In many ways, things are exactly as they always were. Ren and I design things and we code things and we run our team like Santa’s Workshop and the sun swathes the Manhattan skyscrapers in gold dust. In the meantime, I am no Sheryl Sandberg, but people are starting to notice me. “THE BRAINS BEHIND WAI” is an article that does the rounds. Then I get an invitation to headline the Girls Who Boss Festival, and a few weeks after that, I walk past a woman wearing a T-shirt with my face printed on it. MY FACE. Oh, it’s grainy and screen-printed and also antiqued, but it’s me. And the caption says, WAISER. I am super-happy about this, even though when I tell Jules and Gaby, I pretend like it’s no big deal.
I haven’t forgiven Jules for voting against me at the board meeting, but I should’ve known better than to hope he might break ranks with Cyrus. Cyrus has always been, and will always be, first for Jules. Gaby must know too, and they must have reached some kind of agreement about it. I haven’t decided yet whether it’s that Cyrus let me down or that I just staked too much on Marco’s mania. I’m not angry, or at least I don’t experience it as anger. I’m caught somewhere in between, maybe not yet ready to decide whether I’ve been betrayed or merely sidelined. I do know one thing: whatever anyone else did to me, I was the one who let it all come to this, I was the one who put myself on the wrong side of that glass wall. I’m not sure if I can ever forgive myself for that.
* * *
Cyrus and I are on a date. Someone—a tech guru—is being given an award. I can’t remember exactly who it is, but Cyrus has to show up to a fancy dinner, and a few months earlier when we were playing Should We Go to This? I agreed to go too. I am wearing a dress. I am wearing very tall shoes. And makeup. I feel shiny and beautiful.
Cyrus is wearing a tux. He is magnificent.
We are seated at the front of the room at a large round table, and as is often the way with these things, they thought it would be clever to split Cyrus and me up, so I’m sitting between two white men in tuxes, one old, the other even older, and Cyrus is sandwiched between two women, one showing cleavage and one in a demure off-the-shoulder dress. All evening, through caviar and blini and rillettes and lamb chops and tarte au citron, Cyrus and I text each other.
How’s it going?
Yeah good.
How are your neighbors?
Can I tell them how much I hate capitalism?
No, I don’t think so.
Are you crushing on the woman beside you?
Who, Pamela? No.
Cyrus knows everyone. Pamela runs a seed fund, and Celeste, on his other side, is the ex-wife of Dennis, who runs an online gaming startup. People get out of their seats and come up to Cyrus and say things they think are funny, like, “Any chance you can give me a heads-up when the apocalypse is going to hit?”
I mostly don’t hate drinking champagne and going to dinners where the interior decor consists of portraits of people who probably murdered my ancestors. The reason I don’t hate it is because Cyrus and I have so much fun ridiculing everyone that it’s worth it just for the anthropology, and for the reminder that we share the same view of the world.
How many of these men are on their second wives? I text Cyrus.
At our table, he replies, I’d say about 70 percent.
The post-IPO wife is the butt of many of our jokes.
We’d been tetchy when that first lawyer brought it up (Your odds aren’t good!), but now that Cyrus knows more of these people, we realize Barry wasn’t singling us out, because divorce after great success is actually a trend. Not a dirty little secret but like a totally sanctioned and okay thing that men do once they hit the big time.
This is only one of the many qualities we dislike about all the other people who do what we do. Other things we don’t like: the sanctimonious way they talk about how much of their money they give away. Their insistence that they are on the right side of politics, even if they support 45, because what they are doing—upending the order of things—is, by its very nature, progressive. Change is everything. If you transform the way people order their pizza or the way they pay their bills or the way they lose weight, you must be doing some good in the world. For that, you deserve money, and lower taxes, and even a wife with a better ass.
Since I resigned from the board, Cyrus has been sweeter to me than ever. He is at pains to let me know how much he loves me, how much he wants me. He passes me little handwritten notes when I turn up at the office. I try to enjoy it, but I suspect it’s one big consolation prize when what I actually deserve is a seat at the table. But I never dwell on this thought for very long.
I want to go home, I text Cyrus after the petits fours and the bad coffee.
He comes around to my side of the table, leans down, and kisses the top of my head, and then he says to the old and older men on either side of me, “If you’ll excuse us, Ned and Jerome, I’d like my wife all to myself now.”
In the taxi home, we make out furiously and then I tell Cyrus I’ve been thinking more about the mentorship program. We’ll launch it at WAI and then get other companies to sign up. When women are hired, they will be paired with someone senior, someone whose job it is to help them cut through all the invisible walls that might hold them back. I’m thinking of calling it Sister Outsider, after Mira’s favorite book. “I love it,” Cyrus says. “You have my full support.” We go home and finish what we started in the taxi and then we drift off into a sweet, spooning sleep.
* * *
A few weeks later, I am headlining the Girls Who Boss Festival. My name is printed all over the posters along with a photo of me looking nerdy yet sexy. In the brochure I am described as the visionary co-founder of WAI. I’m surprised by how much it pleases me that this word, normally attached to Cyrus, belongs to me too. This morning, when I was looking through my closet, I picked out a jumpsuit, remembering one time it took Cyrus an entire hour of fumbling to get it off me, how I just lay there and laughed and let him keep trying.
When the day arrives, I am informed that Cyrus has made the cover of a well-known tech magazine. The story has been in the works for weeks, a crew coming to the office with recording devices and cameras. They’ve interviewed Jules and me extensively, talked to everyone at the office, and flown themselves out to California to interview Crazy Craig. They’ve even tracked down the first wedding Cyrus ever officiated. The couple, Gillian and Michael Rushmore-Smith, live in Boulder, Colorado, and run a no-waste grocery store where you bring your own containers. For them, Cyrus designed something called a Wetting: their guests brought water from all four corners of the country and anointed the couple, after which they all jumped into the Boulder Reservoir. They are still very happy together.
The story is coming out in print tomorrow, but it’s online today. IS THIS MAN THE NEW MESSIAH? the headline says. I’m in a tent in the middle of Washington Square Park, which has been rented out for the festival. In the greenroom, there are red fabric armchairs and plastic flutes of champagne. A young man with a beard attempts to attach my microphone, but I have no waistband for him to clip it to. I’m thinking of a book I read recently, about how seatbelts and kitchen counters and spacesuits are all designed for men. “This contraption is made for a person wearing pants,” I say. The bearded young man nods solemnly. His face smells like CBD oil. I really, really hate him.