Chapter 16
Derek has become increasingly ill tempered and tyrannical, his frustrations finding the best target in Mark, and Mark has had little choice but to keep his head down, work harder, and take it.
He has been managing the corporate turbulence as best he can, trying not to dump additional stress on Rebecca, given everything she and her body have been through in the past year, but he fears he is bottling up more than he can handle.
His acid reflux is up again, his patience down, nerves worn thin.
He closes his office door, thumps his shoulders against it, tilts his head to the ceiling, and exhales. When he fishes his muted phone from his pocket, he sees seven missed calls from his wife.
Panic flares.
Getting dressed down in front of his team had taken enough of his focus that he’d forgotten about Mr. Man.
He dials.
Rebecca picks up on a half ring.
“Are you okay?” Mark says. “Did he do something?”
“What? No. I’m at school.”
Rebecca rattles off enough details for him to understand what happened. He sinks into his Aeron, which heaves gently back, catching his weight. Rubbing his forehead, he listens and listens some more.
Across his computer monitor is the schedule for the launch, pushed back for the third time in as many weeks after Derek threw out the product road map and changed direction yet again.
Mark’s unread email count is bolded at 289.
A pall of despondency descends on him. What is he doing with this job, his life?
Why is he here in this sterile office instead of with his family?
Studying computer engineering and dating Beccs, he’d had expansive hopes for himself.
They’d planned on having a passel of kids, bunk beds in each room, crowded Christmas card photos.
The internet boom had been all about prosperity and flourishing, making the world a better place.
And yet, somehow he’s found himself tasked with replacing human workers with AI, putting people out of jobs.
The free market would correct that with its brutal expediency, as it always did.
Workers would be retrained to fix AI until AI could be trained to fix AI, then humans would have to be trained to do .
. . what? He thinks of the thing-man in his house right now, filling some void he hadn’t realized he and Rebecca needed filled.
He stares at the framed photo on his desk, him and Rebecca at the beach, Maddy on his shoulders smeared with zinc sunscreen and wearing only a swim diaper.
She was two years old, a few months before the diagnosis.
They are all laughing, a happy family of three.
He wishes he was there in the photo on that beach before diagnoses and miscarriages, when the tracks had still led to a future that made sense.
When Rebecca pauses to take a breath, he says, “How is she?”
“Exhausted,” Beccs says. “Beyond exhausted. She’s sleeping now. I’m gonna let her rest, then take her home.”
“Good,” he says. “Good.”
“When can you get here?”
Mark catches himself rubbing his forehead some more. “I don’t know.”
“She was crying for you, Mark.” Her voice wobbles and then cracks. “She wouldn’t stop crying for you. You need to get here. You need to make her smile.”
“Okay,” Mark says. “Okay. Gimme a sec. Call right back.”
With apprehension mounting, he exits his office, strolls across the floor past rows of cubicles, and knuckle-taps the open door to Derek’s office.
Behind his desk, Derek looks up at Mark and resumes typing on his computer. No acknowledgment, no gesture.
Mark walks in and stands awkwardly before the desk. The view is vast, overlooking a swath of the Westside and the rise of the Santa Monicas, the Hollywood sign visible in the distance.
Two minutes pass.
Five.
Centered on the large square coffee table is a bold red-and-blue book called The 48 Laws of Power.
A brass-framed photograph of Alexa in a plunging-neckline dress rests on Derek’s desk, pointedly aimed outward.
It’s an 8 × 10, the kind actresses use for headshots.
Alexa’s lips are pursed, her index finger resting along her clavicle.
The bookcase behind Derek’s desk displays not books but miniature Porsche model cars. The decor suits a sophomore in college.
Mark clears his throat.
Derek glares up at him. “What?”
“I have to go,” he says. “I’m sorry. Maddy’s been injured.”
“Injured injured? Like she broke a leg?”
“She got burned. On a slide.”
“Burned on a slide,” Derek says, tapping his Montblanc against the leather blotter. “Third degree? Fourth?”
Mark feels the hinges of his jaw tighten, tells himself to loosen his expression. “I don’t think that bad. But she’s sensitive.”
“Yes,” Derek said. “Know who else is sensitive?”
He waits, but Mark does not give him the satisfaction of inquiring.
“Me. I’m sensitive. Know why I’m sensitive, Mark? Because one of my fucking chief product officers is three weeks behind schedule—wait, no, make that four weeks behind schedule, and my stock price is in the shitter. Know how much money I’ve lost in the past two months, Mark?”
Mark, too, has lost 60 percent of his unrealized holdings, though he’d started with a substantially lesser sum.
“You need to prioritize work right now, Mark, like the rest of us.”
“I’ve been working eleven-hour days, Derek. For weeks straight now.”
“When Elon was spinning up Tesla, he slept in a conference room in the factory.” Derek exhales, rubs his temples in circles.
“We’re assessing promotions next quarter.
I’ll give you a sneak peek now: You’re not getting one.
If you want to hold steady, have a second shot at delivering what is in your purview to deliver, you won’t run out of here midday every time your kid gets a scrape or a bee sting. ”
Heat boils up in Mark, scours his throat. He tastes the bile at the back of his mouth, acid and rage. He does not trust himself to speak.
“I gave you the plus-one invite from N0RM LLC. You have another man at home to handle anything and everything. So how ’bout you let him handle it? And you handle your responsibilities here.”
He goes back to his laptop.
Mark stands there for ten seconds. Twenty.
Derek does not look up.
Mark exits.
Walks on numb legs back to his office. Closes the door. Sits down at his desk. He fills with fury and shame. Shame is worse.
He makes a fist to slam onto his desk but stops just shy and then presses the pinkie edge to the wood. A few deep breaths.
He calls Rebecca back.
“Hey, Beccs. I can’t make it there. I’m sorry. Derek is being a total—”
“What do you mean you can’t make it? She was a mess, Mark. She was asking for you and only you. She needs her dad right now.”
“I can’t leave, Rebecca.”
“I get you’re balancing a lot with the upgrade and Dickhead Derek, but this was a bad one. Maddy needs you right now.”
“My job is on the line. This is the real world, not—” He catches himself, chest heaving.
“Not what?”
“Nothing. I’m just saying, someone has to pay for all this. Especially after this quarter-of-a-million-dollar boondoggle.”
“That was my choice?”
His teeth are clenched. “I’m not saying that.”
“And it’s not a boondoggle, it’s an—”
“Investment. Right.”
A long pause. He can hear her breathing.
“Why don’t you just stand up to Derek?”
“And what?” he says. “Get fired?”
“No. Set boundaries.”
His temper ignites before he can squash it. “Right. I’ll take lessons on that from you.”
He squeezes his eyes shut.
When Rebecca’s voice comes after the excruciating pause, it is very, very quiet. “We don’t do that. We aren’t sarcastic with each other.”
He knows he should apologize, that he eventually will apologize, but he cannot muster the fortitude to do so now. Not after getting emasculated in Derek’s office.
He rubs his eyes hard, colors kaleidoscoping behind the lids. “How is she now?”
“Still sleeping. I’m gonna take her home.”
“Can I . . .” His voice shakes, but he steadies it. “Can I hear her? Breathing?”
The word comes pert and hard: “Sure.”
A rustling noise, and then he hears his daughter’s little whistling breaths, shallow as a newborn’s.
He listens.
Covers his mouth.
And tries not to cry.