Page 6 of The Hard Launch

I drag Kate to a yoga class with me, even though she says she’d rather go get a drink. I’m trying to find healthier releases, so instead we bask in a solid hour of active meditation, my brain completely in the back seat. And then it’s time for savasana, the part at the end where you’re supposed to be in a state of pure peace and relaxation. Unless you’re me, because all my calm flies out the window the second I’m not wrapping my arms around my legs and balancing on one toe. I lie there while my brain spirals through all the terrible things that happened today. The presentation. The elevator. The anxiety of Glenn telling me I’d need to go pitch my idea to Jude, followed by the dread when Jude opted out. It sounds like a thing you’d do before you fire someone.

The teacher rings her singing bowl to ease us back to the reality I’ve been too stressed to escape, and I sit up and hug my knees for a minute before taking a deep breath. It’s all out of my hands, to some degree. I simply need to accept it.

I turn to tell Kate my new, Zen plan and find her asleep on her mat, mouth open.

“Kate,” I whisper, but she doesn’t respond until I poke her. She wakes with a start.

“Namaste,” I tell her. Everyone else has rolled up their mats and is filing out the door. “I decided I’m surrendering to the startup gods on this whole work situation. Whatever is going to happen, is going to happen.”

Kate looks skeptical. “You’re going to sit back and let the universe unfold?”

I nod. She holds her fingertips to her temple and says, “I see it unfolding a martini and a caprese salad. Grab your shit, we’re going drinking.”

With sweaty hairlines and in yoga clothes, we sit at the bar of the first Italian place we get to in North Beach. It’s full of tourists and the food is overpriced, but Kate distracts me from my troubles with tales of stupid customers and her terrible dating history. I tell her I’m sorry I don’t have any great stories to share.

“Because you never have bad dates?”

“I never have any dates,” I say. “I told you last year, work is my boyfriend now.”

She shakes her head. “As you see, work is about as good a boyfriend as that dick Marcus was.”

“He wasn’t so bad.”

She bites her lips closed to keep from disagreeing with me. Marcus and I were together for three years, and it was really good for the first bit, until he moved to LA for law school. We stayed together but grew apart; he said he needed to focus on his studies, which turned out to be girls in his study group. And girls not in his study group.

“What if you just found someone to compare him to? You love data. Collect some more.”

I know she’s probably right, but that’s not where my head’s at these days.

“I made a decision that my career comes first right now. I want to accomplish things, I want to establish myself. Glenn’s given me all this opportunity and I need to take advantage of it. Unless I get fired tomorrow.”

“You’re not getting fired. And you know it goes two ways, right? Lettercat is lucky to have you.”

“I know.”

“Fine, so you’re a company girlie right now. Let’s find you a company man. You can make out in the break room when no one’s looking. Anything more will need to happen in the stairwell or the bathroom, though. Open Doors and all.”

I laugh. “As much as I love our team, it’s in the most platonic way possible. It’s slim pickings anyway. Dave’s married and also just, no. The QA guys are my mortal enemies, and your CS boys are all bearded weirdos.”

“It’s true, they are,” she nods sadly. “What about Trevor?”

I retch. “Trevor is despicable. You should have seen his smug face when he got back from his meeting with Jude. Everything I do is wrong, but that nepo-bro can’t stop winning.”

“Come on now.” She pats my hand. “They’re old friends. Trevor’s basically Jude’s hype man. There’s something cute about it.”

I wrinkle my nose and eat all three olives from martini number two’s skewer in one swoop. “Stop ruining my pity party; they’re both the absolute worst. I don’t know what I’m going to do without Glenn there as my buffer. I hope his wife stays pregnant for two years.”

“You’re going to be fine. Think of it as an opportunity to show Jude how amazing you are, close up and personal.” She whispers the last bit seductively.

“Ew,” I say.

“Come on,” she says. “I’m sure he’s only sexually aroused by KPIs, but you can’t tell me the man’s not hot.”

“He’s unkempt.”

She looks at me, concerned, and waves her hand in a little wax-on motion.

“You mean like, down there?”