CHAPTER 22
The garage meeting had been surprisingly fun for Stella, who had offered her feedback on the deck based on her experience dealing with VCs.
Violet had disagreed with a lot of it, which hadn’t surprised Stella at all.
At first, she’d thought it might be pretty good foreplay, but then she’d remembered Violet telling her that she hadn’t been up for anything that night.
Around midnight, the group started to break up, with Enya telling everyone that she needed to get some sleep and Arlowe requesting the room so that she could pull one of her late-night coding sessions.
Sarai had actually yawned first, and that had started a chain reaction of them all doing the same, but when Violet had noticed Stella’s probably very heavy eyes and a massive yawn, she’d nodded toward her bedroom.
“Get your stuff from the car. You can stay here tonight,” Violet had told her.
Stella hadn’t argued. She’d gone out to get her bag and had returned to Violet setting the alarm for the night.
They’d gone to Violet’s room, where Stella had taken her time in the bathroom before Violet had.
Then, they’d climbed into bed together, and it had been the first time they’d gone to sleep next to each other without sex.
Well, with both of them sober and fully clothed, at least.
Stella woke up around eight in the morning, and since it was a weekend day, she didn’t need to rush to work.
She’d also brought her computer with her because she hadn’t been sure if she was going to head to the office anyway, which she did sometimes whenever they had big clients they were working on signing.
The office was empty on the weekends, with the exception of a few support people who worked there instead of at the company’s headquarters, and she liked to have the quiet and the change of scenery occasionally.
Violet wasn’t in bed. She also wasn’t in the bathroom, so Stella got up, brushed her teeth and hair, and dressed for the day.
She didn’t know what to do after that. Should she take her bag, which she hadn’t unpacked and had just stuffed the things she had used back into it, and head out to her car?
Should she wait for Violet to return to her room?
Having decided on the former, she grabbed her bag, slung it over her shoulder, pulled open the bedroom door, and walked down the hallway, where she found Enya and Arlowe on the couch, eating what looked like cold, leftover pizza.
“Breakfast?” Arlowe asked, holding up her slice.
“Hey,” she said. “Where’s Violet?”
“In the garage. Are you surprised?” Arlowe said before taking a bite.
“Has she eaten, at least?”
“I don’t think so,” Enya replied.
“There’s more on the table in there if you want,” Arlowe said, nodding toward the kitchen.
“Thanks.”
“Why are you carrying your bag around?” Enya asked.
“I was going to head out, but I thought I should find her to say goodbye first.”
Enya nodded but didn’t say anything else, so Stella took that as her cue and walked into the kitchen, where she found two open pizza boxes.
She remembered which one Violet had eaten the night before and, hoping Violet liked it cold, she added a couple of slices to a paper plate she’d brought from the restaurant and carried it into the garage, where she found Violet staring at her computer screen, deep in thought.
“Hey, Vi?”
Violet looked up at her and said, “Oh, hey. You’re up?”
“Yeah. You left the bedroom.”
“Sorry, I had to work on this, and I didn’t want to wake you by working in my room,” Violet replied. “What’s that?” she asked, looking at the plate in Stella’s hand.
“Breakfast. Do you like cold pizza?”
“No,” Violet said.
Stella laughed and replied, “Of course, you don’t. Can I heat it up for you?”
“You eat pizza for breakfast?”
“Sometimes. But Arlowe and Enya had it sitting out, and they said you hadn’t eaten yet, so I thought I’d try to get you to at least have some breakfast.”
“I can’t. I’m in the middle of something.”
Stella sat down in Arlowe’s fancy chair and said, “Let me guess… Slide thirteen.”
Violet looked surprised.
“How did you–”
“You vehemently disagreed with me on it last night. You don’t need it, Vi. It’s only going to confuse them. Stick to the numbers. It’s all they care about. Revenue potential and when they can expect to get their investment back. That’s it.”
“But they also need to see how we’re going to get their money back.”
“Sure, but not in this much detail. I could barely read the words on the slide when we had it on the big screen last night. You don’t need it, but if you think you do, expand it to three or four slides and add them to the appendix.”
“That’s what I told her,” Sarai said when she walked in, carrying her own plate. “Are you eating pizza for breakfast?” she asked Violet.
“No, Stella is.”
“I’m going to heat it up for her, and she’s going to eat it then,” Stella said, setting her bag down on the floor of the garage.
“No, I’m not. I’ll eat it for lunch or something.”
“Is there something you will eat for breakfast?”
“Stella, I’m fine,” Violet replied.
“She eats those granola bars or protein bars. Whatever they are,” Sarai said.
“Not helping, Sarai,” Violet said, glaring at her friend.
Stella leaned in and softly asked, “Hey, do you want me to go? I will. I just wanted to make sure you ate something.”
Violet looked at her then, and her expression softened.
“And we’re going to go over it again, aren’t we?” Arlowe asked when she walked in.
“Do you guys always work the weekends?” Stella asked, realizing that she wasn’t going to get an answer from Violet.
“Pretty much.” Enya pointed at Violet. “She doesn’t demand it or anything, but we like what we do. Arlowe’s butt is usually glued to that chair unless she’s going out to meet women.”
“Act like I do that every night, Enya. And speaking of my chair…”
Arlowe looked at Stella.
“Oh, sorry.” Stella stood quickly. “I should get out of your hair.”
“Stella, it’s fine,” Violet said. “I’ll eat the damn protein bar while Sarai changes slide thirteen, breaking it into three more slides, and moves it to the appendix, okay?”
“Yeah, okay,” she said.
Stella found that she didn’t want to go home when the four women got to work.
She pulled out her own computer, sat down on a spare chair, and pretended like she was working on something of her own, but really, she was listening to the four of them go over their product and their pitch deck once more.
Eventually, though, she closed her computer and found herself participating, and no one seemed to object or care that she didn’t work there.
“What if you highlight the differences here?” she suggested, pointing to the screen. “You’re going to get the questions, right? Might as well get the objections out of the way. Tell them why they’d invest in your product over any other one like it.”
“We do that a little later, I thought,” Violet said.
“Not really. You kind of gloss over it in the back part of the deck. I’m guessing you’re doing that because you’re worried about pointing things out directly, but I say you just do it.
VCs tend to want directness. They value their time more than their money because their time is their money. I’d hit them with it.”
“But the leaders in the industry are way ahead of us,” Violet argued.
“Maybe so, but you’re doing something different than them.
They’re gamifying language learning primarily.
You’re doing that to compete, but you’re focused on translations.
I haven’t seen any other app do what you’ve shown you’ve got right now; not to the degree you’re doing it.
And you’re not even done adding all the functionality you want yet.
Arlowe said she wants to make it so that it would work with just about every wearable. ”
“She wants us to build our own. Why would we do that if we’re going to have our own? They wouldn’t buy it then.”
“Isn’t it smart to work with the available ones until you have it?
I thought that was a great idea. Make everything you have widely available, get as much money and data as possible, and build partnerships.
If, at some point, you do decide to build your own, you’ll have a bigger brand by then, and if it doesn’t make sense to do it, you still have those partnerships. ”
“But their hardware isn’t built for what we offer.”
“No, not exclusively, but–”
“Stella’s right. It’s the best play,” Sarai interjected.
“Hey, it was my idea,” Arlowe said.
“Sure. Let’s pretend like we haven’t been talking about the approach for years and that I didn’t suggest it. Enya?”
“What?”
“Whose idea was it?” Sarai asked.
“I honestly just want lunch,” Enya replied.
“Shit.” Stella checked the time on the wall clock. “It’s two in the afternoon?”
“Apparently,” Violet said, looking pissed off.
“I hope you didn’t have lunch plans, Stella. You would have missed them,” Arlowe said.
“I didn’t. I do have dinner plans, though.”
“You do?” Violet asked.
“Yeah,” she replied, wondering where Violet’s surprise about that was coming from.
“Oh,” Violet said. “Well, sorry for keeping you. I can walk you out.”
“It’s two, Vi. I’m not going to be late for dinner, which is at seven, if I stay a little longer.”
“No, it’s fine. We have to really focus on this now.”
“And we weren’t focusing before?” Sarai asked, snapping into some beef jerky.
“You’re making me hungrier,” Enya said.
“The kitchen is right there,” Sarai replied as she chewed.
Stella looked over at Violet, who was staring at her and seemed contemplative again, like she was weighing something in her mind, and that something involved Stella.
“Maybe you’re right. I should go,” Stella said.
Violet seemed surprised by that, but when she opened her mouth to say something, no words actually came out, so Stella stood, gathered up her things, and slung her bag over her shoulder.
“I’ll walk you out,” Violet offered.
“Great. Thanks,” she replied, and they walked out of the garage and through the kitchen in silence.
“So, you have plans tonight?” Violet asked once they were in the living room.
“Yeah.”
Stella was hoping that Violet would ask her what those plans were, but Violet only nodded while she pulled open the front door.
“You?” Stella asked.
“Just more of this, I’m sure,” Violet replied, motioning to the house.
“You need breaks, Violet. They do, too.”
“We don’t have time for breaks, Stella. We have to get this money.”
“I know you do. I want that for you, too. I just know what I see in there because I see it at work with our product team and engineers when they’re mid-sprint and our CEO gives them yet another thing to build without adjusting the deadline.
I have seen one of them actually pull some of their hair out. ”
“Yeah, well… We don’t have a whole engineering or a product team. We have Arlowe and Enya.”
“I know. That makes it worse, doesn’t it?”
“It’s not your thing to worry about, though, is it?” Violet countered.
“Hey, I know. I get it. I’m only trying to help.”
“We don’t need your help, Stella.”
“Violet, come on… Just be honest with yourself for a minute. We had a good conversation last night, and today, we were in there for hours and didn’t even realize it because we were making good progress.”
“There are no consequences for you, Stella. It’s different. I appreciate the help, I really do, but you can say whatever you want in there and not have to do any of the work or live with the consequences of your decisions. The rest of us don’t have that option.”
“I get it. I was only trying to help.”
“I know. And I appreciate you coming over last night, even though you didn’t get laid.”
“Violet, I–”
“Have fun tonight with whatever you’re doing,” Violet interjected.
“It’s just dinner with a friend, Violet. I will be home by nine and in bed by eleven at the latest.”
Violet nodded and seemed to take in the information.
“Well, I still hope you have fun.”
“Thanks, I guess,” she said before she pushed open the glass door and let it close behind her.
It had been a great night and morning, despite them not having sex, but Violet seemed to be struggling with this whole VC thing, which hadn’t been part of Stella’s plan when she’d sent the email.
If it ended up with Violet getting the money she needed, though, she could be happy for her, and maybe after it was all done, they could have a real conversation about what was going on between them.