Hooked (7 page)

17

Thightanic.”

“Gross,” Annie said.

I was trying to engage Annie in a word game we invented: making up stupid pornographic titles for popular mainstream movies.

“What about
Forrest Rump
?”

We were about to enter the Marin Boat Club. Annie put her head on my shoulder. It was a spectacular day—the late fall gala of the yacht club, and a turning point for me and Annie. After much cajoling, she’d agreed to let me meet her family. In their natural habitat.

Annie surveyed the scene. “The fancy cars and boats, the newspaper accolades, the self-congratulatory bullshit—it’s infectious.”

“We’re not talking disease here.”

“Make sure you hose down after shaking anyone’s hand.”

The joint was hopping. We were making a beeline for the bar when a joyful voice exclaimed over the din. “Princess.” The people around us parted to reveal Annie’s father. He looked younger than I expected; his hair was not yet gray, and he was dressed in khakis and a short-sleeved button-down shirt—the uniform of the high-tech titan.

“Daddy,” she said warmly.

His arms were open. “May I have a quick word in private?”

“We’ll be right back, Turtle,” she whispered.

I watched her give him a hug, and the assembled parted back around them. I parked at the bar. I wasn’t sure I saw the problem with the lifestyle. Alcohol and bite-sized snacks were free. I was one complimentary Swedish massage away from country club heaven.

“What’s up, doc?”

I turned to face an alarmingly good-looking man. Or maybe I was just alarmed by the way he addressed me. It seemed strangely coincidental given my recent decision to abdicate a career in medicine. “So you came with Annie,” he said.

“I’m the designated drinker.”

“Nice work if you can get it,” he said. “She’s got an amazing ass.”

When he saw me flinch, he started laughing. “Dave Elliott,” he said, extending a hand. “Crass bastard.”

Dave described himself as an old family friend of the Kindles. He had done a bunch of travel, most recently in Asia, and was finally settling down. He owned a house in Marin and worked as a lawyer in San Francisco, doing some work for Annie’s father. He said they’d spent the previous weekend playing golf in Pebble Beach.

“Lucky man,” I said.

“I’ll give you a hundred bucks to burn my putter, then run your car over the ashes.”

We bantered for a while in guy-speak, the fidgety concise language of two men feeling each other out and seeking common ground. We finally got a rhythm and wound up discussing skiing, which he’d done his share of too—albeit in Switzerland.

I took a big slug of my tonic.

“Is she down with you getting loaded?”

I shrugged.

“She calls the shots, doesn’t she?” he said, like it was widely understood. “She picked out the last guy’s clothes. Wouldn’t let him wear plaid.”

I saw Annie knifing through the crowd with a purposeful look. “Would you mind if we left a little early?” she said calmly.

Given the intensity of her look, I knew better than to ask questions. Dave took a different tack. “Relax, Annie. Have a drink,” he said, then looked at me. “Solidarity, brother.”

She responded, “Don’t you have a trollop to be outwitted by?”

Outside, her face was flushed. She looked away from me, and started talking about problems the family was having with a start-up company in New York that they’d invested in. The problems stemmed from how to measure sales and projected revenue in an Internet start-up. She said she was trying to stay conservative but also move the company quickly to stay ahead of the market. He’d put her in charge, she said, but wouldn’t let her do her job. She had a cold look.

“He can’t treat me like this. He’s obsessed with control.”

I hadn’t realized she was in charge of anything or that her father could provoke such mercurial moods. But the truth was, I had a larger concern. “What’s the deal with Dave Elliott? Did you date him?”

Annie turned her head to me, then laughed. Like it was the funniest—and most stupid—thing I’d said in weeks. “God, no,” she said. She shook her head. “He would have liked to.”

We were in my car. From the passenger seat, Annie turned the key in the ignition, prompting a quick exit. “Dave and I used to be good friends. He was kind and a good listener. But he had designs on me the entire time. I trusted him. I confided in him. He felt sure we were developing a romantic relationship. The truth is, I never even considered it. He told me he loved me. He’s never forgiven me.”

Two days later, I was standing outside Sam’s Deli, a couple of blocks from my apartment. I was a mouthful into a takeout turkey Reuben when a black BMW pulled up. I recognized it as the car that picked up Annie after our first date. The door opened.

“Annie?”

A male voice responded, “Hop in, Nathaniel. I’ll give you a lift home.”

The situation didn’t particularly set off alarm bells. I couldn’t imagine I’d be a kidnap victim. Particularly since (1) I was standing on a public corner on a bright San Francisco day, and (2) neither I, nor my family, could possibly have anything anyone could want. I peered in the car.

“Glenn Kindle,” he said. “Annie’s dad.”

He sat in the back, separated by a dark glass window from whoever was driving. On his lap sat a magazine, the SkyMall catalog.

“The secrets to happiness herein.” He held up the catalog. “You think this stuff is complete garbage, right? A vibrating putting green whose frequencies purportedly promote natural healing. I mean, give me a break. But see the bigger picture here. The SkyMall is the cutting edge of the capitalist dream. People love the hunt for something amazing. The sellers of this junk aren’t cheating people, they are giving us a reason for hope. Consumers are knowingly swept up in the illusion. A transaction is its own mutual emotional success.”

“Are you here to help me with personal philosophy or Christmas shopping?” I asked, smiling.

“I’d hoped to meet you last weekend—at the party.” He set down the magazine. “I was in the neighborhood so I figured I’d make amends.”

Amends for what? And how the hell did he know the location of my neighborhood?

I figured there was one decent way to get answers. I climbed in the car and we shook hands. I looked down at the half-eaten Reuben sandwich starting to sweat through the napkin.

“I didn’t bring enough for everybody,” I said.

He laughed and hit a button on his door. “Let’s go,” he said to the driver.

“I’m sorry we don’t have more time to get to spend together. Those events are always more fun in theory than reality.”

“Well, you’re welcome to come upstairs. I’ve got a chilled six-pack of Anchor Steam. I might actually only have five left . . . ” I said. I wasn’t trying to be smart-ass. Not entirely.

“Listen, I’ll speak frankly. Do I need to be worried?”

I considered his question as the car came to a halt. I looked out the darkened window. We were already at my apartment.

“I’m just wondering what you and Annie are up to.”

“I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said. “Nothing. Really. No weird
X-Files
voodoo stuff. You know, if we become in-laws, we’re going to look back at this and really laugh.”

His smile was strained.

“Forgive me. I’ve grown careful, and maybe a little too protective.”

“Nothing to forgive.”

“You’ve got a lot of debt, you had a run-in with a superior when you were in medical school. Now you’ve given all your training up to make ends meet as a journalist. It doesn’t quite add up.”

“Well, we don’t all need to make enough to spend the GNP of a small African nation on a car,” I suddenly counterpunched.

He chuckled.

“She’s right. You are funny. Forgive me. Let’s just call this a mix-up. We can start over next time.”

Just then, the car door popped open. It was being held by the driver. Glenn’s last comment hadn’t sounded much like a real apology. I lingered.

“Trust me, I know Annie is incredible.”

He nodded blankly and then cruised way.

I immediately called Annie, told her what happened, and said I was going to Palo Alto to finish the conversation.

“Please. Please don’t go see him,” she pleaded. “It will just make things worse.”

“Tell me right now. What is going on? Who does your father think he is? Who does he think
I
am?”

She said her father was just egomaniacal, overprotective, and feeling threatened by our relationship. He was also worried the dot-com boom might be petering out. They had to move fast.

Instead of confronting him, Annie suggested I join her on an upcoming business trip to New York. She promised that she would show me her world firsthand, tell me about her family, introduce me to Kindle Investment Partners.

I hoped the next few weeks would give me my desperately needed clarity.

They gave me the opposite.

18

K
iss me.”

Annie and I stood on the observation deck of the Empire State Building, and I found myself thinking of the bird that my father claimed attacked him as a boy. The attack happened as my father walked across a span bridge, which, my father said, explained his fear of both birds and heights. Then, when I was a boy, my father passed down his acrophobia by pressing my brother and me tight against the chairlift whenever we went skiing.

Standing on the observation deck with Annie, I felt no fear. I think it was because I had my arms wrapped around her, imagining I was responsible for saving her from whatever tragedy might befall. Being with her had become such a rush it crowded out everything else.

It was two-thirds of a day I’d wish on anyone. We woke up in a midtown hotel, fed each other continental breakfast in bed, and then spent the morning at the Bronx Zoo. Annie looked at the monkeys, baby elephant, and tigers and seemed to feel unbridled joy, and I looked at Annie looking at the animals and felt the same thing.

My education began on the airplane, in the first-class cabin. En route, she showed me a bunch of documents relating to her work as an investor, which seemed as scintillating as organic chemistry.

“How the hell do you know what this means?” I said.

“I thought
you
might know,” she said.

She explained that she and her father had reached a kind of a détente. He demanded she do things a certain way. She either obliged or did it her own way and risked his recriminations. But often, she would surmount his challenges and exceed his expectations. She earned respect—from herself.

The company we were going to visit was called Vestige Technologies. It made supply chain management software, which Annie translated as “automated inventory tracking.”

She gave me her sales pitch and I understood why mom-and-pop investors were sinking their retirement funds into Internet companies, and why many of them were making a big mistake. Annie said that the companies that most investors understood, or could envision as breakthroughs, met consumer needs, like allowing people to go online to buy books or groceries. Some of these would succeed, most would implode.

The real money and market power, Annie said, was in infrastructure, and in serving corporate customers. To thrive, companies had to do things more cheaply. That meant cutting expenses, the biggest of which is often labor. Capitalism’s next great leap forward was computer automation. Economic studies were showing it not only made companies more efficient overall, it made individual workers more productive. Long-accepted economic principles stood challenged. Profit per worker could soar.

One of the biggest drivers in reducing these costs would be supply chain management software. Corporations were just starting to use it to automate procurement of parts, relationships with manufacturers and customers, and internal management of employees.

Vestige wasn’t sexy, but it was going to make billions. And the real financial winners would be the earliest investors—venture capitalists like Kindle Investment Partners and its limited partners. They were in a position to enjoy spectacular growth.

Annie said early-stage investment was not just something her father was very good at—he was one of the best.

“He wants you to follow in his footsteps,” I said.

“I might have,” she said playfully. “Until I met you.”

The next day, after spending lunch in Central Park, we took a cab to the third tallest building in New York. We stood on top of the Empire State Building, about to lock lips.

“Why do you do it?” I said.

She kissed me. “Because you taste like pizza and bubble gum.”

“This work,” I said. “It always sounds like it makes you miserable. Then I see you making goofy faces at the zoo, and I think: Why not choose a life with more peace—whatever that might be?”

I felt a surge of wind and I pulled the collar of her jacket around her ears.

“Nat, make a funny monkey noise for me,” she said play- fully.

I eeped.

“I admire your decision to quit medical school, to take yourself off the beaten path. To take regular naps. I love it about you,” she said, turning serious. “But just because my path isn’t precisely serene the way you think of serenity doesn’t make it wrong. I can thrive in this environment, build great companies, create a lot of opportunities for people, and make a fortune. Then I can come home and have plenty of time to spend at the petting zoo.”

We never made it to dinner. I had showered and gotten dressed up. Annie was in the bathroom for an eternity. Finally, I knocked.

“Come in.”

She was sitting on the toilet, fully dressed, in a short skirt and black stockings. She would have looked stunning, except there was a smudge of red lipstick that tapered off from the right corner of her lips. It looked clownlike and intentional, a defacing.

“Make another funny monkey noise,” she said, trying to sound upbeat.

“What’s the matter?”

“You don’t really love me,” she said.

“What?”

“This isn’t real.”

I snagged a tissue. “That’s the smeared lipstick talking.” I wiped off her lips and chin. “I love you completely,” I said. “I have never felt anything like this for anybody.”

Annie closed her eyes, lost in thought, opened them, then told me a story. When she was sixteen, her father arranged for her to spend a summer working for a local Republican congressional candidate. She volunteered instead to work for the Democrat. Her father walked into the Democrat’s campaign headquarters and started yelling at her, humiliating her. Later, he showed her a newspaper clipping in which the Democrat had been discovered to have had an affair years earlier with the family’s illegal-immigrant nanny. Annie said she suspected her father had leaked the affair to the paper himself.

“He’s a maniac,” I said.

Annie let the words sink in. “We did a thousand things together when I was little. We went to the zoo, we traveled. But my absolute favorite was when we went skiing. Not the skiing part, but the chairlift. It was just me and Dad suspended in the air and he would ask me question after question, what I thought about this, and what I thought about that. I hated when the ride was over and I skied as fast as I could down the mountain so we could do it again. Then I got older and independent.”

She wiped the makeup off her chin.

“He feels like he’s losing you?”

“Maybe. My father is a pragmatist. Relationships to him are important, but they are things to be temporarily sought, like consumables, then attained, checked off, and rejected if they get too unstable. He has his own definition of . . . love. To him, emotional pursuits have the same essence as materialism, entertaining and fun to a point but then a distraction if they get out of control.”

The softness had drained from her.

I told her what he’d said about the SkyMall catalog, eliciting a thin smile. She said the basement was filled with gimmicky catalog items, like a dish that provided cats with fresh, aerated water, suitcases with ergonomically correct handles, and a remote-controlled shark. Her father was fascinated by capitalist seduction.

I started laughing. “If he ever figures out the channel for the Home Shopping Network we’re all doomed.”

“It’s why my mom left him. He thinks of love the way he thinks of the solar-powered cooling safari hat. It’s an illusion, and something to desire and sacrifice for, so long as it isn’t too much trouble.”

She turned away from me, to the mirror, and looked at me in the reflection. I waited for her to continue, but she didn’t, and she didn’t respond to gentle follow-up questions.

I surmised that she wanted to be alone, so I left her and sat on the bed and waited. Finally, the bathroom door opened. Annie had removed her clothes. What followed was ferocious lovemaking, which was nearly derailed when Annie, for the first time, started to talk dirty, uttering explicit instructions. I was getting into it, but something snapped in the mood, and Annie giggled, and then we both started laughing.

The next day was her big meeting. Annie’s job was to convince some investment bankers to take the company public, which meant huge returns for Kindle Investment Partners. The meeting was down in a conference room in the hotel where we were staying. Moments after Annie rushed out the door, I noticed she’d left a manila folder with her presentation. I found the glass-walled conference room easily. Inside, I could see Annie holding court. Five men in suits listened rapt—one of them was Dave Elliott, the lawyer for Annie’s father.

I rapped on the window, and Annie beckoned me inside. I handed her the envelope. “Nathaniel Idle, everybody,” she said, eliciting bored nods. She took the manila envelope and looked inside it. She continued to exude professionalism. “Thanks,” she said. “This looks to be in order.”

I tried to catch her eye, but she looked back to the group and I unceremoniously departed.

Two months later, I got a ringside seat to the dynamic between Annie and her father.

We were at the Atherton house. Her father and his third wife—a thirty-something who was wiser and gentler than the clichés about rich guys and their blonde mates would have you believe—were supposed to be away. Annie and I were in the kitchen, blackening fish. We heard the garage door open.

Glenn Kindle was in an ebullient mood. He promptly took us to the garage and showed us why. Rather than go away for the weekend, he had had a change of heart and gone to the car dealership and bought a Mercedes convertible. He handed Annie the keys.

“NotesMail goes public next week, and thanks in no small part to our new junior partner,” he said. He grinned.

The keys sat in Annie’s open palm. She didn’t say a word. She looked bewildered at first. Her father winked at me as he ran his hand along the beautiful metallic blue machine. Then he started walking toward a door leading back into the house.

“Shotgun!” I said.

I looked up to see Annie following her father. He turned and smiled at her. Almost like an afterthought, he said, “Ted won’t know what hit him.”

“What did you do?” she asked.

“I cut him out,” he responded matter-of-factly. “He deserved it. We did the work. He was not, to say the least, pleased. He called me a ruthless cunt. No one’s ever called me that before.”

Annie seemed to smirk. “So unbelievably cold.”

“Big fishes eating little fishies,” he said. He held up his soda as if toasting, and walked out.

Annie turned back to me. She tossed the keys in my direction in a big arc. I dipped to my left to catch them before they hit the pavement.

“He’s out of his mind,” I said, recovering.

“It’s a payoff.”

“For keeping you quiet about Ted?”

“Junior partner is a euphemism. For lackey.” Her lip seemed to quiver. “I put the deal together. I earned us millions by convincing NotesMail to let us be their lead investor.”

“And Ted?”

“My father doesn’t appreciate what I’m bringing to the table.”

I took a step toward her. She continued her thought.

“There is so much competition to find viable companies and get them to agree to fair valuations. The other big firms would have killed for the position that I put us in. I put the projections together and I sold the founders on this and I shouldn’t be treated like a second-class citizen.”

I grabbed Annie by the shoulders as if to shake her and whispered, “Stop!”

She looked at me and took a step back.

“Annie Leigh Kindle. I love you. I’m going to marry you someday. I’m going to give you children, and dogs, and fish.
I’ll
be the breadwinner. You can be the family vet. It doesn’t matter, so long as we’re together.”

First Annie smiled, thinly. Then, for the first time I could remember in a long time, Annie cried. A single tear became a gathering. When she finally spoke again, it was in a whisper.

“I need out,” she said.

“Sounds good. You’ll quit. We’ll go far away—to Italy or Brazil. Someplace like that. We’ll move into a château.”

Annie wiped her eyes. She pushed back from me and looked away.

“Out of us.”

I was sure I’d misunderstood her. “What are you talking about?”

“Out,” she whispered again, looking so distant.

“Where is this coming from?”

Annie turned her head and looked at me—square in the eyes. She tipped her face forward and pinched her nose with her thumb and forefinger. She held the pose for a long time. Then she put her hand to her forehead and laughed.

“Annie?”

The laughter continued.

“I’m kidding. Who am I kidding?” she said.

She took my hand.

“What am I talking about?”

She shook her head, like some spell had been broken.

“Annie, did you just try to break up with me?”

“Tell me about the château,” she said. “Please.”

“Why did you say that? What would cause you to say something like that?”

Annie took the keys out of my hand. She kissed my cheek.

“I know how you feel about me. You can’t imagine how it makes me feel. It’s so powerful. So incredible,” she said, smiling. “I’m a woman. I’m temperamental. Can I fall back on that just once?”

I wasn’t feeling playful. I wasn’t smiling.

“I promise,” Annie said.

“You promise?”

“I promise I will never ever break up with you as long as I live.”