CHAPTER 6
Stella had no idea what had possessed her.
She’d suggested that she and Violet meet up in person for no real reason.
Their conversation had been fine, but it hadn’t exactly been about anything that mattered, and after they’d arranged their meet-up, they had focused exclusively on the Cerebral demo.
Violet had asked several great questions, which should not have surprised Stella because while they’d both probably grown up a lot, Violet was still always going to be Violet: she’d been the smartest woman in the entire program back then, and in Stella’s opinion, asking great questions was a sign of intelligence.
After they’d finished the initial demo, Violet had asked for their technical documentation on things like their API, webhooks, and just about everything else that Stella had.
Violet had also requested a meeting with Monique because of her former sales engineer status, which basically meant that Monique was a salesperson on steroids and that she could answer the more technical questions that Stella couldn’t.
Violet had told Stella that she’d have her head of engineering on that call, and they’d set it up for the following morning.
“Hey, Monique, did you meet with Violet?” she asked in the kitchen around lunchtime.
“Yeah, her and her engineer. Crazy smart.”
Monique shook her head in disbelief.
“Who?”
“The engineer. I hooked her up with Tim’s team to dive a little deeper because she was way over my head.
She’s got experience, so that helps. I guess they’ve been thinking about building their own tool or going with a vendor, so she’s up to speed on how it all works.
Tim had an opening, so they met right after, I think. ”
“How did it go?” Stella asked.
“Fine, I think. I had answers to most of their questions, and it seems like we’d be a good fit for them. If Tim can impress, I think they’ll sign.”
“Really? That quickly?”
“It depends,” Monique replied. “I know they’re a small company, so they might not like the price for what they want, but if you can negotiate with them a little, they might be into it. I think Cerebral is the right tool for them.”
“How small? On LinkedIn and the form, it says under fifty, but I didn’t get an accurate number during my call with the CEO.”
“I think it’s just four people. The engineer said it’s four of them and some freelancers every so often, but no permanent contractors or other employees. That’s what I got from her, anyway. And I have to run. I’ve got another demo in five. Need anything else from me on this one?”
“Not right now. I’ll see how it went with Tim, and if he thinks that they’re ready to talk contract, I can get moving on that and save you some time,” Stella said.
“Cool. Thank you,” Monique replied and walked off, holding a can of lemon sparkling water.
Stella was glad that they’d been able to have Violet meet with both Monique and Tim on the same day because it might mean she was very close to getting her foot in the Russell umbrella.
She hadn’t asked why Violet’s company wasn’t under it, at least not in anything she’d read online, but she might ask when they saw one another later that night.
They were going to grab a drink at Buddy’s, but she still had no idea what had even had her bringing up her regular bar during a sales demo with her former enemy, if Violet could be called that.
“Hey, Tim, got a sec?” she asked when she landed at Tim’s open office door.
“Yeah. What’s up?” Tim said as he looked up from his computer.
“How’d that meeting go this morning? The one you took for Monique.”
“Oh, good. Their head of engineering is great. She understood everything and even gave me a recommendation for a product feature that could be badass if we do it. Their CEO played things close to the vest, but that makes sense. She’s the one paying for it.
Us engineers are big nerds about this stuff. ”
“Think she’ll sign?” Stella asked.
“Maybe. You might need to go down on the price. She brought that up about ten times, but they all usually do, so I don’t know.”
“Okay. Thanks. Are your notes in the system?”
“Yeah. And I sent over all the technical docs, too. She said she wanted to review everything and would get back to us about next steps or more questions. I gave her my email for those.”
“Great. Thanks.”
Stella walked back to her own office, feeling like maybe she’d managed to get her way out of the mess she had made with an email that could’ve cost her this job.
Likely, it seemed like it wouldn’t now, but had Violet sent that to Stella’s boss and complained loudly enough, it might have, or they could’ve demoted her or, at least, not promoted her later due to her lack of professionalism.
When she got back to her office, she pulled up Violet’s account and looked at Monique and Tim’s notes.
She saw that in the likely-to-sign section, Monique had put in that she thought they were about eighty percent likely, which was a great number to see after just a few demos.
Stella decided that since she’d see Violet later that night, she wouldn’t send an email just yet.
They could talk in person about what Violet wanted to do and go from there.
◆◆◆
When she walked through the bar’s door, she had a feeling that Violet would’ve arrived first, so she looked around the small space that was more neighborhood pub than happening hotspot for the newer types of customers moving into the city.
That was why Stella liked it. She knew if she went to most of the other bars around, they would be catering to the younger people just out of college, at their first jobs in tech, and Stella usually only wanted a beer and a place where she could watch a game or hang out with a few friends.
She found Violet sitting at a booth by herself, with a martini glass in front of her and her hand around its stem, just resting there as if she was frozen in time and not actually going to take a drink.
Stella had seen her on video only yesterday, but the woman was even more beautiful in person.
Her brown hair was down and over her shoulders, and she was staring at the old jukebox where a few women were gathered.
She looked contemplative, and it had Stella wondering what exactly Violet was thinking about.
“Hey,” she said when she walked over. “I thought I was supposed to buy you a drink.”
“You are. I asked the bartender if he knew you, and he said yes. I told him you were coming in and that he could put it on your tab.”
Stella laughed and replied, “Nice.”
“You’re late,” Violet stated.
“By two minutes. I couldn’t find parking, and I had a late meeting that ran long. Sorry.” She sat down across from Violet. “So, what did you get?”
“Just a martini.”
“Top-shelf booze?”
Violet laughed lightly and said, “No, I went with the well stuff. I’m not that much of a snob.”
“I’m going to grab a beer. Want anything else while I’m at the bar?”
“I’m all right. Thank you.”
“Be right back.”
Stella stood back up and headed to the bar, where she saw Buddy, the owner, and asked for her usual and told him to add the martini to her tab.
Then, she glanced back at Violet, who was still looking over at the jukebox, and thought that she’d made a mistake.
This was already pretty awkward, and she wasn’t sure if it would get any better, but even if she and Violet couldn’t put the past behind them, Stella wanted the account for Cerebral, so she’d hang in there until she got it.
She turned around after taking her beer bottle off the bar and noticed three women in the booth with Violet now.
It was only a four-person booth, so Stella had no place to sit anymore.
She looked around and noticed an empty table with four chairs, so she went to it and pulled one over.
“Um… Hi,” she said, and as she looked around at the new additions to the booth, it hit her. “I know you.”
“You sort of know all of us,” the one on the left spoke. “Arlowe Romano.” She held out her hand for Stella to shake. “Amsterdam.”
“Right. You and Violet used to hang out.”
Stella shook Arlowe’s hand.
“Still do.”
Arlowe pointed at Violet as if that were obvious because they were currently sitting in the same booth. That drew Stella’s eyes over to Violet and then to the woman next to her.
“You’re…”
“Enya, yeah.”
“And I’m Sarai. I was in a couple of classes with you.”
“Right,” she replied. “You all met then, didn’t you? You weren’t friends first, I mean.”
She sat down in her chair and set her beer on the table.
“No, we weren’t. We met in the program,” Arlowe answered.
“And you all still hang out? That’s pretty cool.”
“We all work together,” Violet explained. “That’s why I invited them. Arlowe is the head of engineering. Enya is the genius with languages. And Sarai is our head of marketing and sales.”
“Ah,” she said.
Part of Stella was glad because that meant that she had the whole leadership team of the company sitting right there, which meant that this could be a business meeting that might end with her signing a new account.
It would be a small account to Cerebral, but it came with the potential for one of their largest ever.
The other part of her was disappointed because she hadn’t asked the entire group to go for a drink.
She’d hoped that she and Violet might be able to talk about what had happened in school and get some closure on that time in her life before they could move on.
With three other women sitting there, that wasn’t likely to happen, and Violet had to know that, which meant she hadn’t accepted the offer for a drink with the same intent as Stella.
“So, I met with Tim today,” Arlowe said.
“I heard. How did it go?” she asked and took a sip of her beer.
“Good. I have a few more questions. I sent them over before we came here, but so far, so good.”
“That’s great,” she replied. “I spoke to him earlier, and he spoke very highly of you. So did Monique. They were impressed with your knowledge.”
“Violet won’t let me build our own stuff.”
“Why not?” Stella asked, looking over at a very quiet Violet.
“Because it would take too much time, and she has other things to focus on that are more important, considering the fact that we can buy a tool to do this.”
“Makes sense,” Stella agreed.
“So, what have you been up to since Amsterdam?” Sarai asked.
“When Arlowe’s questions get answered, I’d like to talk price,” Violet said before Stella could even open her mouth to answer. “You’re a little higher than I think what we’d be paying for, and Arlowe would be doing a ton of heavy lifting for the implementation, it sounds like.”
“Uh… Yeah, we can do that,” she said. “Do you want to see a sample agreement with the discount I can offer?”
“Yes, that would be great. I still have more demos to do, though.”
“I get it,” she replied with a polite smile and watched Violet take a drink.
“So, this is… awkward,” Enya pointed out, making her laugh a little.
“We didn’t really hang out back then, so yeah, I guess so,” Stella agreed. “I don’t know you all that well, but maybe we can start with tonight. None of you have drinks yet. On me. What can I get you?”
“I’m good,” Arlowe said. “I actually want to get home to get some work done.”
“Honestly, me too. I’m stuck on the new brand colors. I want to go with something in the orange family, but I’m not sold,” Sarai added.
“Want help?” Enya offered. “I could use a break from what I was working on before we left.”
“Sure.”
Stella liked where this was going. The three women all seemed to be heading out the door, which would leave her alone with Violet for some actual conversation, but then, she watched Violet down the rest of her martini.
“I just remembered.” Violet cleared her throat. “I need to get back to the office myself. There’s that contract that came in, and I need to review it. They wanted it first thing.”
“What new–” Arlowe started, but Violet glared at her, and she wasn’t hiding that glare from Stella, either. “Oh, right. That new contract.”
“God, be more obvious, Arlowe,” Sarai whispered.
“I thought we were having a drink,” Stella said to Violet.
“I know. Sorry. It just came in, and I should’ve canceled tonight, but I didn’t want to be rude.”
“Leaving right now isn’t rude?” she asked as Violet motioned for Enya to slide out of the booth to let her out.
“Sorry, Stella. You can send that agreement over, and I’ll take a look at it tomorrow.”
“Right,” she muttered and took a long pull from her beer.
“It was nice to see you again,” Enya said.
“You too.”
“Night, Stella,” Sarai added, patting her on the shoulder as she got out of the booth.
Then, Stella watched the four women walk around her and out the door of the bar. She stood, put the chair back, and sat down in the booth. Deciding that she didn’t want to drink alone, she called Amber to see if she was interested in joining her at Buddy’s.
“Hey, Stella.”
“Hey. I’m out right now, and I thought I’d call to see if you wanted to join me.”
“Oh,” Amber said.
“You can say no. I was supposed to meet some people here, but they canceled, so it’s just me and my beer.”
“I was going to text you, actually.”
“Yeah?”
“To ask that we meet to talk. But I guess I can just talk to you now, huh?”
“Sure. About what?”
“Stella, I don’t think we should see each other anymore. It’s why I haven’t called to set up another date. You haven’t, either, so maybe you’re on the same page.”
“Oh,” Stella spoke, taken aback. “You don’t want to go out again?”
“No. I’m sorry,” Amber replied.
“Okay. Well, can I ask why? You don’t have to tell me, but–”
“You got pretty drunk on our second date and just kept bringing up a woman named Violet. At first, you being tipsy was kind of cute, but I don’t know…
It felt odd that on our second date, when I cooked for you and thought you might stay over at least to sleep, even if it was in my guest room, if you weren’t ready for anything else, you only talked about work and about this woman you knew in college. ”
“I talked too much about Violet?”
“Yeah… It was like there was something there. I don’t know. Maybe it’s me thinking too much about it, but it bothered me a little, so I’ve been trying to figure out how to talk to you, and I think it’s better to just stop now instead of going any further.”
“Well, I wasn’t expecting that, but I get it, I guess.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s fine. I understand. And it was only two dates, so now is a good time to call it.”
“I guess I’ll say goodbye, then.”
“Goodbye, Amber.”
Stella hung up and set the phone on the table.
“Well, fuck,” she said to herself.