“That’s not the point. I think Rich and Deanna are actually good people. And we’re building something necessary and important.”
“Don’t tell me you really believe that bullshit. Now you sound like the rest of them.” Dan was silent. “I’m turning out the light.” She clicked off the table lamp next to her side of the bed and the room was in darkness. She waited for him to respond—he always wanted the last word—but instead he just turned over onto his side, facing away from her, and soon she heard his breathing become slow and rhythmic.
12
Boundary Hunter
yo
The notification flashed across the top right-hand corner of her screen. It was Dan, direct messaging her in Slack. She sighed. It was 6:23 p.m. and she was so close to finishing a post about a new app for New York apartment listings that was billing itself as the “Tinder for apartment listings”—you swiped through photos of apartments the app preselected for you based on preferences (size, location, et cetera), and if you chose one, you’d find out immediately if you were qualified to rent it based on information the app had saved about your income, roommates, guarantors, and so on. If she finished soon, she might be able to leave by seven. What could Dan possibly want? She clicked over to Slack and typed:
Katya: hiya. what’s up?
Dan: almost done here?
Katya: yeah just finishing up this one thing
Dan: cool, lmk when you’re done. i’ll walk out with you.
Katya: you don’t need to wait for me
Dan: it’s fine, i have a couple emails i need to send. just ping me when you’re almost done
She sighed again. Now she felt like she had to hurry things along because Dan was waiting for her. She halfheartedly typed a sentence into her post, then deleted it. She sat for a minute, drumming her fingers on the desk—a nervous habit that she tried not to do when there were other people around—and finally typed:
FindMyPad is entering an already crowded market for apartment rentals in New York City. Billing itself as the “Tinder for apartment listings” is a canny attempt to cater to the demographic it wants to serve. The only thing standing in the way of success is its ability to keep an updated database of listings and keep out the spammers. If it can do that, Craigslist might finally have a worthy competitor for our hard-earned security deposits.
She read over the last few sentences again, gave a little nod, and hit save.
It had been two weeks since she’d taken the photo of Isabel’s phone, and so far, Katya had done…nothing. Every time she thought about contacting either Mack or Isabel to ask them about it, she started feeling nauseated. And the Sabrina complication was another layer that made it even more awkward. Katya was usually unwavering in her conviction that she was doing the right thing—not always the easy thing or the predictable thing, but the right thing. She was confident, too, that the bad guys and the good guys in this scenario were entirely clear—Isabel was dating Andrew now; one of the texts had said don’t tell me u don’t miss this, strongly implying that they were unwelcome. So why was she having so much trouble actually doing anything about it? Instead she was spending her time on posts like this one—posts that would get her points for breaking something exclusive but that weren’t anything truly ambitious. The FindMyPad news had landed in her lap, thanks to a well-timed text from Teddy Rosen, who told her that Gramercy had just made a seed investment and they were about to launch their product.
Katya: wanna go over my post before I publish it?
Dan: that was fast!
Katya: ha I guess. i’ve been working on it all afternoon.
Dan: ok what’s the link? I’ll take a quick look and then let’s get out of here.
Three minutes later, Dan messaged her back:
looks good. go ahead and pub.
She reopened the post and hit publish, waited to make sure the post was actually up, tweeted it, sent it to Trevor to post from @TechScene, and then unplugged her laptop and put it in her messenger bag. She shoved her phone in her back pocket, double-checked her bag to make sure she had her headphones and wallet, and stood up, pulling on her black leather jacket. Dan was already standing at the end of her row of desks. The office had started to empty out, but she saw Christina staring intently at her screen a few desks away, and Brian, headphones on, typing so hard on his keyboard she thought it might break.
When they got downstairs, Dan already had his cigarettes out. “Smoke?” Katya nodded, taking the offered cigarette out of his pack and allowing him to light it. She inhaled. It was dark out, and starting to get chilly. The early signs of New York winter, when it was never still light out when you left work. She’d have to remember to wear her fingerless gloves tomorrow.
“Let’s get a drink,” Dan said suddenly.
Katya glanced at him. “I’m kinda tired,” she said, even though as she said it, she wasn’t sure if it was really true.
Dan laughed. “How can you be tired,” he said. “You’re, what, twenty-three years old?”
“Twenty-four,” she said.
“Right. Same thing, really.” He took another drag of his cigarette and looked at her sideways. “There was this one night, I must have been around your age, maybe a little older, and we’d gone out drinking after work and then all of a sudden they’d locked us in because it was four a.m. and technically they were closed, but they let us stay, and then they finally kicked us out when the sun started to come up. I went home, slept for an hour, showered, and came into work. It was fine.”
“Sounds pretty crazy,” Katya said. The thought of staying out until sunrise was nauseating.