The Underwriting (21 page)

As it was, he didn't blame her for not using it anymore.

Then again, Juan had stopped using Hook, too. And he had better stats than that. Didn't he?

Juan paused at the thought. Surely looking at his own information wasn't breaking any rules.

Juan typed in his name, and the user information started to load. He decided he should get a beer for this, and went to the fridge. The office was empty, leaving him alone with the view of the Bay lights sparkling outside the floor-to-ceiling windows at the end of the room.

It would be nice to have a girlfriend, he thought, at moments like this. To show her this office, and sit with beers watching the lights shoot back and forth across the water.

Juan had never had a girlfriend. It wasn't that he wasn't interested in girls, or that he didn't like a lot of them. And if he was being honest, he knew it wasn't that girls weren't interested in him. He'd just never really found one that was good enough. He needed someone smart and funny, sure, but he needed someone who got where he came from, too, and appreciated that he needed to take care of his mother back in East Palo Alto, and needed to not talk about his father's murdered body in Juárez. But the girls he met in San Francisco . . . their lives were just too uncomplicated for them to understand all of that.

Juan sipped his Pacifico and opened the summary page for his own profile. He had 12,012 right-swipes and 180 reviews that netted him an average score of 8.7 out of 10. He looked at the distribution: 75 percent were 10s or close to it; 25 percent were 1s and 2s. He choked on his beer and realized he'd been expecting all perfect scores.

He clicked a positive review first: it was from Isabel. His heart caught in his throat. He'd been in love with Isabel his entire childhood. But she was cool and he was a dweeb and when they got to middle school she dated Roberto, who was two years ahead. Juan got a scholarship to the Menlo School and left her, along with all his other friends, in the ghetto public schools in EPA.

Isabel had given Juan a perfect 10 in every category: looks, ambition, sex, humor, commitment and intelligence. She'd tagged #takehometomom and #bestguyever and written in: “This boy is a PRINCE; get him while he's HOTTTT <3.”

Juan felt his cheeks burn and all his old feelings rush back like he was thirteen and in love for the only time.

Juan skipped to a bad review. It took him a minute to recognize the name, but when he saw the face he remembered Lydia Karr from Berkeley. They'd been in a Math 51 study group together and he'd had too much to drink once at a party and made out with her on the dance floor. He hadn't seen her since graduation in 2009, but the review was from six months ago. She'd given him 1s across the board, tagged #heartbreaker and #f*ck*gasshole and written: “Seems like a great guy until you realize he thinks he's better than everyone. What an asshole. Stay away.”

Juan blinked. He didn't think he was better; he'd just been through more. And he hadn't been mean to her: they'd only made out once when they'd both had too much to drink. He closed the page.
This
is why he didn't use Hook, or hook up with girls.

A text message on his iPhone gave him an excuse to look away, and he clicked out of the database.

He smiled at the phone. Julie thought everyone was awesome, but it was good to have her approval of their new roommate, Amanda.

Everyone had been talking about the benefit to raise money for the dead girl's memorial fund. It's not that Juan didn't care, he just knew how the story was going to play out and wanted nothing to do with it. Stanford kids like Kelly got their drugs from the East Palo Alto kids he'd grown up with. With Carl Camp's war on drug dealers raging, Juan instinctively felt it was only a matter of time before his community got blamed for her death and the two sides of the track grew even more distant.

Juan clicked back into the database and typed to see if Julie had ever reviewed him. She had, giving him all 10s, except on commitment, where she'd given him a 1, #impossiblyhighstandards.

Did she really think that?

He had to stop.

He finished his beer and started to shut off his computer, but something made him turn back. What about Kelly?

He paused, staring at the screen, his fingers hovering above the keys. She was dead: how could it be violating her privacy when she was dead?

He typed in her name. There were over eighty million views since her death, with ratings ranging from 1, with tag #slut, to 10, with tag #victim. He filtered the results by date and scrolled to the beginning. She'd started using Hook last July, and met up with a few guys in New York. She'd used it again in New York on December 28 of last year. She'd logged in in California several times this year, but never rated anyone and only had one meet-up. Juan felt bad for her: she wasn't a slut like the media said, or if she was, there were about 459 million Hook users who were a lot worse.

He got up to go, then turned back to look at the date of her single meet-up this year: March 6. He stopped, feeling his palms start to sweat. When had she died?

Juan held his breath and Googled her name. He clicked on her Wikipedia article and blinked to make sure he was reading correctly.
Time of death recorded as 4:47 a.m., March 6, 2014.

Juan clicked open the entry in the database. The time of meeting with the other user was 2:18 a.m. He clicked the map and scrolled into 558 Mayfield Avenue, Xanadu residence, Stanford University.

Despite all his attempts to not pay attention to the story over the past weeks, he knew Kelly's friend had dropped her off, alone, at one a.m. The news had never said anything about her being with someone else afterward.

He clicked the profile of the other user, bracing himself. But the profile wouldn't load. He refreshed. Nothing. Finally, a box popped up with the words
PATH CORRUPTED.

“What the—” Juan blinked.

“You're still here?”

Juan jumped. Josh Hart was standing in front of his computer: where had he come from?

Juan willed the blood back into his face and quickly clicked out of the windows open on his screen. “Yeah, just finishing up some things for Nick,” he said.

He could feel Josh's eyes peering into him from above the desk.

“Everything going okay with him?” Josh asked. His face twitched. Juan knew Josh well enough from their long nights programming together to know his face only twitched when he was nervous or angry.

“Yeah.” Juan nodded, his heart still racing, wishing Josh would go away. “Everything's great.”

“What are you looking at?” Josh said.

“Just some stats,” Juan lied to cover. “It's crazy how much guys in New York flirt.”

“They're like rabbits.”

“Yeah.”

Please go away,
Juan screamed in his head. It felt like Josh was choking him with his gaze.

“Do you want to go to the symphony next week?” Josh asked. “I have a spare ticket. There's a group of us that always go. And I was thinking it's really been too long since you and I hung out.” The cadence of his voice was different, like he'd rehearsed the line.

Juan looked up; Josh didn't seem like the symphony type.

“Sure,” Juan said, “but you know I've never been to the symphony, so if you want to give it to someone who'll appreciate it more, I'd—”

“No, I'd like you to come,” Josh said.

“Sure,” Juan said. “Sounds good.”

“Great. See you tomorrow.” Josh turned to leave.

“Yep,” Juan said, forcing a smile while he waited for the door to slam. As soon as it did, he collapsed back into his chair. Kelly Jacobson wasn't alone when she died: But who had she been with? And who did he have to tell?

CHARLIE

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Charlie refreshed the browser on his laptop to watch the YouTube video of the chemical attack in Talmenes again, and felt heaviness hit from every direction. He was angry for the victims, but also for himself. If Kelly hadn't died, it would have been his story. If Raj had let him go back when he'd asked, Charlie might have written a story that prevented it. Or he might have been there and suffocated in the fumes. But at least if Kelly hadn't died, he'd have been doing something instead of sitting here in California, waiting.

There was no reason for him to be here, but he didn't know where else to go.

He couldn't stay in his parents' apartment, watching the twenty-four-hour news cycle. His mother barely moved from the sofa, just sat there getting upset every time another pundit passed judgment on his sister's morality, then got equally upset when an afternoon went by and no one mentioned her daughter, as if Kelly's life had been irrelevant.

He walked down University Avenue and found a table at a café, pulling the yellow notebook out of his bag. He'd decided to read Kelly's journal all the way through. He wasn't spying on her; he'd just realized that he'd missed certain details of her life, and he wanted to know she'd been okay.

September 23, 2010

Oh my god I love Stanford SO much. I can't believe I ever thought I knew happiness before college—nothing compares to this. We had this dorm meeting tonight—like an orientation meeting to tell us all the rules, except there really aren't any rules. Like our RAs basically told us we won't get in trouble for drinking, even though we're underage, because they'd rather we tell them when someone's had too much than have someone die because we're too afraid they'll get in trouble. I love that they trust us like that—it makes so much sense, right? Not that I'm planning to start drinking, but I just think that's totally the right attitude, to let people be responsible for themselves and their friends. Anyway! We're in this orientation meeting and then this whistle blows and all our RAs jump up and all of a sudden these people dressed all crazy with instruments come running into the lobby, playing music, and it's the Stanford Band. Oh My God they are CRAZY. Like, this one guy was totally naked, playing a saxophone. It was so gross, but I couldn't stop looking!! And the tree was dancing—I LOVE that our mascot is a tree!!!—and—

“What can I get you?”

“What?” Charlie looked up, startled. The waitress indicated the menu. “Oh,” he said, “just a coffee and the omelet.”

The waitress left and he flipped forward in the journal.

November 5, 2010

So I lost my virginity tonight. Why did I think it would be a bigger deal than this? I don't love Jamie. I think that's why I did it: because I know I don't love him and won't love him and so I won't attach a lot of significance to his being my first. Like, I think it's a mistake when girls wait for true love to lose their virginity because then if it doesn't work out it's not just that you loved him, it's that you lost your virginity to him and then it becomes this really big deal. And it's not. Or it wasn't. It didn't hurt as much as I expected, but it definitely didn't feel good. Jamie said it gets better. He lost his virginity when he was fourteen. Can you believe that? That a guy that got into Stanford was having sex when he was fourteen? I guess that's what happens when you go to boarding school. Anyway, it didn't feel good, so I hope it gets better. It does make me think about how glad I am I didn't wait until marriage. Can you imagine if you did? If you had this magical, blissful wedding day and had been looking forward to this magical, blissful moment afterward, and then it felt like that? What a terrible way to start a marriage. And kind of weirdly male-dominating, right? Like starting a marriage with the man hurting you?

“Here you go,” the waitress said, sliding a plate of eggs in front of him, and Charlie stopped, grateful for the interruption.

“Thanks.”

Charlie's phone rang as he cut into his eggs. “Hello?”

“Did you see the story?” Johnny asked through the phone.

“Is it out?” Charlie sat forward in his seat.

“Front page, above the fold.” Johnny's voice was proud.

Johnny had already told him the narrative that had unfolded as he'd interviewed Kelly's friends about her death. Not only did Robby Goodman, as RA, have a key to her room, he'd had a crush on Kelly and been devastated that afternoon when he found out she was moving to New York after graduation. He'd started recklessly partying a few hours later for a rugby team reunion, an all-night debacle that he'd left, wasted, around two a.m. It wasn't hard to imagine that he'd wanted to see Kelly when he'd come home and had used his RA key to get into her room. From there, he'd given her the water laced with Molly, forced himself on her, passed out and, when he came to, panicked and taken her to the hospital.

“They've already got Robby in custody,” Johnny said. “You'll probably want to get an attorney, if you haven't already.”

“Yeah, that's a good idea,” Charlie said, standing up to get the waitress's attention for the bill, grateful to Johnny for giving him something to do.

TARA

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“So I slept with Todd last night,” Rachel said with the nonchalance of reporting what she'd eaten for breakfast, her eyes on the wine list. “We'll have a bottle of the Trefethen Riesling, please.”

“W-w-w-wait,” Tara said. “You slept with Todd Kent? Like, my Todd Kent?” She felt her chest tighten: she and Todd had come back to the hotel from Hook's office at ten o'clock last night. Tara had worked until two a.m. in her room, bingeing on a pack of peanut M&M's from the minibar, which she'd run an extra mile for this morning to burn off. Had he really gone back out and had sex with their pseudo-client?

“Oh, have you two hooked up?” Rachel asked, unaffected by the probability that the two women had slept with the same man. Her silky hair was pinned back in a carefully constructed sloppy bun, and she had pristinely painted lines around her lids and lips.

“No.” Tara shook her head. “Well, yes, I mean, back at Stanford. It was nothing,” she lied.

“College hookup comes back around,” Rachel said, smiling. “I love that story.” She tasted the wine the bartender had poured and nodded with approval.

“I'll just have a sparkling water,” Tara said. She hadn't had a drink since the Frick.

Rachel shot her a look. “You think Todd is out drinking water tonight?”

“The stakes are higher for me.”

“One glass?” Rachel pushed.

“Sorry.” Tara shrugged, declining.

“Suit yourself,” Rachel said. “Anyway, it was
terrible.
”

Tara coughed. “What?”

“Like, literally the worst sex I've ever had. Like having sex with a gorilla. Was he that bad in college?”

Tara felt her mouth drop and she laughed: if Rachel didn't think it was weird, she guessed she didn't have to, either. Tara had always thought she preferred working with men, but she really liked Rachel. She was confident and cool and didn't get distracted by gossip or take it as an insult to her own talent if Tara had a good idea.

“You know, I don't really remember,” Tara answered Rachel's question honestly. She had never thought to consider whether Todd Kent had had any skill at sex. In fact, she had never thought about whether any of the men she'd slept with were good or bad at it, she'd just always focused on whether or not she was okay.

Rachel looked at her, confused. “I guess you were young,” she rationalized. She took a sip of her wine. “Or maybe that's what New York does to guys,” she said, thinking out loud. “Like, has Todd ever been in a relationship?”

Tara shrugged again. “Not since I've known him.”

“So maybe he's never actually learned. I mean, he's had a lot of sex, but only one-off interactions, so he's never gotten any feedback.”

Tara pressed her lips and took a sip of her water. “Do you think women know, though, if that's the case?”

“What?”

“Whether it's good or not?”

“Are you serious?”

“It's just that if a girl only ever has sex with guys like Todd,” she said, “maybe that's what she thinks it's supposed to be like.”

“No way. Girls have vibrators,” she said. “They know what it's supposed to feel like.”

“But a lot of women can't have orgasms from normal sex,” Tara said. “There was that study—”

Rachel shook her head. “I don't buy it.” She paused. “I think it's men like Todd doing the studies who want to justify their own inabilities,” she said, then noticed Tara's face. “Oh my god, you've never had an orgasm with a man!”

Tara swallowed. “Yes, I have.” Then she added, “Well, I think I have.”

“You
think
you have?” Rachel glared at her, then punched her arm. “Oh my god, you poor thing! No wonder you're so miserable!”

“I'm not miserable,” Tara corrected, sipping her water.

“I thought it was just your awful job, but that
and
no good sex? Jesus, I'd kill myself.”

“A,” Tara said, lifting a finger, “my job is not awful. And B, I just haven't found someone I'm really comfortable with. And C, I am not miserable.”

“A, it is; C, you are; and B, you haven't gotten comfortable with yourself.”

“I'm—”

“Drinking water on a Friday night. You're miserable.”

Tara paused, looking at Rachel and taking the thought in. “Fine,” she said. “Can I have a glass of wine, please?” she asked, turning to the bartender.

“Now, that' s a start.” Rachel patted Tara's arm. “As for your orgasm problem, you have to go older,” she coached. “Older men have been around long enough to know what else is out there and appreciate you, instead of comparing you to some fantasy they think exists because they watch a lot of YouPorn.”

The guy at the bar looked over his shoulder to acknowledge he was listening to the whole thing, disgusted.

“What?” Rachel asked him pointedly. “Oh, hello!” Rachel exclaimed. “What about Callum? He'd be perfect.”

Tara blushed. “I told you, he's a client.”

“I'm more of a client than Callum is, and Todd slept with me.”

“It's different for girls,” Tara said. “You know that.”

“Why does everyone say that?” Rachel said. “It's only different if you let it be.”

Tara drank a sip of her wine. Rachel grinned. “You totally like him.”

“I don't know him,” Tara corrected.

“And you won't,” Rachel said, “if you don't give him a chance. Come on, you're totally his type anyway.”

“That's what Josh said, too,” Tara confided.

“What?” Rachel's eyes got serious. “What did Josh say?”

“That Callum would like me because he likes girls with control issues.” Tara rolled her eyes, remembering the first meeting. “That's what he made you all leave the fishbowl to tell me. Also to make sure I knew my sole purpose in the deal is to distract men with my appearance.”

“Fuck Josh,” Rachel said angrily. It was the first time Tara had seen Rachel look discomposed. “Josh is a misogynist prick.”

Tara turned to look at Rachel, interested.

“I think the only reason he created Hook is to make women feel cheap.”

“Why do you say that?” Tara asked carefully.

“I've seen the way he treats women. He's a total creep. He has no respect for other human beings, just treats them like objects or pawns. He's like a sociopathic robot.”

“Why do you work for him, then?”

“Phil Dalton pays me an ungodly amount.”

“To protect Josh's public image?”

“It's a big job.”

“Do you use Hook?” Tara asked, suddenly curious.

“Absolutely not,” Rachel said.

“But you're so—” Tara started, looking for words that wouldn't offend.

“Liberated?” Rachel helped her. “There's a difference between unemotional sex that's respectful and transactional sex that's orchestrated by an app,” she said, finishing her wine and looking at the empty bottle. “Which is a nuance Josh doesn't understand. Do you have dinner plans? I'm in the mood for Terzo.”

“I should get back to work,” Tara said.

“Have I taught you nothing tonight?”

Tara thought about Todd's night out yesterday. “Fine,” she said. “Let's go.”

AMANDA

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