What A Girl Wants (14 page)

“What do you know about the long haul?” Hayley asked, now amused.

“I don't know. I'm just saying.” She paused. “On the other hand, that's something I haven't considered before. If you go through too many positions up front, maybe he figures he's done it all and he won't see you again.”

“You never
want
to see them again.”

“So for me, I might as well go for the variety pack. You, being more the girlfriend type, might want to stick to the basics.”

“You know, I think this is both more than I need to know and more than I
should
know. I'm going to be trying to get into the mood and all this talk is going to have me analyzing the whole thing.”

“Nah. Just forget I brought it up.”

“Uh, okay.”

Before Hayley could wallow in sexual insecurity, Diane changed the subject. “Where're you guys going on the date?” she asked.

“Uglioto's, then a Giants game. Isn't that neat? It's so classic American romance.” Hayley hugged herself, happy just thinking about it.

Audra looked dubious. “ ‘Classic American romance?' Baseball?”

“Yeah. A romantic Italian meal followed by America's favorite pastime. Baseball.”

“Your first date is a baseball game,” Diane repeated.

“Yeah, so? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Do you like baseball?”

“I'm fine with baseball. I mean, I don't know enough about baseball to dislike it. What are you trying to say?”

Diane sat back and folded her arms, a smile on her face. “He's testing you.” She nodded, impressed. “Nice.”

S
trategy. It all came down to strategy.

The way Hayley figured it, all she had to do was score a job offer. If she could just do that, it would take some of the pressure off. It would help her confidence, and even more important, it would lock down the promise of an income again.

She didn't want to say anything to her friends, but the money situation was starting to get a little tight. So all Hayley wanted to do at this point was get one job offer in the pocket. Just to get the ball rolling.

It wasn't hard to find the office of Mouth-to-Mouth Recitation, because it was literally blocks from her old job. The biggest apparent difference between the two offices was that the elevator was out of service in this one.

So Hayley trudged up three flights of stairs in her stilettos until she reached the landing. Trying not to sound totally winded, she approached the company receptionist and smiled. The girl looked about sixteen years old and answered the smile with that
familiar sort of world-weary startup-worker expression that belied her youthful appearance.

She was sitting there with a fancy phone headset squeezed over her fuchsia-dyed crew cut, eyeing Hayley with a sullen expression, emphasized all the more by her black lipstick.

It was unclear what the girl had to be so snotty about. Hayley looked dubiously at the receptionist desk. It was fashioned out of spare plywood, had obvious splinters hanging off it, and looked for all the world like one of San Francisco's more inexperienced carpenters had put it together.

Whatever. One more time, with feeling. Lean. Extend.
“Hi. I'm Hayley. Jane. Smith.” Smile. “I have an interview with George Bassum.”

The receptionist immediately perked up. “You're Audra Banks's friend!”

“Yeah, do you know Audra?”

“Her firm helped us get funding. We looove Audra. George Bassum—the guy you'd work most closely with—he's in triage right now, so I'm going to take you on the company tour first.”

She punched a button. “Crystal, it's Amy. I'm going off-line for about fifteen, twenty minutes. Interview. Right. Can I transfer calls to you? Great.” She took off the headset and laid it on the desk. “Why don't we start with the employee kitchen? It's really spectacular.”

She stood up and strode off down the hallway, with Hayley trying to keep pace as she stumbled behind her in her long black pencil skirt. The skirt really flattered the lower body, but it didn't allow full leg extension. Of course, Hayley hadn't expected to be doing much running.

They stepped into the employee kitchen. “This is our espresso
machine,” Amy said reverently, as she waved her hands over the machine like a game-show hostess.

“You grind your own beans over here,” she said, “And then transfer them to here . . . it can make two cups at one time, has a frother over here, on the right, but you gotta be careful because it has a tendency to spritz out at you . . . and in this cupboard we have the vanilla and chocolate powder sprinkles.”

Her voice grew stern. “We
only
use dark French roast from Peet's Coffee ground on five for a gold filter. Milk is brought in weekly and you can choose from nonfat, one percent, low-fat, or half-and-half, and we can special order acidophilus if you have a problem. Here, let me make you one.”

“No, it's not—”

But Amy was already in high gear, protesting that it was a Mouth-to-Mouth tradition to greet people with her signature coffee-making skills. “I'll give you milk if you want it, but you really oughta drink it straight.”

She made it sound like it wasn't really a choice. Hayley studied Amy's face as she carefully prepared twin espressos.

This had to be some sort of test. Interesting. Most tech companies used mind games. Like when those pompous Microsoft interviewers asked you to figure out how to land a plane when the surface area you were given was a perfect square, then sat back and watched you try to come up with an answer that was sufficiently creative and unique.

Now
this
was the kind of test Hayley could appreciate. And Amy was clearly an accomplished barista. After a couple minutes of processing, Amy handed her a paper cup filled with about three inches of espresso.

“Thanks.”

Amy downed hers like a kamikaze shot.

Hayley eagerly lifted the cup to her lips. Her eyes teared up before she'd even taken a sip.

The brew was so strong it smelled like kerosene vapors. This was no “welcome” espresso. That much was obvious. But with Amy watching, Hayley had only a few seconds to figure out the score.

Well, if she failed to drink it, she might not get an offer.
Bottoms up
. She downed the drink in two gulps.

Hayley smiled at Amy in spite of her blurry vision and tossed her cup in the trash.

Amy didn't miss a beat. “And here's the soda refrigerator. The regular canned soda is free, as is the bottled water. But we ask employees to make a fifty-cent donation for the Odwalla smoothies. You put the money here. Any questions? Well, you've worked in startups before, haven't you? You know the drill.”

I certainly do.
Hayley smiled. “We didn't get bottled water at my last startup.”

“Well, a lot of the employees work at least part of the week out of the Silicon Valley office, which is located on a nuclear waste Superfund site. So never drink the tap water. Even here. You don't know who from Sillyville's been around touching what.”

“Oh. Okay.” Hayley looked fearfully over her shoulder at the empty espresso cup lying in the trash.

“Anyway, we have a company beer bust every Friday. Free pizza and beer and a big bowl of candy. You know, Snickers and stuff.” Amy reached up into a bowl sitting on top of the refrigerator and pulled down a candy bar, which she held out to Hayley. “Have a chocolate bar.”

Hayley looked at the chocolate bar. It was a little early for
candy, but she wasn't about to show weakness. She smiled at Amy and took the chocolate bar. Amy stood there and watched Hayley unwrap it and start eating.

When Hayley was about halfway through the candy, Amy opened the soda refrigerator and pulled out a Mountain Dew. “You must be thirsty. Here.” She opened the can and pressed it into Hayley's free hand.

“Uh, thanks.” Mountain Dew had just about the highest caffeine content on the market. Add her morning coffee to the extra-strength espresso plus a Mountain Dew and a chocolate bar and what you got was something akin to mainlining caffeine straight into the bloodstream.

Hayley recognized a fit test when she saw one. It wasn't even the strangest test she'd heard of in the industry. And she could handle it, all right, although she probably wouldn't sleep for a couple nights.

Amy popped the lid on her own Mountain Dew and left the kitchen. Hayley followed behind, tossing the candy bar wrapper in the trash behind her.

“The bathroom's here on the left,” Amy was saying, “Unisex. I have to be honest with you and tell you that it's not nearly as exciting as it looked on
Ally McBeal
. Have you ever noticed that on TV, you never actually hear anyone . . . Oh, sorry. I should probably just get on with it.”

Amy paused briefly in the hall and took a swig of soda, gesturing to a row of offices with her elbow. “Executives get real offices. They're lined up by that wall over there. That dark-haired woman?” She pointed through the glass wall of one of the offices. “That's Lucy Tedescho, the editor-in-chief.”

She started walking down the hall again and said, “So. We're
looking for someone with creativity to work on the editorial staff writing headlines and maybe a little blurb copy. We're looking for someone . . . how should I put this . . . we're looking for someone who can do ‘snarky.' ”

“Snarky?” Hayley stopped in her tracks.

Amy turned around in surprise when she realized she wasn't being followed.

“Yeah, you know. Hip, urban, fashionable, a voice that says ‘we're insiders, we know, and we're willing to tell you so you can be cool, too . . . ' you know, ‘snarky.' ”

“Well, that's great, because I specialize in snarky.”
In fact, I got fired from my last job for excessive snarkiness. How about that? Heh. Well, that and for creating “a hostile work environment.” Okay, don't say that out loud, Hayley.

“Fantastic. Well, if you don't have any questions about the job, I guess our interview is over.”

Hayley looked at Amy in surprise, and the girl smacked her forehead with the ball of her hand and said, “I'm such a dunce. Did I forget to introduce myself? I'm Amy Mathers. I do the same thing you'll be doing, but in a different editorial department.”

You'll be doing? You'll?
Maybe it was just a slip. From her own experience interviewing, Hayley knew it was sometimes hard to remember that the person being interviewed was just a potential candidate. But it could very well mean that she was heading toward an offer. It was a very good sign.

“There's one thing I want to make sure you understand,” Amy was saying. “You know how hard it is to get venture capital funds these days. Well, it's very important that we try to conserve cash right now. It's part of our new company mission statement.”

She broke off suddenly and said, “Which reminds me, please
remember to tell Audra how
psyched
and
thankful
we are that she's keeping us on the funding list.”

Huh? Okay. Whatever.

Amy was back on track. “So anyway, that's why we all take a shift as receptionist. It's either that or give up the free drinks, and nobody wants that, of course.” She laughed. “You've pretty much seen the best part of the office. We'll just go see if George is ready. On the way we can drop in on some of the people on the team so you can get a better sense of what it would be like to work here.”

Hayley almost wanted to say that she already had a pretty good idea of what it would be like to work there, since it appeared the loft plan was the same one as at her old job.

And the floor layout looked pretty much the same as at her old job.

And she already knew what it was like to work in sweltering heat.

Amy led the way through the maze of cubes, introducing Hayley as “the editorial candidate.” Finally she stopped in front of a cube with a large swath of fabric draped over the doorway. It was embroidered with a Chinese symbol.

She knocked on the cube wall, and a man pushed aside the fabric and beckoned them inside.

“This is our copy chief, George Bassum,” Amy said. “George, this is Hayley Smith. You two will be working closely together. George, Hayley liked my espresso; isn't that nice?”

Hayley could see Amy's thumbs-up reflected in George's monitor screen.
Will be working. Will be.
Hayley's hopes soared.

And then she took a closer look at George Bassum.

George stood in his cube with Post-its stuck on each finger of his left hand and a copy of
Feng Shui for the New Economy Workplace
in his right hand. He raised the Post-it-blanketed hand in an
open-palm greeting. Prior to this, Hayley would have thought that a man with a plaid short-sleeved shirt and pants featuring an elastic waistband couldn't get geekier, but apparently she'd been wrong.

“Thanks, Amy.” In a stilted voice he added, “And I'm sure she liked the soda and chocolate as well.”

“Yes, she did, George.” Amy and George exchanged some very transparent nonverbal communication and then Amy left.

“Hayley, come on in.”

Hayley stepped into the tiny cube. There were Post-its completely blanketing the inside of his workspace.

“This is my fortune corner,” he said, gesturing with his head. A yellow Post-it was pinned to the wall. He'd written “fortune” on it. “I'm really hoping we'll still go IPO. Hey, while you're here, go have a peek at the cube next door. It's a good one. The loft temperature-control box is built into that cube. The new editorial person will be sitting there.”

Hayley walked out and around into the adjoining cube. Her heart sank. It looked pretty much the same as the cube from her old job, but there were two significant differences.

The first difference was the fact that the temperature-control box was mounted to a giant column that seemed designed to support the loft ceiling. It stood right in the middle of the cube, and it wasn't clear whether she'd be able to move her chair back far enough to stretch out her legs under the desk.

And that was the other thing. There was no desk. On the floor lay a phone, a hammer, a pile of nails, and a stack of wood.

George came up next to her, and he must have seen the disturbed look on her face, because he rushed out the words, “Don't worry; we'll have the ergonomics expert help out after you build
your desk. And you'll probably want to borrow my feng shui book when I'm done.” He pointed into the cube. “You'll want the computer positioned right over here, so that when you're working on it, stress can flow straight through the door and out of your life forever.”