Chapter 1 #2
She’s fallen in love twice in her life. Once, nearly a year ago, when she attended a speech by Grayson Fields and was introduced
to Ethan Sonders, and seven years before that, when she clinked forks loaded with microgreens at a table in Silicon Valley
with Ilena and Mallory and created AIM.
She nervously excuses herself from Kai and heads for them, both now seated in Adirondack chairs surrounding a sandbox. Her best friends, her colleagues, the women she’ll make history with. If they don’t kill each other first.
Aubrey settles into her Adirondack and forces herself to sip her strawberry mule slowly. She isn’t the biggest drinker, even
less so since Ethan, and the gin’s already making her scalp tingle. But Kai was right; it is lit, if lit means refreshing, something desperately needed since the microclimate surrounding these Adirondack chairs is stifling.
If she’d known going public would cause so much discord, she’d have never said yes. Though in truth, there’s no version of
Aubrey that wouldn’t say yes to Mallory and Ilena.
Ilena is the first person you’d call if you needed a lawyer to get you out of jail and the first person to lecture you for
needing a lawyer to get you out of jail. Whatever got you into the mess in the first place was likely Mallory’s idea. They
would brave ice storms and nor’easters, Boston traffic on graduation weekends in May, and the subway on a ninety-five-degree
day if you needed them. They knew what wine to order to complement everything from oysters to French fries, how to make hibiscus
palomas, how to tie a scarf a hundred ways, how to build a company into an empire. They also knew how to be a best friend.
Something a young Aubrey never knew mattered as much as it does. Something this Aubrey is scared of losing.
Mallory polishes off her bubbly and whips out her phone. “Is it rude to text Noreen to bring me another?”
“Yes,” Aubrey says at the same time as Ilena rolls her eyes.
It’s the latter, Aubrey’s sure, that sends Mallory’s thumbs tapping. They sit around the sandbox filled with plastic shovels
and molds for castles and starfish, and Aubrey searches to make sure there aren’t any pitchforks.
“All this . . .” Ilena presses her hand against the arm of the whitewashed chair made of reclaimed barn doors. “Is this truly the vibe you want AIM to have?”
“First, it’s we,” Mallory says, “and second, it’s the vibe they expect. It’s not just our user base that’s half our age, Ilena, it’s our
employees. You never exactly were the life of the party, but parties do require life. Besides, just think how it’ll look on
social media.”
“I know exactly how it will look. Like some of us don’t take things seriously.”
The air stretches taut like a rubber band about to snap.
“Well, it’s too late now,” Mallory says as she brushes her hair off her shoulder. The dirty-blond bob she had when Aubrey
first met her has become brighter, longer, and more bronze over the years. Her waves now cascade down her back, more fitting
for someone with the bravado of a wild peacock in perpetual preen. “You should have weighed in when Noreen sent the email.
Even Aubrey did.”
Ilena shrugs. Unlike Mallory, the dark, flowing hair Ilena had back then has gotten progressively shorter, now nearly a pixie
cut. “Sorry if my life has bigger issues than party planning.”
Aubrey lifts her drink to take a sip, but the tremble in her hand makes the glass ting against her front teeth.
Ilena’s face pales. “Oh, I’m sorry, Aubrey. I wasn’t thinking.”
But she was. Just not about the same thing as Aubrey. They’re all drowning in something. Aubrey and Ethan, Mallory and taking
AIM public, Ilena and her ovulation cycles.
Aubrey feels the weight of their stares, wishing she knew what to say to tighten this widening gap between them, but all she
can do is place her hand on top of the good-luck stone in her pocket—jerking back when Mallory slaps it.
“Mosquito,” Mallory says.
“Oh, Aubrey, now you’re going to blow up. Did you bring your Benadryl?” Ilena opens her bag. “I knew I shouldn’t have switched into this small purse. I think I took out my pill case.”
Mallory reaches for her own sailcloth clutch. “I might have that aloe lotion.”
“It’s okay,” Aubrey says, despite the bite on her thumb already swelling to the size of a blueberry. “I’m okay, really.”
They mean well, but it’s this type of stuff that sometimes makes Aubrey, seven years their junior, feel like a toddler. They’ve
always treated her as something that might break. And she’s let them.
“Hey, hey, y’all!” Noreen approaches with a cheery smile and a round, wooden tray full of drinks.
Mallory looks up from her clutch and claps her hands. “There she is. My favorite assistant in all of assistant-dom.”
Noreen’s blond ponytail bounces as she hands another sparkling wine to Mallory. “How nice. Y’all deserve some ‘me’ time.”
She slips on those kid gloves and gives an empathetic nod to Aubrey.
Originally from Dallas, Noreen Parra made her way to AIM via Smith College, starting with the same web design rotation on
Aubrey’s team that now belongs to Kai. Mallory swooped in and nabbed Noreen to be her executive assistant before the rotation
even ended.
Aubrey has never asked if Noreen likes it, same as Mallory never asked if Aubrey minded.
“Beaut of a spot, isn’t it?” Noreen shuffles her white-sneakered feet against the grass as she passes strawberry mules to
Ilena and Aubrey. “Great for celebrating today’s valuation! Two point two billion? That’s just . . .” She shivers, and one
of the thin straps of her flouncy white sundress slips off her shoulder.
“Ooh, wait, y’all have to do this! My family’s tradition is to call on Lady Luck for something new by paying homage to something old.
Good thing my mom baked her famous chocolate pecan pie before my first day of kindergarten instead of her muesli muffins.
Had a slice every first day since, wearing a pair of overalls just like when I was five.
And that includes the day I walked through the doors of AIM.
So clearly, it works! Y’all should come back the night before you go public.
Water view, strawberry drinks, and each other! ”
“Don’t forget the giant pink bird,” Ilena says flatly.
Mallory narrows her eyes. “It makes a statement.”
“And what statement is that?”
“We’re fierce.”
Ilena cocks her head. “And that’s the reputation you want for AIM?”
“Yes, because it’s not just AIM’s reputation, it’s ours. We are AIM. We are three women running what they used to call a unicorn company until all the unicorns were slaughtered by founders
embezzling or lying to investors or testifying in front of Congress. The level of scrutiny on the tech world now . . . and
for us? A thousand-fold. The number of female-owned-and-run companies traded on Wall Street can fit in the palm of my hand.
So, yes, fierce flamingos it is. They can survive the harshest of conditions. They can even drink boiling water, did you know
that?”
Noreen nods. “And they can stand in a lake as it freezes and scoot away unscathed when it thaws.” Her eyes float to each of
them. “They also live in flocks. They do everything together. And I mean everything.” She gives a sexy bat of her eyelashes. “Squad goals, am I right?”
Aubrey’s eyes widen. Did she just tout “squad goals” for group sex?
Mallory’s smirk is mirrored on Ilena’s face. Aubrey wants to reach out and grab this bond between the three of them and let it erase everything else.
“Oh, and, Mallory?” Noreen says. “The restaurant’s general manager just told me that our rental fee doesn’t cover dung cleanup.
Alpaca or any other kind.”
Ilena frowns.
And the moment is gone.
“No worries.” Noreen twiddles her fingers. “I’ll handle it. Now, how ’bout I round y’all up when it’s time for the toast?”
Mallory lifts her sparkling wine in thanks, but Aubrey, welcoming the distraction, says, “Or you could join us.”
Noreen balances the tray in one hand same as she balances everything at AIM. She’s the kind of nice that you think must be
put on. No one actually wants to bicycle to work in the rain to test out AIM’s “Move, Don’t Snooze!” challenge or grind five
different beans for the coffee bar or send reminders to turn off your video when you take your Zoom meeting into the toilet.
If AIM gave bonuses for being a team player, Noreen would be retired by now.
“As lovely as that would be . . .” Mallory says. “I think we forgot that splinter warning on the Jenga?”
Noreen flattens her palm against her chest. “My oversight, Mallory. I’ll see to it faster than small-town gossip. Holler if
you need anything.”
Like a trip back in time to before everything began to change? Aubrey’s gaze travels between her two best friends.
“Don’t you look at me like that,” Mallory says.
Aubrey trails a finger around the rim of her glass. “I didn’t say anything.”
“But you should,” Ilena says.
A high-pitched squeal negates Aubrey’s response, which is just as well.
Such is the life of the youngest of four, with nearly ten years between Aubrey and her next sibling.
Aubrey’s thirty-two, of average height and average(ish) weight, from a family of professional and near-professional athletes, though the only competitive streak she had was for mathletes.
Growing up, her siblings’ games and practices and pancake breakfasts became her games and practices and pancake breakfasts.
Her day planned for her before she woke up.
Every decision made for her by someone else.
Routines become habits and habits become a way of life.
AIM’s way of life has always been Mallory as the public front, Ilena as the strategic core, and Aubrey behind the scenes as
the master of all things tech, the only role she ever wanted. Except ever since Ethan she’s found herself drifting, unable
to focus, with little interest in the day-to-day of AIM.