Black Buck(31)

“Ma,” I said, tapping the door. No answer. “Ma,” I repeated, louder. No answer. When I opened the door, I found her lying on her back, out cold. Seized with terror, I slowly crept toward her, thinking she’d died in her sleep. Tears had begun forming in my eyes when I kicked over a glass she’d left on the floor. She bolted upright, her black sleeping mask still over her eyes.

“Thank God,” I said. I picked up the glass and wiped my tears. “I thought—”

“What time is it, Dar?” She removed her mask to reveal dark rings under her eyes.

“6:40 a.m., Ma.”

“Oh, I must’ve slept through my alarm. I’ve been so tired, baby. I think I may jus’ call out.”

This was the first time Ma had ever called out. She always managed to put the coffee on and make it to work—no matter how bad she felt. She even went to the factory the day after Pa died because she said it felt good to be needed even when you were just one out of thousands. I was worried, but I figured the best thing to do was get to Sumwun, knock it out of the park, and trust that she’d feel better soon.

“Can I get you anything before I leave, Ma? You want some more water, coffee?”

“No, thank you, baby.” She closed her eyes and grabbed my arm. “Have a good day at work, Dar. I’ll see you when you get back. And don’ forget about Friday. I’ll be better by then. It’ll be nice.”

I bent down and kissed her cool forehead. “Okay, Ma. I’ll be there.”

Down the stairs. Turn the corner. Wave to Mr. Aziz. The gargoyles were parked in their same spot. Jason wanted to talk, but I had no time, so I just ran past him and saluted Wally Cat before entering the subway.

Like Ma, I should’ve called out sick.



* * *





Clyde was working on a deal with someone in London, so Charlie, the Paul Bunyan–looking guy from Monday who explained why we needed to hit our number, and my future manager, led the stretch.

At the end, Rhett walked into the center of the circle. He was no longer pale and shrunken like he had been the previous night. He was brighter, fuller, more like the guy I pitched at Starbucks.

Everyone stopped moving; the only sounds were rain pattering against the window and far-off voices on the sales floor from people trying to close overseas deals. Rhett closed his eyes and stood in silence for two full minutes.

“Let me ask a question,” he said. “A simple one. Two years ago, what did we raise in our Series A?”

“Seven million,” someone said.

“And our Series B?”

“Twenty million,” another added.

“All in all, including a seed round, we’ve raised twenty-eight million dollars. Take a second to imagine what a room full of twenty-eight million dollars looks like,” he said, turning around the circle. “Someone, tell me what they see.”

“A room full to the brim with hundreds,” someone called out.

“Gold bars in a bank vault,” another said.

“What else?” Rhett asked.

“A garage full of Bugattis!” a voice shouted.

“Sure, it could be all of those,” he said. “But when I think of a room of twenty-eight million dollars, what I see is all of you. I don’t see this office, with our perks, the MacBooks with our Mac monitors, or even Mac Jackson our trainer, though he is a stud.”

Mac, among the kitchen spectators, waved to the circle and everyone smiled.

“I see a room of people. And I’ll tell you, when family, friends, and investors gave us that twenty-eight million, the money was only a symbol. A symbol of the belief they had in us. In each and every one of you.” He pointed around the circle. “And what matters most is that we hit this month and show them that they made the right move betting on us even when everyone said we were crazy to think we could disrupt the world of therapy.

“They said no company cared enough about their employees to pay for modern therapy. They said no one in their right mind would log on to a computer to speak with a stranger halfway around the world, opening themselves up like cracked fortune cookies. But here we are. The darling of New York City. Putting Silicon Alley on the map.”

Clyde entered the circle. “Good news?” Rhett asked, everyone watching, tense.

“Two hundred thousand from Virgin!” Clyde shouted, and raised his fist to a room full of applause.

“FUCK YEAH!” Rhett said, picking him up and twirling him around.

The room got quiet, and Clyde parted the sea of people, making his way toward the gong. He grabbed a rubber-tipped mallet and faced the crowd.

“It’s just a pilot program, but Virgin is going to have one thousand of its lowest-performing employees across its subsidiaries use Sumwun to increase performance. They’ve assured us that if it works they’ll roll it out to ten thousand in the next year!”

“We love you, Clyde!” a gaggle of girls shouted.

“Yeah, us too, bro!” a horde of guys wearing backward snapbacks echoed.

“I love you too, I do. I know it’s been a tough month”—he ran his hands through his hair—“and that they don’t get any easier. But I just want to thank all of you for how hard you’re working, and Rhett for helping get this deal over the line.”