I guess we’re getting straight down to it. I take a deep breath and explain the entire concept, probably going into way too much detail, but I’m so pitch practiced at this point, I might as well throw every morsel of information onto the plate. By the time I’m finished, I realize I’ve been talking for over a minute and the man on the other end hasn’t said a thing. The urge to hedge the conversation, to say something to soften my domination of the conversation, like “but I’ll stop waffling now ha-ha-ha,” bubbles up within me like a geyser ready to blow. But this is a man speaking; Spencer is sure, certain, and unflinching in his words even if they are wrong. A man would not hedge; I finish my sentence and hold for his response.
After a few seconds of excruciatingly painful silence, only punctuated by the sounds of phones ringing in the distance and the whirring of an air-conditioning unit on his end, he finally asks, “And what about daily functions? Can you explain your current setup?”
“Sure. We’re based in London, a dedicated team of four.” I’m lying about Spencer and Pacha being full time, but it’s par for the course at this point. “We are on the final push to get our beta version live, and we are in talks with a major figure in the health and wellness space to come on board as the face of the brand.” I scrunch my face, regretting saying it the moment the words slip off my lips.Please don’t ask who. Please don’t ask who. Please don’t ask who.
“Who?” he asks.
Shit.
This guy really doesn’t mince his words. I can’t tell if he’s simply disinterested or genuinely thinks he’s too important to speak more than ten words an hour. My gut twists, flip-flopping over the two potential roads to go down like a fish trying to get back to water. If I tell him, reveal the name of the big-time, influential figure who is intrigued by the concept, it’s adding another lie on top of everything else I have just said. But what’sone morelie. I’ve already lied about where our initial funding came from, the amount of employees we have, my own fucking identity; compared to that one, this feels like a shiny little maraschino cherry on top of a yummy Neapolitan sundae of deception.
“Hello?” he asks, his voice a furrow of the brow. I can just imagine him, sitting in his big fancy chrome office, thousand-pound Herman Miller chair—probably one of those obnoxious wooden captain’s desks all men of a certain corporate caliber love to own to give them the illusion that they aren’t a tiny cog in the machine; they are the captains of their own four-by-four office space. His voice is smooth, so I imagine his look would be too. Sharp suit, clean haircut. A classic New York Finance Bro.
“Dr. Bernadette Reid,” I say, teeth clenched. My fingers snake through my hair, gripping at the scalp. What am I doing? This is so stupid. I need Dr. Bernie to be in with a chance of getting funding, but I can’t have Dr. Berniewithoutfunding.
“That’s a big name,” he says, tone unaffected. No opinion, no emotion, just a fact that yes she is a big fucking deal, three million followers across her social media platforms, a bestselling book, and a podcast that holds a permanent place on the top ten charts.
“It is,” I agree. Maybe this is how businessmen talk to one another, instead of feigning interest and politely smiling, nodding and laughing in all the right places. One thing working at Graystone taught me was that the way I conducted myself, and probably still do, was not the “correct” way of doing things. To be a successful businessman you must be callous, calculating, ruthless, and emotionless. That is, if you completely ignore the fact that anger is actually an emotion. Even in my business school classes, I knew being a woman would hold me back. It would make men put their efforts into holding me back, a physical hand on the lower back at a bar, pushing me out of the way, establishing contact when there was no need, even when I wasn’t truly a threat. Me just being in the room was a threat.
For a second I think about the last time a man considered me a threat in the room, but I pull myself back into the phone call with a shepherd’s crook.
We speed run the next few questions:
“When will the beta be live?” he asks.
“In a few weeks,” I answer.
“And what are your projections for daily active users?” he asks.
“We already have major registered interest from twenty-five thousand users who will be part of the soft launch,” I answer.
“Is there a reason you’re soft launching?” he asks. I can hear a pencil being rhythmically tapped across the line.
Yes, because we don’t have the money for a full balls-to-the-wall campaign rollout.
“It’s... a savvy audience. We want to encourage our users tofeel like they are part of an evolving community, not having a product being thrust upon them,” I answer.
“Right,” he says. I hear typing in the background. He’s taking notes.
“But once our beta test has worked out any potential kinks, we will be going full steam ahead with a countrywide roll out as soon as possible.” I nervously click my phone to check the time; it’s only been ten minutes.
“Okay.” He types some more.
“And the U.S. will go live straight after,” I offer.
He stops typing. “Excuse me?”
“The U.S. will go live afterward,” I repeat.
After a brief pause, he asks, “Who am I speaking to?”
I glance down at my phone, and my body is briefly shuffled off this mortal coil, then jolted back to life when I realize the app is no longer running.Fuck, fuck, fuck.My finger stabs at the screen, trying to reload. I click the icon, my hope soars, then plummets once again as it opens, then immediately crashes. My body goes rigid; he just heard my real voice.
“Hello?” Mr. Kavanagh says as I wave my arms out to gain the attention of Pacha on the other side of the room. His eyes are focused on his screen, finishing the code to our forum pages.
I clear my throat and lower my voice to a point of cartoonishness in an attempt to match the software. “Errr... My apologies, that was my assistant...” I glance in a panic at the flowers in the jam jar in front of me. “. . . Violet. She’s... enthusiastic.” I pick up a packet of salt and vinegar kettle crisps from Cecily’s desk and hurl them in Pacha’s direction. They hitthe back of his computer screen with athwk, and he pops his head up over the gray, shiny edge.
I mouth “Help!” at him, still waving frantically and pointing to my phone while Mr. Kavanagh begins to speak.
