shoulders hunched over, and disappeared.
Suddenly, the message alert tone sounded on my phone. I got it out and saw that it was a Quickchat notification from my younger sister.
“Oh Alice, what is it now?” I muttered under my breath. My sister was a lot younger than me—she was still in her teens—and she seemed to spend all her time on this new Quickchat app which was taking the country by storm. I guess the big appeal was that you could talk about something in the short ten or fifteen second video, and just from what you said, clickable links would appear on your screen.
With a sigh, I opened her Quickchat message.
“Oh, my word, Lanie,” she said in her short video, “you won't believe Kim Kardashian's new Instagram photos! She's trying to break the internet again! Check 'em out! Soooo crazy, yo!”
A link popped onto the screen, obviously to the new photos. I had no interest in clicking on it. Man, these teens really needed to find more productive ways to occupy their free time.
I put my phone away and stood up, relieved to have a break from work for a while, because today things had just felt really mind-numbing. I had hardly gotten anything done, and it was already eleven in the morning.
I walked briskly out of my office, heels clopping on the slick tiled floor, and walked to the end of the corridor where my father's office was. There was the familiar sign on the door, reading “Fred Carmichael, CEO.” I had to walk past this door every time I headed to the bathroom, and was thus reminded multiple times a day that my father was head of the company I worked for. Hell, every time I printed something with our letterhead—Carmichael Inc—I was reminded of this fact.
I had initially been grateful that my father had arranged a position for me in his investment company right after I had finished grad school. I had hoped to have gained some valuable experience and insight into the world of investing, which had always been my passion—and I had, in a sense, but it hadn't been the stepping stone I had hoped it would be.
No, instead I had been stuck here, dealing with old people's conservative, safe investments into established industries and companies. Slow, steady progress, low risk. That was what my father dealt in. And while it paid off overall—slowly—very slowly, I might add—it just wasn't what a young go-getter like myself was really after. I wanted to get into exciting, high-risk (but very high reward potential) tech start-ups and cryptocurrencies. After all, we were here in Silicon Valley, heart of America's tech industry, with some of the brightest minds in the world flocking here to try to make it.
My father just wasn't interested, and instead of allowing me even a little leeway to try to venture into this field, he simply kept me on old, “safe” investments for his wary, elderly clients.
I sighed, feeling like I was stuck in a rut, and knocked on the door.
“Come on in.”
While we had been out in California for most of my life, my father was a Texan, born and raised. Despite his decades of living in California, he still retained his Texan accent.
“Hi, Dad,” I said as I walked in.
He smiled warmly at me. Even though we disagreed on business strategies, I loved him, and he loved me dearly. However, in here, business came first.
“Have a seat, Lanie,” he said, pointing at the chair in front of his desk.
“What's up?” I asked as I sat down.
He stared at me for a while. It was unsettling, almost like looking into a mirror, because he and I had the same eyes. The facial structure was of course very different—I had inherited my mother's slender, petite build and bone structure, while my father was broad-shouldered and heavyset—but I had gotten his large brown eyes and strong eyebrows. It was uncanny how similar his were to mine (minus the eyebrow plucking, of course).
“You aren't happy here, Lanie, are you?”
The directness of his question shocked me—he was usually very diplomatic, and talked around issues before getting to them, but today he was cutting straight to the chase.
“Well . . . no, Dad, I'm not. And you know why.”
He nodded sagely, still smiling.
“You and I, we see things quite differently when it comes to investing. I'm from the old school, and you—you're a young, driven risk-taker, ain't you?”
“I just want to try to venture into something a little . . . a little less safe, Dad. You know this.”
“I do, and I've been thinking about it. You've been here for two years now, and you've worked hard. You've done well, even though the cases I've assigned you haven't been ones you would consider exciting, risky, or even interesting.”
“Well Dad—,” I began, but he held up a hand to silence me.
“I ain't done yet, Lanie,” he said, his tone stern but gentle. “Hear me out, will ya?”
I nodded.
“And I knew that you weren't interested in those cases I was assigning you. I knew it. But do you know why I did it?”
“You wanted to see if I could handle responsibility? If I could work hard and put in the hours and effort required to handle a prudent investment, even if it really wasn't in the field I was interested in?”
The corners of his mouth curled up into a broad, proud smile.
“That's it,” he said. “That's it, my girl. I'm sorry that you've been doing something that you're not interested in all this time, and I'm sorry if you've felt that I was holding you back. You know that wasn't my intention.”
“I know, Dad, I know.”
“But you do understand the value of the experience I've given you? You know why I did what I did, don't you?”
I thought about this for a bit. He had given me valuable experience, that much was true. I had certainly learned a lot about the world of investing while working with him, even if it wasn't the side of the investment world I really wanted to be in.
“You know what I enjoy doing most, besides working,” he continued.
I nodded. “Playing guitar.”
My father was a very accomplished musician. He was, in my humble opinion, one of the best guitarists I had ever heard. Whenever he wasn't working, he was playing guitar, and as busy
as he was, he nonetheless managed to squeeze in some guitar time every day. If he hadn't been so focused on his company and working, I was pretty sure he could have been a household name as a guitarist.
“That's it, Lanie, that's it. You know how much I love my music. And I've told you how old I was when I first picked up a guitar, haven't I?”
“You have, Dad. Thirteen years old. You were in seventh grade, and your Dad gave you a guitar for your thirteenth birthday.”
He smiled.
“Best damn gift I ever got. Wait, no, second best. The best gifts were your mother's hand in marriage, and then the gifts of you and your sister.”
I had to smile.
He glanced across his office at an electric guitar mounted in a glass case.
“You know who played that, don't you, Lanie?”
Of course, I did. I had heard the story a few hundred times.
“You know I do, Dad. Stevie Ray Vaughan.”
“One of the greatest, Lanie-bug, one of the greatest. And you know what makes a great guitar player?”
“Uh . . . practice?”
He nodded, still smiling.
“It ain't glamorous, it ain't exciting, it ain't fun. It can be downright frustrating. It can make you hate the damn instrument sometimes. But if you don't sit in that basement, playing your chords and scales over and over and over again for hours on end, you'll never be great. You go get up on stage when you haven't worked your fingers to the bone practicing, and you know what's gonna happen? You're gonna screw up. You're gonna be sloppy. People will laugh—and you'll be shut down before you can even begin. Do you get what I'm saying? Do you understand me, Lanie?”
I did. This had been my practice. This had been my hours of strumming chords and picking scales in a basement. But why was he bringing this up now? What was the point of all of this? I mean, I was halfway through a case right now. And while progress, admittedly, had been slow, there was at least progress being made.
“I understand, Dad. And don't get me wrong, I'm really, truly grateful for this opportunity. I have learned a lot here. And I'm glad that you noticed my hard work.”
“I always notice hard work and efficiency, Lanie. That's what has made this company a success over the years. Not just me. Some CEOs like to take all the credit themselves, as if they single-handedly climbed the mountain. But the thing is, Lanie, it ain't no mountain. It's a pyramid, built by human hands, and without those hands, I wouldn't be where I am. And I include your hands in those mentioned. You too, in your short time here, have made a very valuable contribution to this company.”
“Even though I haven't been, uh, as enthusiastic as I could have been about some of the cases I worked on?”
He chuckled softly.
“Yep. Even though you haven't been crazy about some of the stuff I assigned you to.”
“Well uh, thanks, Dad,” I said, still unsure of what the whole point of this meeting was. “I um, I appreciate that, I do try my best.”
“Yes, you do, Lanie, yes you do. You always have, really. It's something I've admired about you, something that's always made me immensely proud to be your father.”
A feeling of warm, glowing pride spread across my body. It felt good to have someone—especially my father—say such things.
“Thank you, Dad. I'm really happy that you feel that way.”
“I mean it, Lanie, I really do. And that's why I called you in here this morning.”
“Okay Dad, so uh, so why then?”
He smiled again at me.
“Because I'm firing you, Lanie. You're done here.”
Chapter 2
Jax
“Jax! Hey, Jax, you in there?”
I looked up from my desk and sighed. I knew who was banging on my office door, and while I loved him—he had been my best friend since we were twelve years old—I was busy and didn't want to be disturbed. However, knowing Pete as well as I knew him, I was certain that he wasn't going to go away any time soon, or accept the “I'm really busy with work” excuse. And he was only following orders—my own.
“Yeah, I'm here man, just chill for a minute, there's some code I'm working on that—”
“Dude, it's past ten thirty. It's ten forty now. I've been waiting for you for ten minutes, and we agreed on this. You agreed to do this. So, come on man, get your ass out here!”
I glanced again at my trio of 4K 56-inch monitors, arranged to the front, left, and right of me, my brain furiously calculating and analyzing the endless lines of code. I was in the zone, and it was flowing beautifully from my brain through my fingertips to the screens. I wanted to keep going, because the state of flow was so electric, so stimulating, so intense . . . But I didn't want to let Pete down, and I didn't want to break my own rules.
I sighed, saved my work, got up, and then walked over to the door and opened it. Pete was already dressed in his white Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Gi—the thick, strong karate-style suits we wore while practicing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, or BJJ. I was still in my work suit, having gotten so caught up in my coding that I had lost track of time.
Pete, the same height as me—six feet two inches, but with a slightly stockier build—weighed in around two hundred and twenty-five pounds, while I was two hundred and five. He had the usual goofy grin on his broad, soft-featured face. Even though he was the same age as me, Pete had more of a baby face that made him look like an awkward teenager instead of a thirty-two-year-old man. This, combined with his very light blond hair and thin dusting of facial hair—which meant he couldn't grow much of a beard—still lead to him regularly being asked for ID whenever we went out to bars and clubs. I, on the other hand, hadn't been carded since I was actually underage. My dark hair, harder features, and profuse growth of stubble across the length and breadth of my squared jawline made it easy to tell my age.
“Jeez, bud, I guess you were really getting stuck into that coding, huh?” he quipped. “You haven't even got your damn Gi on! Come on, I'm not gonna roll with you in a business suit. And hell, why are you coding in that damn suit, anyway? What happened to the casual dress code we agreed on?”
I chuckled. “I told you man, I've got a meeting with Sara later.”
He grinned mischievously.
“A meeting . . . or a date?” he asked.
“Come on, dude, you know I'm not into her.”
“Well, everyone can see pretty damn clearly that she's very into you,” he countered.
I shrugged. “She's just . . . she's not my type.”
“I can't believe you can even say that. She's smokin' hot man! And she was a swimsuit model for a while, wasn't she? Mmm, man, if it were me she was into, I would have been in there long ago. I dunno what's wrong with you, bud.”
I sighed. “And that, Pete, is why I'm the CEO and you're not. And you and I both know that,” I joked, but it was the truth.
I didn't mean it as an insult, and Pete knew that as well as I did. We had started this software company together, and while we did have equal shares, Pete's short attention span and his impulsive nature, compared to my level-headed, strategic way of thinking and my ability to be calm and rational through moments of crisis, meant that we both agreed that I would head the business side of things, while he would focus more on software development, even though we both still personally wrote a lot of the code for the apps we developed.
“I know, I know, buddy, I'm just pulling your chain. I know that as hot as Sara is, she's probably crazy or psycho or something.”
“It's not just that that makes me wary of her,” I said. “I think there's more to it than just being, as you put it . . . crazy.”
“Like what? You think that she's got some sort of nasty scheme that she's cooking up or something?”
I shrugged and shook my head.
“I'm not sure, man, I'm really not sure. Maybe. And that's why I agreed to this meeting.”
“I know for sure that she wants a piece—a big piece—of this company if she can get her hands on it. And to be ho
nest, I'm not sure that would be such a bad thing. She has a serious knack for investing and getting share prices to explode, especially when companies first go public. We could make a lot if we allow her to work some of her magic,” Pete said.
I nodded. “I'll see what she has to say. But like I said, I'm suspicious of her intentions. And then I have another meeting after that.”
“With your great-aunt, what's her name again?”
“Aunt Cara. Cara Smoot.”
My great-aunt Cara was eighty-four years old, but sharp as a tack. She was a self-made millionaire, and I'm talking many, many millions here. Even at eighty-four, she still had a hand in running the company she had started as a young woman.
“She really is keen to mentor you, isn't she?” Pete said.
I nodded. “She has taken a very strong interest in me and this company ever since she first heard that we were planning to go public.”
“Well, it's a huge move for us,” Pete said. “And all thanks to Quickchat, huh?”
“You did most of the coding on it, Pete,” I said. “Don't forget that.”
“It was your idea, your brainchild. I just helped bring it to life. And you did plenty of coding for it too, Jax.”
“It's weird, isn't it?” I mused. “This little app we made to compete with Snapchat, how it just took off. We knew it would be good, and we thought a few people would get into it, but I had no idea that it would blow Snapchat right out of the water the way it has.”
“How could people not go nuts for it? Twice the resolution of Snapchat's max, you simply have to say the name of a product or talk about an article and it'll come up with clickable links simply from what you say? We made something revolutionary here, Jax, we really did. It's about the best thing I've ever done.”
“Me too, Pete, me too. And I couldn't have done it without you. I really couldn't have.”
He smiled at me again with that big, broad, goofy grin.
“Thanks, man. I appreciate that, I really do. But enough chatter, come on! We're wasting time. You and I both agreed to forty-five minutes every morning and every afternoon. A good workout does wonders for the mind. We'll both be coding like beasts after a good rolling session. So, come on, get your damn Gi on and let's get to the gym and the mats and get rolling!”