“I hear you’ve been pulling some late nights.”
“There’s a lot to do,” I begin. “We’re a little overwhelmed by the whole fundraising thing.”
“It’s a dark art,” she says, nodding.
“I think at some point we’re going to need to hire a few people.”
She claps. “Hiring! That’s exciting. I love the process of finding the right fit.” She looks over to her two manservants and beams.
“We just can’t afford it right now.”
“You know, there’s really no price tag on the right talent. It’s always worth it to get the very best.” Her phone pings. She picks it up, glances at it, puts it back down. “I know a good exec recruiter, you’d love her.”
“That’s great, thanks, Li Ann.”
“What does Cyrus say?”
“About the fundraising or the hiring?”
“Either.” She shrugs.
“Not very much, to be honest.” I laugh. “I’m still not sure he’s into it.”
I see her straighten. “Have you incorporated?” she asks, giving me a sideways glance.
“Excuse me?”
“Have you registered? Started an IP portfolio? Decided who owns what?”
“There’s nothing to own,” I say. “It’s just numbers, zeros and ones.”
“You’re joking, right?” Little points of red flash behind her dark brown eyes.
“We’re married,” I say, digesting my own lameness in real time. “But you’re right, of course. We should have a legal entity.”
She scrolls through her phone, and a few seconds later, I feel mine buzz. “I’ve sent you the name of a good lawyer. He won’t charge you—he’ll just take a few points to start with. I suggest you stop coding and get your house in order.” And then she waves me away with a flick of her hand, and she does it with such elegance that I don’t even mind.
* * *
When the lawyer asks me for basic information, I realize we don’t even have a website. I mean, I haven’t even Googled THE WAI to figure out how many weird iterations it will take to find a domain name that fits. Jules, Cyrus, and I argue the relative merits of www.thewai-faith.com (hated by Cyrus), www.waiistheway.com (hated by me), and www.ourwai.com (hated by all of us). Finally, we settle on www.thewai.io, and Jules throws up a splash page, and Cyrus spends an inordinate amount of time writing copy that is both too long and utterly opaque. I send the address to the lawyer, whose name is Barry, and we set off to meet him.
The law firm is intimidatingly shiny, with polished floors and a buttonless elevator. We wait in a boardroom, and when Barry appears, we all jump in our plush leather chairs. “So,” he booms, “you’re one of Li Ann’s companies. What’s this I hear about some kind of new religion?”
“Don’t you want some guarantee when the world ends?” Jules says. “A hedge of sorts?”
Barry nods. “I’ve got two hundred acres in New Zealand. That’s where I’m going when the shit hits the fan.”
“Well, we’re here for everyone else,” Cyrus says.
“What he means is, it’s not a religion, and it’s not a cult. It just occupies that space.” I’m wondering how many times I’ll have to explain this.
“Let me tell you how venture works,” Barry says. “They make ten investments. One is in the home-run column. Three go into the win column—and that means acquisition, even if they lose their shirts. The rest hit a wall and turn to dust before anyone can say achoo. As far as I can tell, you’re looking at option A or C.”
“We don’t care about the money,” Cyrus says.
“Two months ago we were living in Cambridge and making s’mores in Julian’s fireplace,” I add.
“Startups are full of accidental entrepreneurs,” Barry says. “The main thing is to figure out a way to make sure the band will always stay together.”
I tell him we are married.
“All three of you?”
“I’m the wife, Cyrus is the husband, Julian is the other wife.”
“Sounds about right,” Jules says.
“So, what, you want to go thirds?”
We look at each other. “Yes,” Cyrus says, “that’s what we want.”
“Okay!” Barry slams his hand against the table and rattles the whole city block. “I’ll draw up the papers. Sign them and send them back. And you two,” he says, pointing to Cyrus and me, “go get yourselves a post-nup. Your odds aren’t good.”
* * *
“What did he mean?” I ask as soon as we get back into the buttonless elevator.
“He means he thinks you and Cy are going to have trouble being married and working together,” Jules says.
“But we’re more than married. We are epic.”
Cyrus pulls me into his arms. “We are infinite.”
“He’s just quoting the odds. Doing the math. Reading the tea leaves.”
“Yeah, okay, we get it. But we’re not going to be statistics. He doesn’t even know us.”
I see Cyrus and me reflected in the elevator mirror: long and short hair, tall and small, spirit guide and coder. Cyrus kisses the top of my head. “Let’s get another lawyer,” he says.
“Totally. This one’s full of shit.”
Five
KISSING FROGS
Li Ann tells us we have to start networking. She says words like “elevator pitch” and “investment thesis” and “seed funding,” all while tapping her phone and sending me links. After every conversation with her, I Google things furiously until I have a handle on the lingo. Jules goes to fundraising events and then comes back and says he had some conversations but that they didn’t lead to anything. We start preparing our three-year business plan and financial model. Finally, Jules signs us up for something called Entrepreneurs’ Speed Dating, which he assures us bears only a passing resemblance to actual dating, and we turn up at the venue a week later, ready to be matched.
All I do these days is hang out in places with polished concrete and exposed brick. This one is no different, except it’s dimly lit and smells like chocolate because it is called the Chocolate Factory—there must be a diffuser somewhere that aerates pure Dutch-processed cocoa into the perfect air freshener. Right now it’s set up to resemble a restaurant on Valentine’s Day, little two-person tables with chairs facing each other, a small vase of flowers in between. There is a bar along one side of the room, where Cyrus, Jules, and I perch uncomfortably, mingling only with one another.
Destiny and Li Ann arrive and we wave them over. Destiny is pitching for Consentify and Li Ann is just here to make everyone else look unkempt.
“I wish smoking would come back,” Destiny announces.
“No, you don’t. Smoking has probably led to a lot of nonconsensual sex,” Li Ann says.
“You’re right! Fuck smoking.”
“Probably not as much as alcohol,” I add.
“There’s only one thing that leads to nonconsensual sex, and that’s men.”
“And patriarchy.”
“Fuck patriarchy,” Destiny says. “But seriously, though, why has no one invented something else we can do with our mouths that socially signifies that we are calming our nerves and makes us look super-cool while we’re doing it?”
“Huge market opportunity,” I agree. “What would you call it?”
“Poking?”
“Stroking.”
“Let’s figure out the business plan later. Now I have to fix this slide.” And she marches off in search of the Wi-Fi password. Li Ann floats away to scan the room.
Jules and Cyrus have dressed up. They’re wearing shirts with buttons. They have combed their hair.
“Who’s going to do the pitch?”
Cyrus suggests it should be me.
“Why me?”
“Because it was your idea.”
“It wasn’t my idea. Jules and I thought of it together.”
“Yeah,” Jules says. “Bottling Cyrus. Eau de Cyrus, now in a convenient spray that will turn your ordinary life into a deep spiritual experience.”
“Shut up, Jules.”
“I can’t do it alone,” I complain. “What if no one likes it?”
“No one will like it,” Jules says. “And then someone will, that’s just how it goes.”
“Fine, I’ll do it if you come with.”
“Sit at the bar and eat olives,” Jules tells Cyrus. “We’ll point at you so they know what they’re bottling—I mean getting.”
I disagree. “Not olives. Olives are messy. Nuts. And a short drink, like a whiskey.”