Beautiful Code (7 page)

“I’ll have a beer, please,” Adam said to the bartender. The room was dimly lit. Several groups were gathered around low tables with cushioned seats, deep in conversation over the chill house music. Adam took a seat on one of the leather stools and grabbed a handful of nuts from a bowl on the bar, glancing out the window where he watched a party happening on the terrace.

He sipped his beer and tried to think about how he could help with this RemoteX debacle, or at least prove his worth at Doreye. George was right: he didn’t understand the technology, but how could he learn? And what else was he supposed to do to prove that he ought to be part of the company? It had been his idea to start the company, and yet he had no idea what he was doing.

“Mind if I join you?” A man in his late fifties took the stool next to Adam’s and motioned to the bartender.

“Not at all,” Adam said, sitting up a little straighter in his chair. The man looked vaguely familiar, but Adam couldn’t place him.

“Macallan 15,” the man said to the bartender. “No ice. What brings you to the hotel bar alone on a Friday night?”

Adam was a little perplexed. He wasn’t accustomed to meeting strangers in hotel bars, but this man seemed friendly enough. And it felt rather adult to have a conversation like this—two men exchanging pleasantries over a few drinks.

He shrugged. “Just feeling like a total failure lately.”

The man’s Scotch had arrived and he clinked his glass against Adam’s beer with a laugh. “That makes two of us,” he said.

They sat in silence for a moment, each taking long sips of their drinks.

“You know,” the man said, “the funny thing about failure is that you never see it coming. You really think you’re on the right course and then, out of nowhere, it hits you that you’ve been fucking things up all along.”

Adam wasn’t totally sure he understood what the man was saying, but he nodded anyway.

“My problem,” Adam said, “is that I’m in unknown territory. Like, I have all these things that I want to accomplish, and this great vision of what it should look like when it’s done, but I haven’t got a clue what I’m actually supposed to be
doing
, you know? What I’m supposed to be doing day-to-day to get to where I want to be.”

The man turned to him and smiled. “Do you drink Scotch?”

“I never have.”

“Well, that’s the first thing you need to do.” He turned to the bartender and motioned for another Macallan 15. “Act like who you want to be, down to every last little detail, and eventually, you’ll become that person. Trust me.”

Adam liked this guy. He started to relax and forget about Doreye and contemplate who he wanted to be. James Bond immediately jumped to mind. The man seemed to relax too, as they drank their Scotch and made small talk.

“I have another problem,” Adam confessed.

“What’s that? Let’s see if I can solve that one too,” the man said jovially. Talking to this kid was making him feel useful.

“There’s this girl.”

“Uh-oh. Here we go. Tell me about her.”

“She’s perfect.”

The man laughed. “Aren’t they all? At first, anyway.”

“She’s smart and funny and beautiful and…I think I love her. But she’s holding back, and I think I know why. Well, I
do
know why. It’s because she doesn’t think her father would approve of me.”

“What’s not to approve of? You seem perfectly respectable.”

“It’s just that her father is kind of a big deal, and I’m not…”

“Can I tell you a secret?” The man leaned in and whispered to Adam. “I’ve been told I’m ‘kind of a big deal,’ and there’s nothing about you I wouldn’t approve of.”

He pulled back and sipped his Scotch. “Especially considering who
my
daughter’s dating. Jesus. Nice kid, but no spunk. I can’t figure out what she’s thinking.”

Adam felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and looked down at the text message.

“It’s her!” he exclaimed. “She wants to meet at the beach!”

The man chuckled. “Well, what are you waiting for? Get going.”

“May I—?” Adam asked as he reached for his wallet.

The man rolled his eyes. “Who are you kidding? This one’s on me. It was great chatting with you. Good luck with the girl… and her dad.”

CHAPTER 10:

Look, But Don’t Touch

A
dam dashed through the lobby, past the large Christmas tree display stretching up to the chandelier, past the designer gift shops, around the pool, and down the boardwalk. He didn’t slow down until he saw Lisa’s moonlit outline in the white gazebo at the beginning of the sand, where they’d agreed to meet. She was looking at the waves, her long skirt blowing softly in the breeze. It was like something out of a movie.

“Lisa!” he called out, running the length of the boardwalk and up the gazebo steps.

She turned and smiled. She wore a high-waisted navy chiffon dress with slim criss-cross straps that showed off her gently sloping shoulders. Her hair was pulled back in a side twist with a hibiscus flower tucked behind her ear. Her makeup shimmered, her lips glistened in the moonlight.

Adam was suddenly self-conscious about his flip-flops, shorts, and ratty T-shirt, but Lisa didn’t seem to notice. He put his hands around her waist and pulled her in for a kiss. “You look absolutely stunning,” he whispered.

She returned his kiss, but quickly put her hands on his chest, determinedly. “Wait. We have to talk. I have something I have to tell you.”

Adam felt his heart drop. Her eyes were serious and sad. And he knew: she was going to end it. Suddenly, the memories of her never wanting to be called his girlfriend, of how seldom she’d slept over this quarter, of how long it took her to text him back all hit him like a ton of bricks. He’d been in such denial that he hadn’t wanted to accept the truth. The man at the bar was wrong. He wasn’t good enough for Lisa or her father.

“Yeah, I know,” he pulled away, swallowing hard and turning from her to sit down on the gazebo bench, leaning his elbows forward on his knees and looking down at his feet.

“You do?” She didn’t understand. “Did Amelia—?”

“You’re not that into me. It’s obvious. And you’re ending it.”

“No! I mean, that’s not what I…”

But Adam didn’t hear her. The Scotch was pulsing through his veins and he was suddenly feeling confident and articulate—and angry.

“You know what bothers me though?” He stood up and walked back toward her. “You never gave me a real chance. As sweet as you were, I was always the bar boy from your brother’s fancy party. I didn’t fit into your rich, exclusive world.”

“That’s not—”

“But you know what, Lisa? You may be embarrassed to stand next to me now, but someday…someday I’ll fit right into your little moneyed world and you’ll be sorry.”

“Adam!” she snapped. “This has nothing to do with money.” She was shaking her head in frustration. “My God, Adam. Do you have any idea how much I care about you? How much I love you? But my past is complicated—”

Adam touched his finger to her lips to make her stop talking, a glimmer of hope restored in his voice. “What did you say?”

“I said my past is complicated.”

“Before that. Did you say…you love me?”

“Yes, Adam. I love you. But—”

Suddenly all his distress transformed to joy. Adam felt like he was going to explode with happiness. He grinned from ear to ear and pulled Lisa into a close hug, kissing her mouth hard, again and again. “No ‘buts’!” he exclaimed. “You love me, you love me, you love me. It’s the only thing that matters.”

Lisa laughed and let her arms fall around his. He looked so happy, and that made her so happy. How could she ruin this moment?

“Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter, okay?” he said. “We’re together now and I love you so, so much.”

She smiled and leaned her forehead against his. Faint music from the Hawkins party drifted in the air and “All I Want for Christmas is You” started playing, as if on cue. Lisa pressed her cheek against Adam’s and they swayed to the song in the moonlight. Adam listened to the lyrics and wondered whether Santa did exist, after all. And whether (dare he dream it?) maybe from now on he’d be one of those people who flew to Hawaii with his girlfriend’s family to celebrate the holidays.

Seconds later, Lisa’s phone rang in her purse but she ignored it. A moment later it rang again. “I better get that,” she whispered, breaking their embrace to see who was calling.

“It’s my family. I have to go.” She pouted.

“No, you don’t. Stay.”

“Trust me, if I could be two places at once, I would.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she said as she scurried down the gazebo stairs, her long dress flowing behind her.

As Adam started back, his eye caught the flower she’d been wearing in her hair. Like Cinderella’s slipper, he thought, as he picked it up. He walked out to the beach and sat in the sand, crossing his ankles and taking deep breaths of the fresh sea air.

He listened to the waves and reflected on the night. Lisa loved him! Could life be any better? He replayed her words and the sight of her lips in the moonlight—those lips that loved him, that he was allowed to kiss and admire, that belonged to him.

Then he thought about her goodbye. “If I could be two places at once, I would.” If only!

Wait, two places at once? With a start, his mind snapped to the airport gate that morning. All the expo participants had been on the same flight. He never would have missed seeing a woman who resembled Lisa. Was she not a passenger? TechCrunch had purchased the tickets and made sure they would all be on that plane. Why would they have made an exception for her?

Adam’s mind suddenly felt alert. He stood up, brushed the sand from his shorts, and walked, deliberately, back toward the hotel. He thought about his conversation with the man in the bar that night: choose who you want to be and start to act like it. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, but he pictured himself as James Bond—the bad-ass blond 007 who took out guys left and right—and let the thought motivate him as he glanced around to make sure no one was looking. Then he carefully slipped through the door to the conference room where the booths were still displayed.

The lights were out and the room was silent, save the buzz of the electronics in place. Okay, he thought, what would Bond do? Adam tiptoed toward the RemoteX booth. A laser-thin ray of blue light shot out from the corner. An alarm! He jumped to avoid it, then realized it was just the glare from a computer at another booth. Calm down, he told himself.

He reached RemoteX and slowly wiggled open the drawer under the booth, covering his hand with his shirt as he did so, so there wouldn’t be any fingerprints. He used the light from his iPhone as a flashlight, glancing into the corners of the room to be sure there weren’t any security cameras.

In the top drawer were a pair of scissors, some wire, a garage-door opener, a television remote, and an MP3 player. He shut the drawer carefully and squatted to open the bottom drawer. It was empty, except for a small shoebox in the back corner. Adam pulled it out and took the lid off.

“Bingo,” he whispered.

A pile of magazine clippings and online article print-outs about Doreye were stapled together and folded neatly on top. Below it was a shoddy device, opened, with switches and wires sticking in and out like someone didn’t know what they were doing. It resembled a control panel. At the bottom of the box he found a slim, plastic container filled with little metal chips that looked like the SIM card in the back of a cell phone. Adam wrinkled his brow. What were these? There must have been fifty of the chips in the box. He used his fingernail to pull one out and slipped it into his pocket.

Adam discreetly replaced the contents of the shoebox and slid the bottom drawer closed. He tiptoed back to the Doreye booth and checked the drawers: nothing unusual. What could the chip be for? And why was it in the RemoteX shoebox?

Adam closed his eyes. Think! What would James Bond do? All he could think about were images of beautiful women and fast cars.

His eyes snapped open: the toy car!

He looked across the devices at the Doreye booth until he found the radio-controlled toy car. He picked it up and drunkenly snapped open the chassis to where the rechargeable battery was inserted. He slowly pulled out the battery and squinted to see…yes! A small metal chip, just like the one in his pocket, was tucked behind the battery, preventing two wires from meeting. He wasn’t sure what the wires were for, but he was pretty sure the chip was not supposed to be there.

Adam looked across the other devices on the table. He didn’t have to disassemble each one to know that the British blond girl sabotaged those, too. “RemoteX, I’m on to you,” he said with a satisfied smile.

Just then he heard a noise and a swath of yellow light streamed in from the conference room door. Adam froze.

Instinctively, he ducked behind the Doreye table and peered toward the door trying to figure out who it was. His mind raced. If he got caught, what would people think? They’d probably think
he
was sabotaging RemoteX. Or, at the very least, he’d get kicked out of the conference and everyone would think he was the fucked-up, add-nothing leech to his sister they’d suspected all along. He had to get out of there now…but how?