She had to get away from Sabrina, at least for a few minutes, because the conversation was freaking her out more than she wanted it to. She’d glimpsed Sabrina a couple of times in the building, but she’d never had a conversation with her. It wasn’t that Katya had taken everything that Dan said about Sabrina as gospel, but she had definitely internalized Dan’s perspective on their relationship. And, she realized guiltily, she’d always tacitly encouraged Dan to vent about his wife. It seemed harmless. But now, presented with this woman in the flesh, she felt embarrassed.
And besides, she wasn’t here to talk to Sabrina Blum. Even though Victor had insisted that the dinner was off the record, she was hoping she’d be able to at least pick up a couple of tidbits that she could spin out into stories. There was nothing stopping her from pursuing rumors—she just had to get them confirmed on the record. But this was how careers were made. During their smoke breaks, Dan had told her a million times about the scoop that had changed his career—he had broken the news that Google had offered thirty million dollars to buy the old social network Friendster, at which point in the story Katya always reminded Dan that she had barely been in middle school when this had happened, and he invariably took a much bigger drag on his cigarette. Also, after a few of these conversations, it had slowly dawned on her that Dan brought up the Friendster scoop so frequently because it was at that precise moment in 2003 that he felt like he peaked, and that everything since—even this job, which Katya figured paid a lot of money and was reasonably prestigious—paled in comparison. That was not going to happen to her. “Get them to notice”—here he would gesture vaguely above his head to indicate, she assumed, Rich and Deanna—“and then you’ll have people banging down your door to hire you. Not that I want to lose you, but you’re not gonna want to stay here forever.” And then Katya would always reassure him that she wasn’t going anywhere, at least not yet, but she would do her best to get as many scoops as she possibly could, and he would look momentarily glum at the prospect of losing her and then get distracted and want to go back upstairs.
As she stood up, about to walk away, Isabel Taylor came over, plopped down next to Sabrina, and put her arm around her. “You’re Katya, right?” Isabel said, looking up. She laughed. “Your boyfriend’s Victor? He’s cute.” Katya felt herself blushing. What a weird thing to say to another woman you’ve just met. She never knew how to interact with girls like Isabel, the ones who had a seductive combination of being pretty, rich, and completely, blithely confident of their position in the world. And they took all of it for granted. Nothing really, truly bad ever happened to these otherworldly girls, and if it did, it seemed so very inconsequential. Even in this city, which would grind you down and make you hate it as much as you loved it, they seemed to exist in an uncomplicated universe of trust funds and museum parties and Hamptons summers. After college they lived in their own apartments in doorman buildings that their parents paid for; they spent $125 on yoga pants; they married rich and powerful men and had children who did the whole thing over again. She supposed she couldn’t really blame Isabel for coming from this world or taking advantage of her position in it, but it all just seemed so patently unfair. And yet, here they both were, at one of the more exclusive dinner parties happening in the city at the moment. Worlds collide, she thought, more than a little triumphantly.
“Um, thanks,” Katya said.
“Sit down!” Isabel laughed again, and Katya realized she was already drunk. “Have you met Sabrina? Sabrina is my coworker. I’m her boss.” She giggled. Definitely drunk. Isabel put her phone and her drink on the coffee table. “She’s the best.” Sabrina had a frozen half smile on her face. “Seriously, Sabrina, you are.”
“I try,” Sabrina said. “When are we eating, do you know?” It was almost nine thirty.
“I’m not sure. You know what, I’ll go ask Andrew.” Isabel stood up, wavered, and then walked toward the kitchen. Sabrina raised her eyebrows at Katya as Isabel’s phone, which was still on the coffee table, vibrated. Both women’s eyes went to the phone.
And so it was that Katya saw a string of texts from Mack pop up on Isabel’s lock screen.
i’m still at the office. it’s lonely here w/out u
where are u
And then:
don’t tell me u don’t miss this
And there was a small, but distinct, picture of an erect penis. And then another one. And then one more.
“Oh my God,” Sabrina whispered. “I…I wish I hadn’t seen that.”
“Um.” Katya’s mind was racing. “I’ll go give this to Isabel. I won’t tell her we saw anything.” Sabrina nodded. Katya picked up the phone and walked toward the kitchen. She glanced back to see if Sabrina was looking at her, but she wasn’t—she seemed to be staring at the opposite wall. Katya slipped into the hallway and snapped a picture of the screen of Isabel’s phone with her own.
She wondered if Sabrina knew that Dan was particularly scornful of Mack McAllister. He had gone on a long diatribe about him one afternoon when they were taking a smoke break, and SXSW had come up. “You have to understand, it used to be this small, friendly, useful conference for people in tech. And the people who went were actually cool! It was like a fun reunion every year. And then slowly it shifted from being this kind of open secret among people who weren’t douchebags to being this, like, huge conference almost exclusively for douchebags. Seriously, Katya, the douchebag to non-douchebag ratio at South By is probably the highest on the planet.”
Katya had contemplated this for a moment and then asked, “Isn’t that pretty much the whole startup world?”