| |
Look
for Highway 380. That’s our exit,’
Katherine said.
‘I’m
looking, I’m looking. According to this
map, we have a ways to go.’ Christy checked
her watch
again. It would be close. If they could keep up
this speed
and not get lost, they should make it with just
enough
time to change their clothes. ‘There
it is! There it is! Get
in the right lane.’
‘Jesus,
you said we had a ways to go.’ Katherine
swerved
and the Taurus careened across three lanes, miraculously
avoiding at least five collisions and inspiring
a cacophony
of horn-honking. ‘Oh my God,’
Christy said as she covered
her eyes and ducked. Katherine was silent, intent
on
getting them to Menlo Park before two. When their
plane
had landed in San Francisco, more than an hour
late,
they’d called the Steiner McClane office.
The meeting
couldn’t be postponed. Mr Roche was booked
solid, then
leaving for Europe on Monday.
‘Good
thing it stopped raining.’ Christy had the
habit
of pointing out the positive whenever things got
tense.
Katherine preferred working up a good head of
steam.
‘Oh
no, no, NO,’ Katherine said, spying
the traffic
ahead. In seconds, they slowed to a complete stop.
‘How
much time do we have?’ she asked.
Christy
checked her watch. ‘Thirty-minutes,’
she
reported, biting her lip.
‘You
know, Chris, maybe Baby G Sports wasn’t
meant
to be. It could be a sign,’ Katherine said.
‘It’s
not a sign. There’s an accident
ahead. See those
flashing lights?’ Christy climbed into the
back seat and
unzipped her suit-bag. ‘I’m getting
dressed. So when we
make it, I can run in.’
‘Good
idea. With this traffic, it could take us half
an
hour, maybe more.’
Christy
shook her head as she unbuttoned the Chanel
jacket. ‘I still can’t believe you
made me spend five thousand
dollars for this suit.’ The thought of the
amount made
her sick.
The
cars started moving again. ‘Trust me, Chris.
You have
to dress like you don’t need the money or
you won’t get any.
Steiner wants to turn us down, just like those
other venture
capital firms did,’ Katherine said. She
sounded like she.
‘Do
you really believe they’re gonna decide
based on
our outfits? What if they think we’re wasting
money?’
Katherine
locked eyes with Christy in the rearview
mirror as she spoke. ‘Chris, very few women
ever get seen
by these guys. Our performance has to be perfect
or it’s
over. Could you have won in a pair of Hush Puppies?
No.
This is the same thing.’
‘Watch
out,’ Christy shouted as Katherine
barreled into
a the back bumper of a Cadillac changing lanes
in front
of them.
‘Shit!’
Katherine yelled. ‘Did you see the way
that asshole
cut me off? He never signaled!’
She pulled over to the side
of the road, behind the Cadillac, and stopped.
A red-faced
man leaped out of the luxury sedan and inspected
the
damage, then began screaming and raging, waving
his
hands wildly in the air. ‘Why didn’t
you slow down?’ he
ranted. ‘For Christ’s sake, couldn’t
you see I was pulling
over?’
Christy
was overwhelmed by a sudden and profound
sadness. Is this it? Is this how the story ends?
In her mind,
she saw her fledgling company’s life flash
before her eyes:
the first meeting around the dining-room table;
the
moment Sasha, queen of hip-hop, bounded on stage
in a
pair of Baby G’s; herself and Katherine
collapsing in laughter
the next day as, the orders poured in.
‘I
did signal, damn it,’ Katherine
was saying. ‘Look! My
light’s still blinking.’
As
they argued, Christy came to a decision. She stuffed
her laptop and a pair of heels into her backpack.
She put
on her running shoes and slipped out of the car.
‘I’m
outta here,’ she shouted.
Katherine
checked her watch. ‘You have fourteen
minutes.’ |
|
Five
minutes later torrential rain slashed down against
the asphalt highway. Then it lightened up. Then
it poured again. Christy kept moving.
A little water can’t slow me down, she thought,
imagining herself at the Olympic Trials, her father
cheering her. Christy threw her whole body into
the run, head high, chest out, legs burning, heart
pounding. She picked up the pace, flying over
wet gravel, broken glass, cigarette butts. From
the Sandhill Road offramp she put on her finishing
kick, sprinting the last four hundred meters to
Steiner McClane headquarters. Soaked to the skin,
she stopped to catch her breath under their arched
entry. Her legs were trembling, not used to running
hard anymore. She couldn’t believe how winded
she was and vowed to add interval work to her
training regime. Okay, you look like hell. You
feel like hell. But you’re on time, she
thought.
Walking
inside with less than a minute to spare, Christy
caught the eye of the receptionist. The woman
was pretty, perky, and athletic, which seemed
to be the prereq at these West Coast firms. She
gave Christy a look of confused recognition.
‘Hi,
I’m Christy Hayes.’ ‘Oh my goodness.
The bathroom’s in there,’ the receptionist
said, pointing toward a door, ‘In case you
want to,
ah, freshen up.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Bill’s
running about ten minutes late, so take your time.’
In
the bathroom, Christy looked in the mirror. She
pulled a brush out of her dripping bag. Doing
what she could with her hair, she left it wet
and loose. Using Kleenex, she wiped the mascara
stains off her face. She blotted her suit with
paper towels and changed into her heels.
Christy
took a deep breath, and walked back to the reception
area. She looked around for the first time. The
place felt like a modern cathedral, all glass
and soft cream carpets. Unlike companies housed
in New York skyscrapers, this was all on one floor.
In California, power could spread out instead
of stacking up.
Two
dozen trim men dressed in office-casual took note
of her arrival. As Katherine said, not many women
made the grade to get a meeting with this legend
of venture capital. And Christy was a girl you
couldn’t help but
notice, even soaked through – a trim brunette,
shoulderlength hair, long defined legs. So far,
she hadn’t met a man who could quite deal
with her looks, her obsession with work, and her
athletic notoriety. Everyone assumed that men
were falling all over her, but in fact, the only
ones she ever saw were her employees and accountants.
A few weeks shy of her thirtieth birthday, though,
she remained hopeful.
Christy
was sure that her future husband wasn’t
among these timid gatekeepers. She had imagined
venture capitalists as adventurers, but from what
she had seen, they were more like sheep. Nobody
wanted to say ‘yes’ until the guy
down the block did, and then they got into a competitive
feeding frenzy. So far, no one was willing take
a chance on Baby G, and now it all came down to
this last hour to make Steiner McClane believe
in them. Her. She realized she would be alone
today. No Katherine with her brilliant mind and
intimate understanding of the
numbers.
‘Bill
will be ready in five. Would you like something
to drink?’ The receptionist walked Christy
over to an open kitchen full of yogurt, fruit,
candy bars, and bottled iced teas with Zen-looking
labels. Christy grabbed two bags of peanut M&Ms
– when nervous, she was helpless in the
face of sugar. She hoped Bill’s delay would
give her time to scarf down both bags.
A
tall, lanky guy in khakis walked up and introduced
himself. He didn’t need to: Bill Roche,
venture capitalist par excellence, one of the
few who had achieved namerecognition status in
the wider business world. He was thin and wiry
in that healthy California way. He looked like
someone she might actually like to get to know,
not like the other bean counters she had met this
week.
‘Christy
Hayes?’ He said, shaking her hand. ‘Did
you fall in ocean?’
Christy
laughed, relieved that Bill had a sense of humor.
‘No, we were delayed flying in. Then I ended
up running here when our car got stuck in traffic.
Sorry I’m such a mess,’ she said,
looking down, suddenly mortified.
‘Not
at all. I’m impressed that you ran to make
it. Lucky for you we don’t make investment
decisions based on appearance,’ he laughed.
‘Of
course you don’t,’ Christy said. ‘That
would be nuts.’ She wished Katherine had
heard him say that.
‘I’ve
been looking forward to meeting you, Christy.
What you’ve accomplished is really something.
Hopefully, we can help you take it further. Let’s
go to my office and talk.’
Christy
had the strongest surge of hope since leaving
New York a week ago. She floated down the wide,
cushiony breezeway to a large, open room, all
tropical greenery outside the glass. Bill motioned
for her to sit at his small conference table made
of beautiful inlaid walnut. She switched on her
laptop, which remained absolutely mute. Her panic
rose as she tapped the keys. Nothing. She tapped
harder. Water began to seep from the case onto
the table. The black screen stared back at her.
Usually she did the vision thing while Katherine
presented the numbers and fielded those questions.
Today she was on her own. No Katherine. No numbers.
No safety net.
Slowly,
Christy closed the laptop. Her panic was giving
way to the same adrenaline she used to feel at
the starting line of a race. Just as she was poised
to take off, Bill said, ‘Stop! Let me call
an associate in to join us. Then I want to hear
your story, start to finish.’
In
walked a familiar face, and, sad to say, a familiar
body. David Baum. He had been with an investment
group Christy met with three years ago, just as
Baby G was getting off the ground. Like the others
they approached then, no one at David’s
firm would back a girl Olympian trying to break
into the competitive world of athletic footwear,
and Christy was treated dismissively at each meeting.
But she and David had connected. A hot romance
ensued. She had fallen hard for him, and it seemed
mutual. They alternated between New York and San
Francisco on weekends and became familiar faces
on the red-eye. But in the end, Christy couldn’t
build a company and keep a bi-coastal relationship
going. She ended it badly, as she did many personal
things in those early days of struggle, just for
lack
of the energy and time to do it right.
Now
David and Christy looked at each other. She blushed,
and he, smooth as all bankers, moved to cover
his emotions. Dammit, of all the pitch meetings
in all the towns in all the world, he has to walk
into mine, Christy
thought miserably.
But
she composed herself quickly, and she told Bill
and David her story. How had gotten started using
Christy’s commercial endorsement money to
stake the company; their market victories; the
opportunities for growth. Bill asked completely
different kinds of questions than the other bankers
they’d met had. He wanted to know how Christy
handled disappointments, to hear about the mistakes
they had made, things they usually kept under
wraps in these gigs. He asked about the toughest
decision she’d had to make, and she told
them about the time their fall line came in from
the manufacturer with a small defect in the architecture
of the sole of their flagship model. They decided
to pull the shoes, even though it almost put
them out of business. Christy felt that Bill understood
what it was like to be an entrepreneur; to be
lost much of the time, but to have the kind of
grit that keeps you going anyway. Christy could
feel she was in her zone. She was known for her
power of persuasion – part passion, part
looks, part vision. She hadn’t felt it with
the other venture sheep this week, but with Bill,
this High Priest, she was soaring.
Just
before the meeting ended, David pulled his jean,
athletic frame up and excused himself for another
presentation, suggesting to Bill that they talk
later. Christy shot him a pleading look as he
stood to leave. She could read nothing in his
eyes, even though he was looking right at her.
Bill
spent twenty more minutes with Christy, and she
could tell he was going to say ‘yes.’
‘Christy,
it was great to meet you,’ he said. ‘I
was really impressed with your presentation. I
just want to get David’s take. It’s
good that you two know each other. Personal references
are everything with us.’
Christy
smiled weakly and swore herself to chastity for
life, or at least to dating only gorgeous
waiter-actors unlikely to show up when her entire
future was on the line. She hoped with all her
heart that David would act
in the interest of the firm – and not hold
their failed relationship against her.
Christy
shook Bill’s hand and headed for the exit.
She grabbed a few more bags of M&Ms as she
passed the kitchen. She had kept Bill interested
for over an hour. He was known for his short attention
span. Anything over thirty minutes was considered
a done deal.
When
Christy finally emerged, Katherine was waiting
outside the office in their rented Taurus, with
its crushed left hood. As she got in, Katherine
gave her a look that Christy instinctively understood.
‘Yeah, I think we have a real shot. I do.’
She gave Kath the blow-by-blow as they drove off
toward San Francisco. ‘Bill was great; he
was really excited about our business.’
‘Christy,
what is it?’
‘Well,
um . . . there was one thing . . .’ |
