Blind Tasting Page 5

  Cory takes a long sip of his Spanish rioja, then smiles ironically at Dawn. "Jo at work gave me a tip. A little web startup. I think they need XML programmers."

  She furrows her brow at him. "You do real science. You don't belong with web weenies."

  "Yeah, and I have a mortgage to pay," he replies quietly.

  Becca has just entered the bar with two men. The younger one, mid twenties, is dark haired, of medium build and dressed in dockers and a black crew-neck sweater. The older guy, blonde, is built like a rugby player, and is wearing a batik silk shirt over dockers. A Rolex watch flashes on his thick wrist.

  Cory watches Becca from across the room. She hasn't seen him yet, but she's meeting him here. She is the flashiest female in the bar in her tight-fitting green jeans and tall boots. Her light brown hair, unbound, shimmers around her like a waterfall. She's laughing, rather flirtatiously, at a remark by the dark-haired guy.

  She spots Cory, smiles and waves. The dark-haired man glances at the booth across the room and continues to talk to Becca, holding her attention.

  Cory drinks more of his rioja, analyzing the man. It's got to be her new boss. He tries to dismiss a sudden possessiveness with cool logic. When Becca finally comes over to the booth and slides in next to him, he kisses her. It's a rather long kiss for this public place, but possessiveness is trumping cool logic at the moment.

  Dawn stares at the black glass table top in front of her while Rob clears his throat and takes a long drink from his beer bottle. They really don't want to look at each other right now.

  Becca pulls away, a little breathless, and looks at Cory with wide eyes. "Are we celebrating something?"

  "Seeing you." He hopes the dark-haired guy is watching.

  She tosses her hair back. She relishes adoration, public or private. "I want that sparkling Italian wine. What is it?"

  "Prosecco."

  Her eyes focus again on the dark-haired guy who has been glancing at their booth. "That's Derek. And the other one is Jack Russell."

  Dawn can't suppress laughter. "Jack Russell? Like the dog breed? The little terrier? How ironic."

  Becca gives her a blank face. "That's his name. He's funded a lot of startups in the Bay Area. Derek has worked with him before."

  Dawn decides to drop the topic, it's just too banal. But, looking across the room at Derek, she now understands the point of that kiss.

  Rob is beginning to feel restless. Becca seems clueless about Cory's situation, but it might be a really bad idea to bring it up now. He looks at Dawn as he swallows more of his beer. He likes how she looks in her yellow blouse, it sets off her cloud of dark hair. He imagines running his hand through it.

  She senses his eyes on her and nervously swirls her glass of wine, a sauvignon blanc from South Africa. Should she keep probing the job possibilities with Cory? She gives a small, involuntary shiver.

  "You cold?" Rob asks her attentively.

  The bar does feel cool. "A little, I guess."

  "Here." Rob takes off his jean jacket and drapes it around her shoulders.

  The sudden warm weight of the jacket enveloping her back feels startlingly intimate. In fact, it's thrilling. She masks the feeling with a nonchalant smile and he catches her eye for a moment and she sees, for the second time, the openness of his gaze, the unspoiled integrity of his handsome expression. She feels too vulnerable to go there.

  The prosecco arrives. Becca touches glasses with Cory's and tells him, "Jack Russell has funded search engine technology. He probably knows your investors."

  Cory thinks the likelihood of that is high. On both counts, the former investors and the new ones. He should tell her what happened this morning, but he isn't going to. Not here.

  He finishes his wine in one swallow. "Guys, do you want to try that new Mexican place for dinner?"

  Rob and Dawn are enthusiastic, but Becca isn't sure. Is it because she can track Derek from the booth here?

  Cory tries to persuade her. "You love margaritas. Their specialty is a mandarin orange margarita."

  Becca decides she really would like a mandarin orange margarita.

  As the four of them walk toward the entrance of the bar, Cory slips his arm around Becca.

  Derek and Jack are still deep in conversation. Becca leans a little into Cory as they walk past the men and Derek pops his head up to address her, cocking his index finger at her. "We need you at that eight o'clock meeting tomorrow." It's a command coming from the boss, but it's friendly, inclusive.

  Becca makes introductions. 'My boyfriend' is how she presents Cory to Derek and sparks of competitiveness rise from the two men's handshake.

  There is no way to avoid Jack Russell at this point, and he casts an inquisitive eye on Cory when Becca mentions VisualAxioms. "Dick Dorne's a good guy. He's had a lot on his plate these past six months."

  How much does he know? "Yeah." Cory nods a little tensely, hoping his expression doesn't reveal how much he truly despises Richard at this point.

  His one-word response isn't enough for the beefy Jack Russell who shakes his head, squinting slightly at him. "So, you're gearing up with this new initiative I hear."

  "Yeah. There will be some new hires."

  Dawn flashes a quick look at Cory, a little shocked by his reply.

  Becca gives him a coy smile. "Oh, so that's what we're celebrating."

  He can't look her in the eyes at this moment; he looks down, noncommittal, feeling wretched.

  Derek senses his stress and attempts to exploit it. "Are you guys going after XVT's See-It market? The word is their latest release is fast and it's more accurate now with grayscale images."

  Cory now concludes that Derek is a technical bozo. He gives a testy reply as Derek listens with a set jaw and even gaze.

  "No, XVT's technology is irrelevant to our work on scene analysis. See-It depends on meta tags and keywords associated with imagery, for one thing. Their only visual technology is what they've licensed from third parties and it basically does fairly crude digital signatures based on the distribution of pixel values of an image. It's sort of okay for comparing static shots of something in similar lighting, but even so, there are a lot of false positives, and it doesn't address rotational transformations of objects at all. There's no real modeling of object boundaries, either."

  "They're making money. They've got customers." is the only counter Derek can come up with, and Jack Russell gives him an encouraging nod.

  Rob is worried that Cory might dig himself into a hole here in front of Becca. He interjects casually, looking at his friends, "Man, I'm starved. You guys want to head out?"

  Dawn sees Becca press up against Cory a little more closely as they walk out of Toro's ahead of her. She knows Cory is enjoying this, but she cynically believes it's part of Becca's ongoing game of playing the role of unattainable little prize. Dawn knows, in Becca's eyes, that Derek lost this round to Cory. What about the next round, though?

  As she steps into the cool evening air, she revels in the warmth of Rob's jacket that is still around her shoulders.

  Chapter Nine

  StickiWiki. The Asian woman is pretty, young. Her hair is short, metro-chic, and she's wearing a black tee with 'StickiWiki' emblazoned across the chest in curling yellow letters. She and Cory are sitting at a small table along the wall of a large open office area. A large flat screen suspended on one wall displays Twitter output in real time from assorted new media RSS feeds.

  Other employees are walking through the open area, chatting on cellphones or with each other. All are in their early twenties. Two young men in shorts are playing ping pong on a table on the far side of the room. Cory sneaks a few glances at them to assess their skill level, they're not bad.

  As the interviewer looks over Cory's resume, her small gold nose piercing catches the light. "Okay, so you did development at VisualAxioms for a year. Web development?"

  "R&D on advanced scene analysis."

  A guy with a shaved head and earrings stops abruptly in f
ront of the table and looks at the Asian woman. "Have you seen the new specs?"

  She looks up at him. "I'm going over them with Josh at three."

  "Okay."

  Shaved Head moves on, but she calls after him. "Rudi, can you text Liz? We need her input at that meeting."

  The interviewer looks back at Cory and smiles. "Sorry. So yeah, scene analysis. Like in the movies?"

  Her ignorance surprises him. "No, scene recognition. Imagine a computer program that could scan a picture or a video and identify the head of a guy behind a car, or a butterfly resting on a leaf, or-"

  She gives a pleasant nod. "Got it." She continues, "So, you've worked with Java, C, C++, XML, OWL, Flash, Ruby, Python and Bitsy. What versions of Bitsy did you support?"

  "Three-nine. At the game company."

  "The buggy release? Wow. We totally bypassed three-nine and went to four-oh. What about Implosion? Are you pretty up to speed with all the new packages? Because we use a lot of Tachyon, Briarpatch and Vermouth from Implosion eight-one."

  He shakes his head. "I haven't worked with Implosion. But, I'm fine with learning new environments. The web keeps evolving."

  She smiles. "Yeah. We think of ourselves as a Web 3.0 company."

  He can't resist. "So you totally bypassed Web 2.0?"

  She doesn't get the joke, even with his boyish smile delivering it. She gives him another pleasant expression. "What we actually need right now are Tachyon programmers who can do collaborative development in real time in Briarpatch. When you get up to speed, definitely give us a call."

  Cory walks past sidewalk cafes along University Avenue in Palo Alto. It's a beautiful spring day and the places are packed with lunchtime crowds. As he walks past a table, he overhears a snatch of conversation. The lower voice: "I've got the numbers. They're going to fund it." The higher voice: "Thursday good to set up the meeting?"

  This upbeat, entrepreneurial talk discourages him. He decides to call Dawn.

  As he continues down the street, he relays the upshot of his morning interview.

  "Yeah, the web shop Jo told me about. Who knew that weird little language Tachyon would become so big. It's syntax is way uglier than Perl's!"

  He crosses an intersection, laughing. "The interviewer looked about eighteen and she was a senior product manager. She didn't exactly explain what their product is, either. Something about targeted advertising and users' personal knowledge bases. She thought scene analysis had something to do with Hollywood."

  He listens, his eyes now scanning the nearby outdoor tables. "Yeah. I'm talking to another startup this afternoon. Actually I'm meeting Becca for lunch right now." His expression darkens. "Not yet."

  He spots Becca sitting alone at the cafe directly across the street. She's smiling into her cellphone, glancing around. She sees him, stops smiling, and waves.

  She ends her call as he arrives at the table and pouts at him. "You're late."

  He slides into the chair beside her. "Sorry. Have you ordered?"

  "I'm not really hungry."

  He glances quickly over a menu. "Want to split a grilled portobello panini?"

  Becca nods indifferently. She looks at her cellphone again.

  A waitress appears and he orders the food and some cokes. He feels disconnected right now, from the scene on University Avenue, from Becca. He shuts out the feeling of defeat that's beginning to creep over him.

  Becca looks up from her phone. "How did your meeting go?"

  He knows which meeting she means. "It didn't happen."

  She looks at him more intently. "Is that bad?"

  He hesitates, then looks directly into her eyes. "Our investors pulled the plug on scene analysis. Richard has decided to take VisualAxioms in a totally different and, in my opinion, stupid direction. So, I quit."

  She stares at him in silence for a moment. A look of faint disgust crosses her face. "That really sucks." When he doesn't reply, she asks, "When did all this happen?"

  "Yesterday."

  "You knew this and you didn't even tell me?" Her eyes have narrowed in growing annoyance.

  He looks at her with complete honesty. "I should have. But, somehow Toro's just didn't seem like the right setting. And you stayed at your place last night."

  "I had an early meeting this morning." She is now reviewing the events of yesterday at Toro's in a new light. "So, what's next?"

  "I'm talking to some other startups."

  "Why don't you start your own company? You and John and Pradip."

  "Well, for one thing, I don't own the intellectual property, VisualAxioms does. We'd have to start from scratch and we'd need to raise money. And that doesn't seem too likely now, given that the premier funders of this idea just bailed."

  They sit in silence. There is something in her expression that he can't read. He takes her hand which remains limp in his own. It's not a good sign.

  She finally says what's on her mind. "Cory, I like you. I really like you. I just..." She looks away, searching for her words.

  He thinks he knows where this is going. He looks at her questioningly. "Was I moving too fast about living together?"

  She avoids his eyes for a moment, gazing at people walking down the street. Then she looks at him and shakes her head. "That's not it. I am someone who moves really fast. But, I don't know if you are. Anymore."

  This is not a statement he expected. He stares at her as she continues, "I don't know what matters to you."

  "What matters to me?" He is incredulous.

  "I thought you wanted to win."

  He reflects on this before answering. "Richard wants to win. For him that apparently means just abandoning a year of ground-breaking research to chase the mobile devices market with some silly app that five other companies are already making. Is that what you consider winning?"

  "Why did you join that startup if you don't care about it? The worst thing is to pretend!" Her face is flushed with emotion.

  Her remark is a non sequitur. He joined because of Duncan and Duncan is gone.

  "Jesus, Becca. I'm not pretending anything! I'm appalled! At Richard's dishonesty, at people's lack of curiosity."

  "I think I should go. I don't want to fight with you."

  "We're not fighting!" He feels growing exasperation.

  "Oh?"

  "Okay. I'm sorry." He takes a deep breath and leans back in his chair.

  Suddenly, from beyond their table comes a familiar voice. John's. "So, there is life after VisAx."

  Cory looks up to see John and Faye standing there, smiling at him. He pulls himself together. "Hey, what are you guys up to?"

  Faye laughs. "John's accepted an offer from a new hedge fund on Wall Street. As of an hour ago."

  Cory extends his hand to John. "All right!"

  John shakes nonchalantly, looking at him with his usual no-nonsense expression. "You?"

  "I haven't started looking much yet."

  John glances at Becca who is texting on her phone. He surveys the surrounding street. "I'll miss this weather. And the markets go down sometimes. But, I get to push the frontiers of risk analysis. Do some interesting time series modeling." John breaks into a broad smile. "And New York has great restaurants and nightlife."

  "And I don't have to be physically at the math department to work on my thesis at this point," Faye says, referring to her Stanford doctoral research on twisted K-theory.

  Cory smiles. "I'll miss doing dinner with you guys."

  "Come to New York. I'll send you my address."

  "Yeah, do that. Remember to send it to my Gmail account, not to VizAx."

  They both laugh.

  Faye and John continue on their way. Cory returns to misery.

  Becca looks at him unhappily, dropping her cellphone into her pocket. "I'm going."

  "Becca, come on." His eyes are asking for a reconciliation over whatever went wrong here. "Let's just take off this weekend. Anywhere you want. Out of the country, even." He knows she's been wanting to visit Cabo San Luca
s in Baja.

  She shakes her head. "iPhlox wants me in Shanghai next week. It's a big center for new media now." She adds, "I'll be gone for a while."

  "What's a while?" He feels an increasing sense of foreboding.

  She takes a breath, then reaches into her purse and pulls out a set of keys. She removes one, and puts it in his hand.

  He stares at her in devastated understanding. Her long hair is loose, rippling past her shoulders. Her emerald earrings sparkle in the light. He remembers the occasion when he bought them for her.

  She leans toward him, but the distance between them seems even greater. "I'm sorry, Cory, I don't want to hurt you. It's just how things are now." She stands up, slinging her bag over her shoulder. Her expression is somber, but determined. "Good luck with...everything."

  He holds the key, watching her disappear down the street, her golden brown hair swinging below her waist, her jean-clad legs moving at a graceful gait. The waitress returns with the portobello panini.

  OpenPhiles. Cory focuses grimly on the guy with sideburns and black geek-style glasses, who is talking to him. It's hard to keep his brain from overflowing with images of Becca. Less than an hour ago she was his girlfriend, his significant other. The repeating, scalding waves of realization that this is no longer true make the interview seem surreal, pointless.

  Cory's eyes focus on a poster mounted on the far wall. The expression 'OpenPhiles' is printed in a large font above graphics depicting a hip young entrepreneur flying through canyons of computers and other digital devices, information streaming out of them and flowing into his fingertips.

  Despite his depressed mood, Cory smiles at the poster; the guy looks like Peter Pan in a hoodie and Adidas, committing brazen acts of industrial espionage. He wonders if this startup, OpenPhiles, gets the unintended irony in that picture. He doubts it. The line between empowered access and loss of privacy is sometimes subtle -- but it matters.

  The interviewer, in his early twenties, has a pleasant, slightly naive expression. He's decided he likes Cory, he's trying to make the interview work. With a smile he asks, "What kinds of extreme programming have you done/"