The Underwriting (19 page)

“Who was that?” Nick asked as she hung up the phone.

“A reporter from the
New York Times
.” She looked up, her face serious. “He had a bunch of questions about Kelly.”

“Oh,” he said, uninterested. He hadn't come here to talk about Kelly Jacobson. “Do you want a coffee?”

“I'm okay.” She indicated her cup already on the table.

He sat down across from her.

“You don't want anything?” she asked.

“No.” He shook his head. “I can't stay long.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “Great, actually. I just signed my loan documents.”

“For what?”

“I took out a two-million-dollar loan to pay for my stock options.” He knew he didn't have to say the number to impress her, but he couldn't help himself.

“What? Why?”

“It'll save me tens of millions in taxes,” he said. She didn't look convinced. “I'm going to pay it all off as soon as I can sell my shares,” he clarified.

“When is that?”

“I'm locked up for six months after the IPO, then I can sell whatever I want.” Why did he feel like he was defending himself?

“But what if it doesn't happen?”

“What?”

“The IPO?” she said. “Then your shares aren't worth anything and you owe two million dollars.”

“That isn't going to happen,” he said, laughing.

She shrugged.

“Listen.” He sat forward, irritated by how this had started. “I wanted to talk to you because I think you and I should—” he started, but something made him pause.

She sipped her coffee but kept looking at him calmly. She was so cute, so young and put together and exactly the kind of girl he'd always wanted to notice him in college.
But that was college, and this is real life, and you can do better now
, he reminded himself.

“I think you and I should break up,” he said, sitting back in his chair.

Her chest lifted and fell, and she sighed, looking at her hands. “Yeah.” She nodded. “I think you're right.”

“What?” He sat forward again.

“I'm going to go to Europe for three months after graduation, and it doesn't make any sense to try to stay together for that.” She shrugged. “I guess we might as well cut it off now.”

“No.” He shook his head. “No, Europe isn't the problem.”

“I'm sorry?”

“We're breaking up because I need someone better,” he explained.

“I'm sorry?” she repeated.

“I'm about to have eighty-five million dollars, Grace, and be the CFO of one of the most powerful companies in the world,” he said. Her face was still confused: why wasn't she getting this? “I need someone who—”

She lifted her hands to stop him. “Right,” she said. She reached for her bag and started to stand.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Home,” she said, pulling on her jacket.

“But we're not finished.”

“I thought you just said we were.”

“But I—”

“Whatever you have to say, Nick, I don't want to hear it. Congratulations on your loan.”

She picked up her coffee and swept to the door, leaving Nick alone. The guy at the next table looked up from his MacBook Air and laughed.

“Screw you,” Nick said, pushing his chair back and leaving the café.

AMANDA

M
ONDAY
, A
PRIL
7; N
EW
Y
ORK
, N
EW
Y
ORK
S
AN
F
RANCISCO
, C
ALIFORNIA

It took Amanda less than a week to find a place in San Francisco, albeit with two random roommates from Craigslist, a guy and a girl who were coworkers and shared a three-bedroom apartment in the Marina.

They'd said they were laid-back young professionals, which she knew meant overachieving and well-paid, and the girl had seemed nice enough on the phone. She'd gone to Stanford and he'd gone to Berkeley, so that felt like a good vet. His name was Juan, which made her a little nervous—a guy
and
a Mexican?—but whatever. She only had to commit to four months, when their lease was up for renewal, and this was her great West Coast adventure. Even if they were weird, it would be different, and had to be better than New York.

Amanda had had a revelation the night of Harold Hammonds's happy hour: New York was the problem. There was too big a pool of women willing to be the meaningless hookups Todd thought he wanted. This, coupled with the fact that people worked so much and visited the same places so infrequently that running into someone often enough to see them as something other than your initial impression was impossible. So long as he was in New York, Todd couldn't see her as more than a Hook hookup until he decided he wanted to.

And Amanda didn't have time to sit back and wait for that.

San Francisco, though, would be different, she thought as she handed her ticket to the gate agent and boarded the plane. It was smaller, for one thing, and she'd read the stats: the pretty girls in California went to LA, leaving SF full of tall, athletic men who started companies and ran marathons and outnumbered their less-desirable female counterparts by 15 percent. Amanda would stand out there: she would be in men's minds, and dating quality men would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

Of course, she hadn't admitted that to anyone—she didn't want to jinx it. She'd told her mom it was a good professional opportunity, to experience Silicon Valley's booming start-up scene, and her mom had told her she thought it would be a good personal experience, despite the fact that it was as far from home as Amanda had ever been. Claudia and Cindy had been fine with it, too, not worrying about rent because Claudia's parents paid most of it anyway. She'd told them with confident independence that she was done with their city, ready for an adventure and to be around higher-quality men, and they hadn't disagreed.

That no one tried to stop her made Amanda self-conscious, as if she were telling people she had food stuck in her teeth without realizing they'd been staring at it the whole meal. Did they really believe the West Coast was better, or just that she didn't have what it took to cut it in New York?

Don't think about it
, she told herself as the cabin doors shut. Who cared what other people thought? This was her life, and it was about to get a reboot.

Six hours later, she stepped out of the airport into the shining San Francisco sun. It was chilly out, but not like the negative-ten-with-wind-chill she'd left behind.

The cab was grungy and there was no Plexiglas between her and the driver, who was white, like her. She'd never seen a white cabdriver before. Was she supposed to talk to him? She asked him to turn on the radio.

She watched through the window as the car zipped down the highway, and felt her skin tingle when she saw the Bay Bridge stretching over the water. A real trolley car pulled down the middle of the street. She rolled down her window and when she smelled the fresh air, she knew this was right.

The driver continued through Fisherman's Wharf, and she grimaced at the tourists in T-shirts and tennis shoes eating chowder in sourdough bowls, already feeling like she knew more than them.

“You said 3373 Laguna?” the driver asked in an American accent. Were all cabdrivers in San Francisco like this?

“Yes,” she said, looking up at her new home. It was gray-blue, with three layers of windows, all painted white to match the garage, tucked between two other houses, one yellow and one pale orange. She loved it already.

“Are you moving in?” the driver asked as he unloaded her very heavy bags.

“Yes,” she said. “As a matter of fact, I am.”

“You're going to want to ditch those heels.” He gestured to her feet.

Amanda looked down. She wasn't wearing heels: she was wearing her most comfortable travel boots, which had a mere two-inch wedge.

She paid him, surprised the fare wasn't any cheaper than back in New York, and pressed the buzzer at the door.

“Hi!” her new roommate Julie exclaimed. Her toenails were painted bright blue and she was wearing a built-in-bra tank top and terrycloth shorts that were a size too small for her pudgy frame.

“It's nice to meet you,” Amanda said, willing herself not to judge.

“Let me help you.” Julie moved outside, blissfully ignorant of her half nudity, and pulled one of Amanda's bags into the door. A large open space with hardwood floors was divided between a dining room and a living area with oversized leather sofas and a big flat-screen TV. Amanda noticed the Wii and a PlayStation console and felt her heart clench. Video games? Who were these people?

“So your room is upstairs, next to mine,” Julie said. “Juan lives downstairs. He has his own bathroom, but we kind of all share both.”

The room upstairs was bigger than her room in New York and had a bay window and Ikea's classic Hemnes set with a Billy bookcase in oak.

“The boxes you shipped are downstairs in the garage. I can help you bring them up if you want?”

“Do you not have to be at work?” Amanda asked.

“No, it's cool. I'm working from home today so I could help you.”

“What is it you do?”

“I work at Hook,” Julie announced proudly.

“Like, the app?” Amanda squinted.
This
was the kind of person who was determining her love matches?

“Yeah!” she said. “It's awesome.”

“Are you a programmer?”

“No, I'm the receptionist.”

Didn't she go to Stanford? “How are you working from home, then?”

“Oh, they're not very strict.” She smiled. “Besides, everything's so crazy since we filed the S-1 no one even notices when I'm gone.”

“I'm sure,” Amanda said. “I think my firm is representing you, actually.”

“Seriously? I haven't worked with the lawyers, but I'm hooking up with one of the bankers when he's in town. He's totally hot and into art and a real gentleman. I guess you're used to guys like that, coming from New York, but
oh my god
.”

“Oh, I came out here for the guys,” Amanda said.

“Oh.” Julie's bottom lip pulled back as if she were saying
Eek
. “Well, the guys in SF are super
fun
but they're not like Beau.”

Amanda smiled politely. Julie was a badly dressed, ten-pounds-too-heavy receptionist—there was no way they played in the same league. “Well, I better get to unpacking,” she said.

“Are you sure you don't want me to help?”

Amanda declined.

But after two trips up the stairs from the garage, Julie insisted, and they spent the afternoon talking. Amanda's mind slowly started opening to Julie. Her carefree energy was embarrassing, but it was easy and comfortable, and if it was any indication of her single female competition in San Francisco, Amanda was set.

“Do you want some wine?” Julie asked, folding up the last of the cardboard boxes.

“Yeah,” Amanda said, noticing the time. “Let me go out and buy us a bottle.”

“Oh, don't worry about it,” Julie said. “We've got some from the office.”

Amanda followed her to the kitchen, where a cabinet was full of high-end booze. “Did you have a company party or something?”

“Oh, no, they keep the bar at Hook totally stocked, so Juan and I always take a bottle when we leave.”

“You've got a bar? At your office?”

“Yeah, don't you?”

Amanda considered the floor of cubicles full of angry lawyers. “No.”

“Really?” Julie considered it. “That sucks!”

TODD

M
ONDAY
, A
PRIL
7–T
UESDAY
, A
PRIL
8; N
EW
Y
ORK
, N
EW
Y
ORK

It was happy hour on a Monday, but the bar was packed with testosterone, chicken wings and easy girls chugging cheap beer. Todd was holding center court at the round booth in the corner, his de facto position whenever he was out with the crew. It was quietly understood that he was the best looking in the group and should, therefore, take the most prominent position. Girls would never think this way: they'd get jealous and push the pretty girl to the side. But guys understood cooperation created a rising tide that lifted all ships.

And after ten years rolling together in New York, his crew was a well-oiled machine. Each guy had his role: Todd was the Looker; Tom, who ran his own hedge fund, was the Rich Guy; Kyle, a private equity partner who had studied Chinese history at Princeton, was the Intellectual; Jake, who worked at MTV, was the Creative; Max, a trader who spent most of his time working out and was always so amped up on steroids that he'd talk to anyone, was the Partier; Cameron, the founder of an insurance company no one understood, was the Entrepreneur; and Will, a hedge fund principal who was Southern and probably gay, served as the group's Good Guy. Whenever a girl came into their net, whoever brought her in knew where to put her, and did: so long as everyone kept to the rules and his role, everyone went home with someone.