CHAPTER 3
“Morning,” Arlowe greeted, walking into the kitchen.
“Hey,” Sarai said without enthusiasm.
“Are you okay?” Arlowe asked and sat down in her chair at the table.
Enya had left out a couple of different kinds of cereal for them after her own breakfast, along with the half-gallon of milk and clean bowls, so Arlowe grabbed her favorite and poured it into the remaining bowl before closing the lid and setting the stuff back where she got it.
“I’m fine. Why?” she asked, looking up from her own bowl of corn flakes.
“You don’t seem fine. Did you sleep like shit or something?”
“I slept fine. Thanks,” she replied.
“Hey, Violet is running behind by about ten minutes,” Enya said when she walked into the kitchen from the garage. “She wants to know if she could be thirty minutes late instead and get us all coffee on the way.”
“I could go for a latte,” Arlowe replied.
“Me too,” Sarai said and gave Enya a smile. “Thanks for setting out the breakfast stuff for us.”
“No problem. I’ll text her to grab coffee.”
Enya started typing and turned around to go back into the garage without another word.
“You know Vi is only late because they were having sex, right?” Arlowe asked and poured milk into her cereal before she grabbed one of the spoons that Enya had also been kind enough to leave out for them.
“Well, they’re living together, and they love each other, so I imagine sex is part of–”
“Sarai, what is your problem today?”
“I don’t have one, Arlowe. What is yours?” she asked and took a bite of her cereal.
“You were nice to Enya just now, so I know you’re not mad at the world. You’re mad at me about something. What is it? I’d like to either explain or apologize so that we can move the hell on.”
“It’s fine. I just slept wrong, like you said.”
“That’s a lie. Come on, Sarai.”
“God, you’re so annoying. Can you just chill and eat so that we can get to work?”
“No, because my best friend is pissed at me, and I don’t know why.”
“You really don’t know why?”
“No.”
“Arlowe, Violet just moved out. I mean, she left literally days ago.”
“I know that.”
“I get that you wanted to move into her room because it’s the biggest and you have your own bathroom now; that’s whatever.”
“You’re pissed that I moved into her room? I had dibs, Sarai. When we all moved in nine years ago, we said–”
“I know what we said. I’m not mad at you for taking the room. It would’ve been nice to finally have my own bathroom, but I get it.”
“Okay. Then, what? You’re worried that I won’t let you use the bathroom if the other one is occupied and mine isn’t? Vi let us use it. I will, too.”
“It’s not about the stupid bathroom, Arlowe. Violet just moved out, and three of us talked about this. We decided we were going to wait and see if we needed another roommate or just wanted one to save a little more money. We agreed.”
“This house is not cheap, Sarai; even when it was four of us. The landlord just raised the rent by ten percent when we renewed our lease, and that’s on top of the ten-percent increase last time.
It should be illegal to hike it by that much, but whatever.
I know the business is better off than it was a year ago, but it’s not like it’s profitable.
We’re still not making real paychecks, technically. ”
“I’m aware of all of those things, but we do things as a group, Arlowe. We make decisions together. You, me, and Enya all decided to try to have it be just the three of us. The fourth room could be a better workspace or something.”
“The garage is still big enough for us. My old bedroom isn’t; trust me. It barely fit me and one other person in there when I had someone over.”
“It could’ve been Violet’s office, or mine, or a room for Enya. You know she needs space to put up all her flashcards and do her exercises when she’s actively learning a new language, which is kind of what our whole business is based on, Arlowe.”
“So, you’re pissed that I said Gabi could live here?”
“Yes.”
“Is it Gabi specifically, or just a possible roommate?”
“Both. I only spent one weekend with her eleven years ago. She’s practically a stranger. We all work here together, too, and Gabi doesn’t work with us. It would be weird, having a roommate that doesn’t work with us.”
“So, we should invite Mitchell or Clay to move in? Or your intern?”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying, and you know it.”
Arlowe took a bite of her cereal and chewed while she seemed to contemplate what Sarai was saying.
“I’m sorry; all right? I didn’t think it was a big deal.
She mentioned that she needed a place to live, and we have a room and could use the rent money.
I know Violet said she’d still pay rent here until we find someone, but I don’t think it’s fair to her.
She’s not actually living here, and we’ve since decided that we wouldn’t find anyone at all.
I get it, though. I shouldn’t have said anything.
It just came out on my part. Gabi said that she’d think about it, but I got the impression that she wasn’t interested, so it probably won’t come to anything anyway. ”
“Maybe not, but it’s something that we should’ve discussed with Enya before you offered.”
“You’re right. I was really excited about the game, and when she mentioned that she needed a place, my mind went to the fact that I’d just spent most of the day cleaning up my old, now-empty room, and I blurted it out. I’m sorry.”
“Okay. Thanks,” Sarai replied.
“So, we’re cool?”
“We’re cool.”
Thirty minutes later, Violet showed up with coffee for all of them and met them in the garage.
There were no other employees there that day, so it was just the four of them, and now that Violet had moved out, Sarai found that she actually preferred it that way because it gave her a little reminder of what things had been like when it had only been the four of them against the world.
Ever since the investment cash had come in, things had been changing quickly, and while they’d all been good changes because they’d needed employees and they’d needed to make progress, their old space, which had always been just theirs, had turned into a place where others could show up at any minute, and usually, without any warning.
That included Stella, who sometimes liked to visit Violet to pick her up for lunch or just join them for some meetings because she liked helping out, as well as their local employees, who had the option to come in or work from home.
Mostly, they did work from home, but on some days, there would be a knock at the door, and one of them would be there, wanting to work from the garage.
Sarai liked the progress, but she also missed the old times.
“Sarai, do you have the updated campaign numbers?” Violet asked an hour after they all got to work.
“Yeah. I’ll send them to you. Promising so far. Really solid email open rate of forty percent, and click rate of twenty is also really good.”
“That’s great. How many downloads from it?”
“Percentage or number?”
“Both,” Violet replied.
Sarai pulled up the data on her screen and said, “Five-percent download rate off the twenty-percent click rate, so we’re looking at about two hundred and fifteen downloads from last week alone, but overall, it’s much higher. I’ll link you the report.”
“Great. Thanks,” Violet replied, and Sarai sent her the report, where Violet could mine for more data to use for the deck she was putting together for their board, because they had an actual board now.
They also had a second large investor. They had put in less money than Asset Capital, their first major investor, but every little bit was helping them grow their business.
It also meant that Violet spent a lot of time making documentation for them to read and review.
None of them had an admin or anyone else who could help, but Sarai’s paid intern did help put together some stuff whenever Violet needed it.
She was still in school and only worked part-time, though, so often, Violet relied on the rest of them to get her what she needed, and she would put the deck or document together herself.
When a phone rang a moment later, Sarai looked up to see that it was Arlowe’s.
She glanced at the name that flashed on the screen and was surprised to see that it was Gabi Durand.
Last night, Arlowe had asked for her number as Gabi had been leaving.
Sarai had watched it happen, wondering why Arlowe had done it for a moment, but then, Arlowe had told Gabi that she would text her her own number, and that way, if she did want to know about the room later, she could reach her.
“Hello?” Arlowe answered.
Sarai pretended that she’d gone back to work, but she was definitely eavesdropping because this was just Arlowe’s style – she had a way of coming up with an excuse or reason to get a woman’s number.
Sarai hadn’t ever been able to do what Arlowe could do when it came to picking up women, and that thought had her eavesdropping even more.
“Oh, hey. Yeah, I’m good. What’s up?”
Arlowe stood up and, with the phone pressed to her ear, quickly left the garage, leaving Sarai at her desk, listening as Arlowe’s voice trailed off, wishing the woman had stayed in the garage so that she could hear whatever they were talking about.
“Hey, I’m going to get a snack. I’ll be right back,” she said to Violet and Enya, who weren’t paying attention.
Sarai hurried out of the garage and into the kitchen, but Arlowe wasn’t there, so she opened the refrigerator and pretended to look inside for something to eat. Then, she heard Arlowe’s voice.
“Yeah, that’s great,” Arlowe said with a little laugh. “Really? Oh, that sucks.” She paused. “Okay. Yeah, that sounds good. I don’t know if you have a car or not, but I can pick you up if you need me to. I know you just moved.”