Chapter 3
The day Danny tells Julian the app is done (enough), it’s early November.
It’s also the day of Eve’s final tour stop, which is at Brooklyn Steel.
Eve is the opener for Stella Seaport, who was popular for a while but then became less so.
Originally, Stella Seaport was meant to have a different opener, a pair of brothers who play synthy brass and sing about ones who got away, but they went on hiatus at the last minute after a feud, presumably about one of the ones who got away.
So at the last minute, to capitalize on ski rat’s unexpected popularity, the record label swapped in Eve.
Danny has been reading reviews and watching Instagram Reels of the tour, but he has not actually seen the show because Eve told him not to.
The last time they met in person—when she came home for a few days between shows—she told him he really didn’t need to come to Boston or DC because their final show, the one at Brooklyn Steel, would be the one where they worked out all the bugs.
“I want to support you bugs and all,” Danny said.
“But I want you to think I’m cool and talented,” Eve said.
“As opposed to how I think of you now.”
“Something of a talentless hack, right.”
“I think you’re the coolest person I know.”
“I mean, I’m no erstwhile kid detective,” Eve said.
The morning of the concert, Danny goes for a run to shake out the nerves.
Unfortunately, he discovers he has misplaced most of his running abilities while trying to be a cofounder.
He cuts it short at five miles and showers, then he goes to meet Julian for coffee at the coworking space where Julian has purchased a trial membership.
A full membership for their twelve employees will cost them ten thousand dollars a month.
Julian says worrying about this price is like “worshipping the risk of failure.” Danny, apparently, loves to pray.
They sit across from each other at an ash-colored laminate table. The wall to their left is exposed brick. To their right, there’s a fridge full of those sodas masquerading as seltzers with names like Pippity Poppity Extra Natural Not Soda.
Julian lowers himself into the chair. Danny studies the movement. Danny can’t seem to move like that—languidly, easily, as if the chair is there to serve him. Danny is more of a huncher.
“So does it work?” Julian says.
“I think it works,” Danny says. Then: “I mean, what does it mean for an app to ‘work,’ really?”
“Reassuring,” Julian says.
“It’s a good UI. It’s intuitive to use. We have push notifications working, and asynchronous surveys, and the Bug interface isn’t perfect but it’s usable.”
“So it does work.”
“I’m just saying that people are complicated.”
“We can figure that out as we go.”
“By ‘that,’ ” Danny says, “you mean the human condition?”
“Not to sound like a dystopian movie villain,” Julian says, “but surely AI can crack that in a month or two.”
Danny shifts his laptop for Julian to see.
He’s running an iPhone emulator, and the phone interface fills the screen.
Danny walks him through the features—the personality quizzes they included in the initial incarnations of the app, now adapted to spit out advice rather than matches.
There’s a feature where both partners can choose A or B, B or C in a series of anything that might be up for debate—restaurants, wedding ring styles, vacation destinations, bed frames—and then spits out the optimally satisfying compromise. Then there’s Bug. Hi hi.
“I want to do an internal beta,” Danny says. “Get everyone in the company to use it and give feedback.”
“How soon can we announce?”
“How much feedback are we going to get?”
“That’s a nonanswer,” Julian says.
“It was a nonquestion.”
“You know, it’s convenient for you that you have a perfect control in your beta. A perfectly happy example to compare against.”
“Do you mean you?” Danny says.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“No one’s perfectly happy.”
“Are you and Eve having trouble?”
“That’s not what I said.”
Julian gives him this look. Is it pity? How is Danny looking back? Also pity, maybe. Danny supposes this is the point of it all: to understand finally what anyone else means when they talk about love.
“People are complicated” is what Danny says again.
“The idea is that we can make them less complicated,” Julian says. “Anyway, when are you meeting my sister?”
Danny and Eve have been talking on the phone Monday and Wednesday mornings and Sunday afternoons.
They text every day: good morning and this meme made me think of you and you’re going to do great today.
Originally, they only talked twice a week, but then Danny asked for a third call, the act of which made him feel like he was tearing off his skin.
Eve said sure, no worries, it would be great to connect more!
Danny wondered if it would ever go away: the bottomless pit within him that begged to be filled with unequivocal evidence of love.
He has checked and double-checked her flight information and cross-referenced the LIRR schedule (Eve hates Uber) and concluded she will arrive at her apartment between 3:02 and 3:07, but he will not see her until after tonight’s show.
Then, tomorrow, they will sit on her bed, and he will ask about the tour, and she will ask about the app, and she will see through him completely.
She will see that he has not created a dating app because he wants to help people or because he wants to get rich or because he saw a gap in the market but because he cannot bear the uncertainty of loving someone who may or may not love him back.
Last night, Julian and Gigi invited Danny to join their date night.
They went to the AMC near Penn Station and watched a movie about a priest who falls in love with a nun.
At one point, the priest says, “I wish I could be certain—of anything.” And the nun says, “Oh, but then we wouldn’t need faith.
” Danny felt like he was missing something, having grown up without any semblance of religion, because he thought this was a pretty shitty trade-off.
“Danny?” Julian says. Danny’s mind has roamed far from the coworking space. “Dude. Are you okay?”
“What if the app doesn’t work? What if it’s all a huge waste of time?”
“It won’t be.”
“Why are you so sure?”
“Because,” Julian says. “Everyone wants to be better at being in love.”