Chapter Four

Enzo rolled over and looked at the digital clock on the night table: 7:35 a.m. 

“Hey, DJ,”  he said gently to Emily. “I have to go down to breakfast.” 

She was still fully clothed in her LED costume, but the batteries had probably run out and she was just in a funky catsuit. She was still magnificent. They never drew the curtains before getting in bed, and the sun was still low enough in the sky that its rays rested on her cheeks, giving her a soft, natural luminescence. She resembled polished citrine.     

“What time is it?” she asked. “I have a meeting with a VC at nine o’clock." 

“It’s 7:35. My breakfast is in ten minutes. Is your VC meeting for Condon?”  Enzo asked. 

“Yes,” she said, feeling a little bit awkward. 

“That was a little weird last night, I guess,” Emily said, looking at her phone. “My Condon app is open. Did we, umm, do it?”  

“Nah. We didn’t end up using it for sex; we passed out,” he said smiling. “But you can definitely say that the research you're conducting is going well.” 

“Would you rate it on the App Store for me?” she asked.  

“Sure,” he answered. 

“Do you want to get together in the Bay Area when we get home?” she asked. 

“If you let me come to another one of your DJ sets, sure,” he said. 

“Deal,” she smiled.  

The hotel restaurant sat abandoned. Following a night of debauchery–a dance party where everyone is on drugs–breakfast is an unlikely commitment. Enzo only had a few minutes to get ready to meet Ximena.  

He made it, thinking to himself, “My clothes seem to match.” 

His face resembled that of a not-well-bred bloodhound. Enzo took another long drag of coffee.  

Ximena entered the room. She was stylish, of course. Big Chanel sunglasses. Dark hair pulled back, simple gray t-shirt and Khaite jeans. Gold bangles on her arms. Rings on seven of her fingers. Silicon Valley is not known for its fashion sense. More like sensible shoes, flip flops to business meetings. VC-branded fleece. Lots of performance apparel. Patagonia everything. Yoga pants. Yoga pants for men, too. The men wear baggy shorts over their yoga pants to look like the pro-basketball players from the Golden State Warriors. They paid astronomical sums of money to sit and watch them court-side in Oakland. The engineers and venture capitalists so badly wanted to emulate those cool NBA players.  

(A Kardashian would never date them.) 

Ximena was always different. She sipped her coffee and looked at Enzo, with one eyebrow raised.  🤨 

“We can always be honest with each other, right?” she asked. 

“Of course,”  he answered.  

“You look like shit,” she declared. “Like a vampire emoji and shit emoji fucked and had a kid.” 

“Whatever happened to tell the truth but tell it slant?” Enzo responded, sharing an inside joke they has told each other for years. 

He took a long sip of black coffee from the cup in front of him and thought, “How bad can I look?”

It was 7:45 a.m. He didn't even want to try to count the number of hours he slept. It would make the day harder if he faced the truth of his own depravity. He tried to stay focused. He was speaking to the conference, a roomful of about 200 attendees, in a little less than two hours. 

There was a pause. Enzo's and Ximena’s eyes connected. She knew he had probably hooked up last night. She inhaled sharply and mercifully broke the tension.  

“I have something for you,” she said, smiling softly, despite the glint of despair, which appeared for a split-second, in her eyes.  

Even when irked, she could deploy a smile with disarming intent. She reached into her bag and pulled out a small red gift box. It had gold-leaf designs that looked hand-painted. She held it and gazed at it for a moment. 

“Put out your hand,” she said. 

She placed one hand under his and set the box in his palm. Enzo’s brain was muddled with a mixture of confusion, anticipation, fear. A fear, not of what was in the box, but what it might mean for him. For them.  

He froze. Swallowed hard. Felt her skin. 

The warmth of both her hands on his—a warmth so rarely shared—spread slowly toward his heart.  

“What is this Ximena,” he asked.  

“It’s a fucking jewelry box, obviously,” she replied, laughing. “Open it.” 

He flipped it open and looked down at a ring. It had a weathered-gold band, deep-blue lapis lazuli stone and a small diamond inlaid in its center. Ximena’s family was from Santiago, Chile, and Enzo knew immediately the ring was from there. It had traveled a long way to this table—but for what? 

“Is this for me?” he asked. 

“Of course, it is. Who else would it be for? The floozy you were texting with–or worse–last night?” she replied playfully. 

Enzo looked down sheepishly, guilty as charged.  

“It was my grandfather’s ring,” she said.  “At least that’s what my mother told me.” 

He examined it again. 

“You should put it away before anyone sees it,” she said. “You can try it on later and see if it fits.” 

“But there’s nobody here,” he protested.  

Ximena looked around the room, “You never know who’s watching.” 

Ximena was right. Enzo wanted to talk with her about so many things, especially the ring. Just as he was about to unleash a battery of questions, two people approached them. 

The man had a beard that was straight as a ruler and easily a foot long. Chestnut brown and supple, like it had just been lightly dipped in baby oil. 

(It had just been lightly dipped in baby oil.)  

He had an eyepatch. He wore all black: black boots, black jeans, black shirt, black fastback cap, and a black hoodie. The back of his hoodie had a large, white, stenciled image of a long-bearded pirate’s face that resembled, well, him. The woman with him had a small German Sheperd on her chest in what resembled a Baby Björn. She looked familiar, like Enzo had seen her on TV. The dog was facing her, adorably resting its snout on her shoulder. She was wearing camouflage yoga pants with a black hoodie that also had the pirate silhouette on the back.   

They walked straight to Ximena. Proximity to capital is a magnet that distorts faces. Smiles become more ingratiating. Eyes are wider. Ximena had money. More money than anyone. Enzo was invisible. When in her presence, Enzo had become accustomed to this situation.  

“Ximena!” the bearded man exclaimed. “I guess you didn’t do shrooms last night." 

“Never, Dante. I can barely hold down a drink,” she replied, a sly smile spreading across her face.  

“You want something to eat?” she responded. 

“No, I’m good. I'm only drinking Mamulent now. And doing the 240-minute body,” he said, referring to the Silicon Valley wellness guru Ferris Weal’s “body hack” program. In this program, you only ingest food every six hours, aligned with the 24-hour cycle of the sun and the moon. Dante didn't understand it. 

(Nobody understood it.) 

(Everyone listened to Ferris.)  

Mamulent was a soy-based meal replacement product that was raging through the ranks of the Technorati. The brand name’s DNA (every brand had DNA) came from the word mammillary or “milk secreting breasts.”  The “Lent” came from the time of the year in Christianity when adherents give up meat on Fridays. Mamulent was gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan, non-G.M.O., and sustainably farmed. Oh, and ingenious. 

The founder of the company viewed food as an “engineering problem” that needed to be fixed. Food preparation and consumption was a waste of time. He made a website, put his idea on a crowd-sourcing finance platform, raised a few million dollars, and started selling it all over the Bay Area. He live streamed it all. He soon became the new darling of the tech set.  

“Look how brilliant this founder is,” people would say, over drinks at the Rosewood Hotel in Palo Alto. Eventually, Mamulent raised $20 million in venture-backed funding.  

In Silicon Valley, the backstory was always the same: This isn't just good for business; it’s good for society. In the case of Mamulent, nutrition is efficiently delivered to the masses! Food tech can cure the obesity epidemic! 

Bottles of Marmulent are now at 10,000 7-Elevens worldwide. The founders ended up removing all the organic and natural ingredients and replacing them with food additives and chemicals. 

People are still fat. The founder’s wallet is very fat. 

Dante looked over at Enzo and then back to Ximena and asked, “Is Theodore coming?” 

Everything stopped.  

Ximena looked at Enzo for a millisecond. She wanted to apologize; her eyes said as much.  

“Yes,” she replied. “He’s flying in at some point today.”  

“That’s great,” he said. “Can we get together?”  

“I need to check with his assistant but if we are all here, then yes, let’s do it,” she said. 

She looked back at Enzo. Her smile slightly deflated, but still full to everyone who hadn’t committed it to memory. Her eyes apologized again. 

She knew Enzo would not have come if her husband was going to be here. 

Dante’s companion was licking the face of the mini-German Shepherd in the Baby Björn and feeding her little pieces of beef jerky. Ximena’s eyes let go of Enzo. 

“Dante, this is my friend, Enzo,” she said without a trace of emotion. “He’s a professor of ethics at Stanford. He's speaking later this morning.” 

“Stanford ethics. Jumbo shrimp,” Dante said, picking up his eyepatch, smiling. “So, are you going to tell people how to ethically screw the world over?” he continued with half a laugh. 

“Dante is the CEO of the world's most advanced AI company,” Ximena interjected mercifully. “He didn’t get this far by being polite, obviously, but we still gave him $100 million.”  

“Just keeping it real, professor,” Dante continued. 

“Dante, you’re such a douche bag,” his companion said loudly. “Leave the poor guy alone.”  

“Did you meet my wife, Jessica?” Dante added. “A real peach emoji.” 

“Better than an eggplant, like you, dick,” she replied. 

“It’s all okay, really,” Enzo said. “It's nice to meet you both. If you don’t mind, I’m going to prepare for my talk. I haven’t written anything down yet.” 

“All good, professor,” Dante said. “Just tell them how to feel good about themselves."