by Leigh Stein
“Men have been oppressing women for centuries by keeping them from talking to each other. I just think you could help a lot of people. By being open.”
“It’s hard for me to talk about Evan and what we do together.” Don’t cry, I thought. Do not cry. “Because I feel like you’re going to make me feel bad about myself.”
Maren didn’t say anything.
“I don’t know if it’s, like, ‘feminist’ or whatever, but I like that he has power over me. That’s what makes it hot.”
“I believe you.”
“You do?”
“That’s why they call it the cycle of abuse,” Maren said. “That was in something I read online. It isn’t all bad. Some of it feels really good. And then it gets bad again.”
I thought of Evan’s silence, the way he kept me on a leash waiting to hear from him. I remembered his hand under the table at the pitch meeting, finding a hole in my jeans, daring me to say anything. I felt unstable around him. But I still wanted him. Had he tricked me into wanting him? Was that abuse?
The microwave dinged. I stared at the twin Hot Pockets. The yellow cheese oozed out the sides, spreading a greasy lake across the plate. Sauce bubbled through the crusty holes on top.
“That smells really good,” I said.
“Have one.”
“I can’t. It’ll make me sick.”
“No, it won’t,” she said, handing me a fork.
I blew at the halo of steam and took a bite of the hot bland crust and runny cheese and felt the delicious hit of fat, the rush of humiliation.
Maren
Cheryl Strayed was always quoting this Rilke poem that read, “You must change your life,” and that’s what I was going to do.
I didn’t drink all weekend. John made bacon and eggs on Saturday morning, and I held up my ten-dollar coconut water kale celery mango smoothie as evidence of my superiority and newfound devotion to treating my body like a temple. “Looks good on you, babe,” he said, after we had a conversation about how important it is to have a positive mindset. He was reading a book on how to make more money using the law of attraction, and I was reading posts on Richual about how the more closely I followed a plant-based diet, the more I would only crave foods from a plant-based diet. The way celery tasted, it had to be good for you.
At a clothing boutique with an ampersand in the title, I bought one pink dress in a size 14 and another identical dress in a size 12 that I could manifest my body into later. The pink dress had a silk necktie collar that was at once understated and frustratingly complicated to knot—I thought Devin would appreciate it.
After I recorded the video about how I believed women should support other women and that’s why I could no longer be complicit in hiding the fact that Devin was a victim of Evan’s abuse, the messages of support flooded in. I posted the video to Devin’s own account and there were more than a thousand comments already, from the influencers modeling athleisure wear made from recycled iPhone cases who saw Devin as their guru, but also from the endlessly outraged, woke contingent of our users, the feminists who were usually first to pounce on Devin for not sufficiently apologizing for her privilege in every single one of her posts. Her victimhood united our user base. I had cracked the code on what brought all women together. With her phone in hand, I also changed the tagline in Devin’s Richual profile from “Total Boss and Self-Care Addict” to “Total Boss, Survivor.”
We love you, Devin. Stay strong. #BelieveVictims. She was forgiven for her beach towel sin. Even Rachelle Tanaka created a Richual account so she could post a selfie captioned, I forgive you, Devin. Then she posted again twenty minutes later with a coupon code for a VR fitness software pack. @PaleOhHellNo put together a video montage of different Richual users talking about how hard it is to talk about things that are so hard to talk about and gave me a shout-out for modeling what was possible for the loved ones of survivors. @GypseaLee turned the nine-second footage of Devin’s face at the summit into a PSA about how long it can take for a woman to realize that she is a victim.
I’d given Devin what she always wanted: sympathy and attention. We had more user activity in forty-eight hours than we’d had since the election. I knew I could leverage this.
I drank four liters of water and redeemed my twenty-eight-day reboot program from Euphebe that Devin got me for Christmas so I could “lose weight and feel fabulous by resetting” my health “without hunger and deprivation.” In the app store, I found a visualization meditation for detoxifying the liver. John was redecorating his home office (a closet with a chair and a desk that folded down from the wall on a hinge) with newspaper clippings and mantras: “Wealth Matters” and “Money Is Energy.” I told him if he got his novel down to five hundred pages, I would read it.
By Sunday night, I was feeling extremely hydrated and brave.
Here if you want to talk , I texted Devin.
I cleaned our entire bathroom, throwing away old bottles of Avon liquid foundation and autumnal-scented candles, scrubbing the grout between the tiles with unprecedented vigor and attention to detail, and then I took selfies in the freshly Windexed mirror, wearing my BreastNest and a pair of black underwear.
Ghost white stretch marks laid tracks down my outer thighs. My left boob drooped lower than my right. The cellulite on the underside of my upper arms was something I tried not to think about. I had no illusions that my body would transform overnight, or that I would ever be able to wear a crop top in public, but I didn’t see how I was going to change my life if I couldn’t confront reality. I was aging. I was almost thirty-two. Before posting, I zoomed in to be sure none of my pubic hair was showing in the selfie.
This is the first “before” pic I’ve ever posted, I wrote in the caption.
In a way, it’s also an “after.” I’ve been working to build Richual for about two years now and somewhere along the way I stopped taking care of myself. My work wife, my best friend @DevinAvery has helped me see how much farther I still have to go on my self-care journey. Two years ago, I don’t think I ever would have even written the phrase “self-care journey” lol. That’s how much Richual has changed my life.
I have a confession to make. I have a drinking problem. That’s the scariest thing I’ve ever said in public. I tried to hide my problem from my coworkers, my partner, my family. This week, I finally realized that I was more afraid that I would never be able to stop than I was of asking for help. If this post helps one person feel seen with whatever she’s struggling with, then my reluctant visibility will have been worth it.
I tapped my messages icon to see if Devin had responded. Nothing.
The post had one like, two likes, three likes, four. I thumbed refresh. I waited. More.
* * *
...
The board meeting was scheduled for Monday morning. To be discussed: hitting the benchmarks that would solidly position us as the Instagram of wellness and finalizing our strategy and timeline for raising $25 million.
I arrived early, dressed up like a woman in my new pink dress and a lipstick I found when I was cleaning out the bathroom called GoGetter. In the staff kitchen, I cut fresh cucumbers and put them in the water pitcher the way Devin liked. I borrowed a few potted succulents from Khadijah’s desk to make a centerpiece on the conference table. On one wall of the conference room, an artist had stenciled a Kanye tweet. On another, we had a quote from Roxane Gay: “I embrace the label of bad feminist because I am human.”
Our investors Klaus Wu and Richard Zimmerman would video-conference in from Menlo Park. I had one chance to make my case for why we should abandon our series B plan altogether and pivot to a paid membership structure—let our users themselves pay for the value we were providing, instead of being so reliant on corporate advertising. What could be more positive for women than women paying to use a product built and owned by other women?
It would give us more freedom i
n the kind of content we could put out there—if we wanted to call out a beauty brand for doing animal testing, we could, without worrying about that brand canceling their ad spend. I had proof of how high our user engagement was. All we had to do was roll out the new membership model quickly. Plus, raising more capital would mean adding more seats to our board, and I didn’t think we needed any more men at the table. Devin and I were already outnumbered three to two.
With the matches we kept in the kitchen for birthdays, I lit a bundle of sage and cleared the space of toxic energy.
Khadijah arrived at 9:55. I had asked if she would take the minutes while I was busy presenting.
“I stopped drinking,” I blurted out. “I’m really sorry that you had to see me like that.”
“Yeah, I saw your post,” she said.
She was more dressed up than usual, in a white blazer over a black maternity dress. Her baby bump seemed so obvious, I was mortified I hadn’t noticed it sooner.
“You look nice today,” she added.
I’ll organize a baby shower at the office, I thought. I’d have it catered. All the money I used to spend on wine could now go to generosity toward others. I would make it up to her. I could enlist the help of Khadijah’s closest friends at work to help with the decorations. I tried to think of who those friends might be. I could call Adam. At least I remembered his name.
In the Google Doc with our meeting agenda, I added a section on Content strategy for prenatal and postpartum millennials.
Anonymous badger was editing the doc at the same time.
Staff, they wrote. I had no idea who the badger was. Could have been Devin, could have been Evan, could have been Klaus.
Under Staff, I added a bullet point: Let’s talk about benefits esp. paid parental leave.
I poured Khadijah a glass of cucumber water.
Devin and Evan entered the room together and sat next to each other in silence, leaving one empty chair between them like something left unspoken. Devin’s face was pale and somber. She wouldn’t make eye contact with me. She was wearing a black poncho that went past her knees, her hair braided around her crown like a Scandinavian child’s.
Of course she was in a bad mood—she thought we had to continue riding the fundraising merry-go-round as if nothing had changed. Neither Klaus nor Richard reached out to me about the allegations against Evan, which meant the story didn’t even cross their desks, or they didn’t see an issue with Evan’s conduct. They didn’t have their own Richual accounts, so it was unlikely they saw my video either.
I hoped Devin would be able to hear the subtext of my pitch. If we switched to a paid membership model, we didn’t have to raise more money from Klaus or Richard or any other VC. We didn’t need Evan to open doors for us. We would be women-funded, free from men altogether.
“Hello,” said the head of Klaus on the big TV screen. He was wearing a blue plaid shirt, unbuttoned, under a blazer.
“Hello, it’s Richard,” said Richard. He was wearing a green plaid shirt, unbuttoned, no blazer.
“Hello, Richard? It’s Klaus, but your video isn’t coming through.”
“We can see both of you,” I said.
“Should I restart my browser?” asked Richard.
“Ah, there you are,” said Klaus.
“Good morning, everyone,” I said. “Thank you for joining us so early on the West Coast.”
“We’re just waiting on one more,” Evan said.
“Who?” I asked.
“Can we hold off for five?” Evan asked. He had to be high if he thought I was going to let him run this meeting.
“No, I don’t want waste anyone’s time. Khadijah, would you please do the roll call?”
“Devin Avery, present. Maren Gelb, present. Evan Wiley—”
Our lawyer, Leslie Royce, walked in. We weren’t yet big enough to have in-house counsel, but Leslie was someone we called on when we needed her to review a contract or help us untangle a sticky situation with an advertising partner. She was old enough to be the mom of anyone in the room, but she had no children. Devin had known her for years; Leslie had worked with her dad.
“I wasn’t aware that you were joining us,” I said.
“Sorry about that miscommunication, Maren,” she said, shaking my hand before taking the seat between Devin and Evan. “We’re all good.”
“Are we? All good?”
“For the record,” Evan said, “Maren, I think you’ve done a great job.”
Khadijah looked to me, as if seeking permission to enter this into her notes, and I nodded.
“Thank you, Evan, I’ll take it from here. I know that funding strategy is on the top of our agenda, and I have a creative solution that I’m excited to share with everyone. First, let me just bring up this screen so you can see our live user metrics. It’s Monday morning, so there isn’t a whole lot happening right now, but if you look at this huge peak here, that represents the spike we experienced this weekend.”
“How do you explain the spike?” asked Klaus.
“We’re really seeing an uptick in women sharing vulnerable stories they may not feel comfortable posting to other platforms, like Facebook or Twitter. I think that’s part of our value prop, the safe space element, and I see a way to turn it into a revenue-generating opportunity.”
I brought up a slide with my projections.
“This is a forecast of what’s possible if we pivot to a paid-subscription model. If we have two million active users paying $1.99 a month, or $19.99 a year, that’s between forty and fifty million dollars in annual revenue. That’s ten times what we make in advertising.”
Richard was laughing. “There’s just one problem.”
“I’m definitely open to feedback,” I said.
“Social media is free for the user. It’s an advertising-supported model. You collect data, you sell it to advertisers, the value is passed on to the user. I know you’re a smart woman, Maren. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know.”
“He’s saying that people don’t want to pay for something they’ve already been getting for free,” Devin explained. “No one likes to feel tricked.” It was the first thing she’d said to me all morning. She hadn’t even complimented my dress.
I inhaled a deep breath through the open and nonthreatening smile I’d plastered to my face. “How will we know it’s a bad idea unless we try? Klaus, thoughts?”
“I agree with Richard.”
I didn’t give Evan an opportunity to contribute.
“We’re offering a product for women, by women. Women want to support other women. We saw that this weekend. When women stand together, there’s power. Let’s harness that power. Everybody wins. Khadijah also has a great idea about creating more content that speaks to an untapped demographic, but I don’t want to speak for her, so I’ll let her fill you in.”
Khadijah started to say something and then stopped herself. They were all looking at me, the men in boxes on the TV screen, Leslie with her red reading glasses and her long black hair cut by a streak of white, Evan’s calm and inscrutable mug, Devin testy and unfocused.
“I guess that’s my cue?” Leslie asked.
“Maren Gelb,” she continued, reading aloud from a document, “based upon an internal review conducted at the behest of the board of directors, we have found your behavior to be manipulative and disruptive, as you broke into the CEO’s password-protected, personal Richual account to post a slanderous video that distorts a consensual sexual relationship between two adults. By your own admission here today, you did so in order to dishonestly inflate user traffic on the platform. The board is also concerned about your alcohol use and how it reflects on the company brand.”
I sat perfectly still as I began to lose track of my body in space. I would not move my head. I stared at the table. The $2,600 reclaimed wood conference table. They set m
e up. No one told me. They didn’t let me prepare.
“Leslie, I’ll be the first to admit that I have developed a drinking problem, mostly due to the pressures and pace of trying to make this company the unicorn I know it can be.” I tried to remember which camera to look into so that Klaus and Richard would catch my meaningful eye contact. “But I assure you—I assure the board—that I’m addressing it. I stopped drinking two days ago. I’ll go to treatment if you want me to. I’ll go to AA. But I did not take advantage of a single person in this room or at this company. If anyone took advantage, it’s Evan. Why isn’t he under internal review?”
She continued reading. “Based on our findings, your employment is hereby terminated immediately. The good news is that we have put together a generous offer to buy your shares of Richual.”
Leslie put a copy of the document in front of me, along with a check for $187,500. It was the largest amount of money I had ever seen in my life. It was also missing a zero.
I waved the check at Devin. “Is this missing a zero?”
Her mouth was trembling, but her jaw was set.
“Devin? Hello? What is this bullshit? Now you can’t talk to me? After everything we’ve been through? You had to go behind my back like a tattletale? What is this, fifth grade? I want you to say it to my face. Say that I ‘manipulated’ you.”
She began to cry silently.
“You’re such a victim. It’s amazing. I’m the bully. I get it. I’m the bad guy.” I had never hit another person, but I understood now what that surge of electricity felt like, the need to make rage manifest.
“Maren, I’m really sorry, but you’re out of control.”
I slept in your bed when your dad died, you ungrateful cunt, I thought. I turned back to Leslie.
“How is it ethical that you’re our lawyer, but you’re also Devin’s lawyer?”
“I’m not here to represent Devin. I’m here to represent the best interests of Richual.”
“You all threw me under the bus. All of you.” I looked at Khadijah. “I have the right to my own representation. And how is twenty percent of a five-million-dollar valuation only one hundred eighty-seven thousand five hundred dollars?”