I start walking again. He falls back into step besideme.
“Sit in the audience ofThe Tonight Show.”
“No.” My list seems lamer and lamer with every good suggestion he makes.
“I’m going to die of curiosity. Please tell me what’s onit.”
I consider denying him but instead meekly pass my phone over, feeling more and more self-conscious as he scrolls down the list.
“Go up the Empire State Building…?” His tone is completely incredulous. “Annie, haven’t you lived here for like, six years?”
“Yeah,so?”
“Your bucket list reads like an alien’s who’s beamed down to earth with a travel guide from the mid-’90s.”
It’s an oddly accurate observation. I do feel like an alien here, sometimes. Wandering around wondering how to make myself a proper New Yorker.
“OK,finally,here we go. Something normal.”
I pinch his elbow. Hard.
“Ow,” he says, holding hisarm.
“Which one?”
“Find the best pizza slice in the city,” he says. “A worthy yet impossible goal. Many brave people have tried before you.”
“Connor, I’m surprised at you. Ofcourseit’s possible. It just needs a dashboard.”
He laughs at this, and my stomach does a little flip of satisfaction. Making Connor laugh is one of the best things.
“You’re right, what was I thinking. All we need to do is input the datapoints.”
“Exactly. Ergo, it stays on the list.”
“It stays on the list,” he agrees, smiling at me as he passes my phone back. “But we’re going to need some better options for your sister.”
Seventeen
After Central Park we wander through the neighborhood until before I know it, we’re turning the corner and my subway stop is in view. Whether Connor knows I take this train or it’s just a coincidence that he’s depositing me here is unclear, but something tells me it’s the former. Him seeing and remembering little details like that is just so incrediblyhim.I know the walk to the subway is for my benefit. He’s already told me he’s staying uptown so he can drop in on his mom.
Now that our time together is almost over I’m desperate to extend it, to eke out just a few more minutes of Connor’s company rather than go home and spend the rest of the day without him. I stall for ages outside the subway entrance, scanning my brain for a conversational gambit that will keep us talking for the rest of the day. If he’s wise to my ruse, he doesn’t show it. Maybe he doesn’t want to go, either.
Desperation leads to inspiration. “I meant to ask you,” I say, snapping my fingers. “What did you think about the whole free tier thing? What will theydo?”
“That question has been haunting me since I was cc’d on the email.”
Brad, our brilliantly stupid VP of corporate development,has recently come up with a new initiative he’s extremely enthusiastic about: a free tier of Taskio.
We run on a subscription-based model, and Brad believes we could capture a bigger share of the market if we rolled out a free tier, where we’d generate revenue by showing users targeted ads. Connor and Ben have been banging their heads against the wall at the stupidity of this—yet Brad won’t let it go. He genuinely believes spamming our users with in-app ads will usher in the golden age of Taskio.
“Please bring me to that meeting. I would pay good money to see Brad and Sven duke it out on that one.”
“I would if I trusted that you would sit quietly and not put your hand up to volunteer your own even more insane solution,” he says, referencing another meeting where I did exactly that.
“Hey! You said yourself that was a good idea.”
“I said it was anidea,” he corrects. “The word ‘good’ was never mentioned.”
