Impostor Syndrome

2-2

She’d rented the entirety of the Golden Rock Ranch for the weekend, set on its own hill in Stags Leap. She and Leo sat on the deck outside her suite, a table between them. Leo was drooped with his head against the chair’s back, eyes ringed with red. His left hand slowly stroked his stomach, as if easing some inner queasiness.

‘Drink too much last night?’ Julia asked, amused.

He shifted uncomfortably. ‘I’m getting older, yes? I know that’s your implication.’

‘You should probably wait until the evening to indulge again. If you do.’ She rose and retrieved a pitcher of water.

‘Thank you,’ Leo said as she poured. ‘Charlie seems nice,’ he added. Julia’s new husband was at the airport, seeing off his mother and father, the former who had worn an insane red sequined ball gown last night, designed to steal attention.

‘He is nice,’ she agreed.

Leo set down the glass. ‘Very American.’

Julia suppressed a smile. Two years earlier she’d been informed she ought to get a husband – time to establish family ties was what Leo said, and instantly Julia had understood. She pretended to be insulted, resistant, but secretly began her endeavor immediately. She knew the SPB had likely already begun to strategize; she was not going to be controlled, told to spread her legs for some septuagenarian with a high security clearance or a closeted CEO with a secret phone line.

She met Charlie through a friend, because she now had friends, because guess what? Once your company was acquired and your net worth climbed into nine digits, you became more interesting not only to yourself but also to others. Like magic! Athena, an Israeli biologist who ran a gene-mapping company, had come up to her at a party. Murmuring: ‘Have I got a man for you.’

At the time, Julia already had a semi-boyfriend. Zack Stein, venture capitalist on the rise, excessive hair product, obnoxious car, but he was decent-looking and not too short and seemed willing to learn and improve. By now Julia had undergone her own modifications: gone were the bad clothes, lurid makeup, clumsy hair color and cut. When she recalled how she’d first appeared in California, wearing her neon tracksuit (tracksuit!) as she hiked Rancho San Antonio, mascara clumped around her eyes – she wanted to die. Why hadn’t Leo helped? Why get a voice coach and an acting teacher but not a stylist? But men didn’t think of such things.

Zack was fine, and Julia could picture herself married to him – maybe. The only problem was that lately his communications had assumed a certain tenor, as if she were not an executive who out-earned him twelve to one but rather one of his firm’s many analysts, some young nubile recent grad:

• I find it sexy when a woman is always THRILLED to see me

• Happy to mentor you ;)

• Really busy this month, you know how intense I am about work…

So okay, Julia told Athena, let’s meet him – not expecting much. And then Athena brought over Charlie. Charlie: dark blond hair, perfect American teeth, like a white picket fence in his mouth. Julia was five nine and he was half a head taller, even when she was in heels.

‘You have a bit of a sunburn,’ Julia had said, spotting a patch of red behind his temple.

‘Really?’ He touched the area. ‘Right. From surfing.’

‘Is that what you do?’

‘Do I surf professionally, you mean?’ He laughed. ‘No. I’m a doctor. Cardiologist.’

Cardiologist. Julia liked doctors as a rule: they earned less than her, as nearly all men did, but didn’t have a complex about it.

‘I would ask what you do, if only to be polite,’ Charlie said, still smiling, still friendly. ‘But I already know.’

That had been the start. The draw was that he did not care. Did not pretend otherwise, went and said out loud what so many men would not, that she was who she was. It was as if the champagne she held spilled into the air between them – that heady mixture of interest and lust that was so delicious and yet totally unexpected. Because how often in life did you get exactly what you want? How rare was it not only to find love, but for the person to love you back?

Charlie. Charlie Charlie Charlie. She had chosen him. He was perfect.

But instead of rolling around in bed, eating breakfast with her flawless new husband, Julia was stuck outside with this old, hung-over, and frequently tedious man.

Leo was fussing about with a fork, hovering over the food. Earlier that morning the manager had delivered a charcuterie platter and sliced fruit; Julia had taken some bites of pineapple, but the rest was untouched. Leo speared into the dragon fruit, nibbling suspiciously at its edges.

‘It’s good,’ Julia said. ‘Even better in Thailand.’

He wagged a finger. ‘Don’t forget we come from the same place.’ Julia kicked the table. ‘How’s business?’ she asked, before regretting the question. She didn’t want Leo to think she was nosing about his work – she knew very little of his cover in California. From what she understood, he worked out of an office, one of those sad single-man consulting shops, as befitting a minor relative riding on her coattails.

‘It’s fine.’ He crumpled a piece of bresaola into his mouth. ‘Busy.’

‘Good.’ She considered asking some polite follow-ups, but was afraid there was no way of doing so without sounding disingenuous, like when she was forced to compliment toddlers during the annual Take Your Kids to Tangerine event. ‘Perhaps you can share some thoughts about marriage,’ she said instead. ‘Any guidance, tips for success.’ Julia was actually curious to hear his answer. They rarely spoke about personal matters, Leo dodging her probes while simultaneously pressing for details on Tangerine’s organizational chart.

‘Guidance,’ Leo repeated. He made another pass at the meats, his fork darting for the duck confit. ‘What’s to say? Marriage is just power constantly being renegotiated.’

This? This was all he had to offer? Sometimes Julia thought Leo might be losing it. His random confidences on various failings of the SPB, like an attempt to implant Scottish Fold kittens with listening devices, intended for the daughter of a Japanese executive, only for the cats to disappear into the streets of Osaka (‘Even our animals,’ he mused, ‘want to defect’); the way he would occasionally lapse into gloom without provocation or warning, sulking his way through the last course of dinner. Late forties wasn’t too young for a midlife crisis, right?

‘Well, you’re not married, anyway,’ she teased. ‘Yet.’

He ignored this. ‘What we do is important. Sometimes I wonder if you forget. Who you truly work for.’

Julia bristled. ‘I’ve done everything you’ve asked. The wedding was exactly as you wanted.’

‘Right.’ Leo cut a banana into neat slivers. ‘And now that the wedding’s finished, we’ll be asking more of you.’

She fought her temper. ‘More? Please be fair. I’ve contributed. Have been contributing.’ How much dirt had she passed along over the years? A tech CEO’s drug problem. The Lockheed executive sleeping with his brother’s wife. An attorney general with real estate dreams and credit card debt. Wallet fantasies, Leo called them. Zipper problems.

‘As you should. As you will continue to do.’

I just got married yesterday, dickhead. She wondered why he was being such a hard-ass. What did Leo want? Fine, she would get out and eavesdrop more; even though it was technically her wedding week she would attend Sarah Kleiner’s boutique opening next Tuesday, since her husband was CEO of CyberSoft, and purchase one of Sarah’s hideous handbags.

‘We want you to run a deep search on some people.’

‘What?’

‘We need information,’ Leo said. Depositing a slice of banana into his mouth. ‘On a group of individuals. All their Tangerine data: messages, browsing, search activity.’

Julia dug her nails into her thigh. What Leo was asking was an enormous breach of the trust and privacy Tangerine’s entire business model was based upon. Users would never browse, message, search, or upload if they believed someone was watching – machines, fine; algorithms, maybe; but never humans. No one person sitting in judgment over their Valtrex, their porn, their gambling, their shopping; the stalking of their ex from high school, and his wife, and whether she was fat now after the twins, going to the album and then clicking again, click click click click click.

Though it wasn’t the privacy that was her main concern.

‘I can’t get caught. If I’m caught, my career’s over.’

‘So don’t get caught.’

‘It’s harder than that, you understand? What you want, it isn’t easy. Otherwise everyone would do it.’

‘If I believed my requests easy, I could send anyone. Train any nobody from off the street.’ But instead I picked you, being unsaid. I picked you, and now it’s time for payment.

‘I – I’ll see what’s possible.’

Leo nodded. They both knew this meant she would do it. With a short grunt he stood and reached for the coffee. ‘We also want you to start transferring data from Tangerine’s servers.’

The hot pit of temper inside her gut instantly re-flared. ‘This was never part of the arrangement. It places me at risk.’

‘We don’t want all the server data,’ Leo argued as he poured. As if this were even possible. ‘Our requests would be specific. All queries coming from Tel Aviv over a certain weekend, for example.’

Julia shook her head, more violently this time. She realized that despite her earlier training she had not truly thought this day would come – when she would have to risk something important, an accomplishment she alone had achieved, for a bunch of old generals she’d never met and who likely knew nothing about technology. And what would they do if she were caught? What responsibility would they take, other than to say that yet again a woman had messed up?

‘Is there anything else you’re planning to request?’ she fumed. ‘If so, tell it to me now. All of it.’

Leo blinked at her. ‘We also want access to FreeTalk. Messages and location.’

For a moment Julia was unable to speak. Though the air outside was warm her hands were cold and when she looked down they were leached of color. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No. No. Absolutely impossible.’

FreeTalk, a five-year-old app through which users could send messages and photos, was Pierre’s latest acquisition and darling; the service was enormously popular, ostensibly for its encryption features. The two founders, Sean Dara and Johan Frandsen, who’d frequently stated that privacy was their highest priority, that they could never sell the company, had nevertheless in the end sold, to Tangerine, for $9 billion – upon which they’d moved into Tangerine’s headquarters, faces flush with embarrassment and money. Julia didn’t like Sean or Johan, but better two dudes than one woman. She had yet to see any large company support more than one high-profile female executive at a time – it was as if too many might suck up all the oxygen, causing the entity to collapse in on itself like a dying star.

‘What’s impossible about it?’ Leo actually looked curious.

‘Pierre promised Sean and Johan total autonomy. FreeTalk’s technical infrastructure is separate from Tangerine’s. As is its management. It was one of the key deal points of the acquisition.’

‘You’ll change their mind. You’re good at that.’

‘This isn’t something you can propel me to deliver through flattery. I can’t.’

‘Yes you can.’ And then quietly: ‘You will.’

A bubble of hate, for his humiliating her with a direct order. ‘What’s it all for? Some kind of grand plan?’

‘You’ve been watching too many movies. This isn’t a one-time request. There will be an ongoing expectation.’

‘It must be for something.’

‘You have development cycles at work, do you not? Periods where you invest, spend to create products. Eventually though, your goal is for such products to earn money.’

Not in the Valley, Julia thought, recalling an autonomous start-up she’d met with last week, which projected it would need to lose at least $4 billion before turning profitable. She’d thanked them for coming and then directed Tangerine’s venture arm not to invest; later the CEO had emailed Pierre, complaining of her ‘catty’ demeanor.

Taking her silence for assent, Leo continued: ‘All our rivals are investing in technology. The political situation in the West is, at best, unstable. You understand you’ve already been extended a long period of dormancy? For years, I pushed the SPB to leave you alone, let you rise. And now you have. They’re impatient, Julia. It’s only fair they see some return.’

She shoved her legs against the chair. ‘I like my life. I’ve earned it.’

‘No one’s taking away your life. In fact, it would only please me if you flew even higher. What a lot of fun that’d be, yes? All we’re asking is that you share some back. With the country that brought you here.’

‘You think that’s all it is, that you drop me in California and this is what automatically happens? That you take – how did you put it? – any nobody off the street, and they end up as COO? Twelve-hour days, seven days a week, for years. Hundreds of others, working just as hard to try and take my position.’

‘What do you want me to say, thank you? I thank you. Your country thanks you in advance.’

Julia pushed away from the table and stood. ‘Are we done?’

Leo gaped at her, surprised. In all their years together, Julia had never ended a conversation. It had always been Leo who called, Leo who asked, Leo who left and came. She thought he might object, order her to sit, but instead he exclaimed: ‘Look!’

She looked. In her haste, she had jolted the table, and the carafe was on its side, coffee pouring from its beak. If this were her home, she would already be running for a napkin; scrubbing at the linen with soap, her fingernails digging out the stain.

‘You clean up,’ Julia said, and then went inside and shut the door.