The Startup Wife(29)
Li Ann stands up, smiling extra-sweetly because she’s about to turn them down. “We’ll be in touch.” She hands back the ring.
“Oh, no, you can keep that, we got a great deal on the prototypes. Excellent supply chain if we can get it up and running.”
Li Ann glances at the list she’s printed out. “The next one is called No Touch.”
Two people in identical black suits stand facing each other. They start to move, their hands gliding up toward each other. One of them starts to speak. “In the future,” she says, “the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and new viruses will change the way we interact with each other. Touching will become rare.” They step back from each other, then turn to face us, identical twins with matching cropped hair. “Developed by a team of social anthropologists, behavioral psychologists, and dancers, No Touch is introducing new ways to uphold social norms while maintaining safety.”
They project a series of images on the screen. “We will use nudge theory and mass social marketing to promote safer greetings, such as”—and now they are folding at the waist—“bowing”—holding their palms together—“namaste”—bending at the knees—“curtseying.
“We will target the fourteen-to-twenty-five age group and introduce the new behaviors as innovations. We expect that within a generation, handshakes, hugs, and casual kissing on the cheek will completely disappear.”
They paint a picture of a world where touching a stranger is akin to licking a subway seat. There are invisible threats everywhere. Their behavioral shifts come with swag: brightly painted face masks, rubber gloves, antibacterial pocket liners. Li Ann and Rory are rapt, nodding enthusiastically, trying on the gloves. Rory says the investment in public health is below par in 74 percent of all health services. The twins geek out on all the statistics, and soon it’s like the annual meeting of the Pandemic Preppers Society. No Touch gets an instant yes and they move in the following week. The week after that, you can’t pass through reception without pausing to sanitize your hands.
* * *
Jules and I are at the diner across the street, talking about money. It’s snowing, a kind of friendly, fluffy snow falling lightly on the sidewalk. The taste of regular crap coffee is oddly reassuring. We are broke—my credit cards are maxed out and Jules is paying for our server with what’s left of his allowance. “What’s the game plan?” he asks.
I tell him I’m close. “But I need a front-end developer.”
“And we need someone to run the community side of things. And marketing. How will anyone know about us?”
“Facebook?”
“Facebook isn’t free—we’d have to pay them a shitload of money to get anywhere. Dammit, I’ve never spent so much time thinking about money.”
“You? Moneybags you?”
“Oh, we never talk about money where I come from. My dad goes to sleep, and all the dollars just multiply.”
“Do your folks even know you moved to New York?”
“They said, ‘That’s nice, dear,’ as if I finally agreed to wear white pants to their Memorial Day party.”
I reach over and squeeze his hand. “I’m sorry,” I say, thinking of my own mother sending me off every morning with an egg sandwich. “Maybe we should bail,” I say. “We could just go back to Cambridge.”
Jules shakes his head. “Not possible. We’ve had a taste—even the smallest taste changes you.”
I had been thinking this very thing. “Is that what happened to you last time?”
“My business succeeded for about five minutes, and I spent the next seven years trying to chase that high again. Probably why I fell on my face so many times. Cyrus was the one who finally helped me get over it, because none of this stuff matters to him.”
I know exactly what Jules means. Cyrus really doesn’t care. He isn’t worried that we are on the verge of bankruptcy, or that there is the tantalizing possibility of something bigger. He is obsessively focused on both the present and on the esoteric distance. The middle ground, the place most of us inhabit—what we are going to eat for lunch, how we are going to pay our bills, how we are going to fulfill our petty human ambitions—those things do not occur to him. He doesn’t care, because they are not on his mind.
“We’re running on empty,” Jules says.
“There’s only one thing to do.” I wait for Jules to say it.
“We have to make Cyrus the boss.”
I nod. “He can make the pitch, get us our funding. You know how he is in front of an audience.”
Jules looks up something on his phone. “There’s another speed-dating thing in two days.”
“Look me in the eyes,” I say to Jules, “and tell me you’re sure.” We both know that if we can get Cyrus to agree, there’s no turning back. Jules doesn’t hesitate. He stares right back at me and says yes. Like me, he has no idea what’s going to happen if Cyrus takes charge, but that’s what I love about Jules—he always wants to plow forward into the unknown. We argue briefly about who should be the one to convince Cyrus, and after I lose three straight rounds of rock/paper/scissors, the task falls to me.
Against the wisdom of the No Touch twins, we shake hands.