“Awesome—and thanks. Marty seems like he’ll be great when it comes time for hustling, but he’s a bit all over the place with his ideas. And Emma’s cool, and I don’t mean to rag or anything, but I’m not really sure of her skills. She knows HTML, and she’s got some great sketch art she’s put to music. She writes her own lyrics and everything, but even she said she’s not really a designer.”

One thing Delia didn’t have to worry about was the skill of her teammates—she knew she was the weak link.

“Though her Pulse is going through the roof, so there’s that. Gotta help us when it comes time to beta test.”

“Will it?” Delia hadn’t thought of that. None of her team was anywhere close to Crushing It, not even Lucy.

“I hope so. I really want this to work. Yelp’s a great model for us, but ours has to go further, plus be safe for kids to use, because it’s when they’re on their own that they’re most at risk.”

“And the idea came from your sister?”

“Yeah, she’s allergic to peanuts. Like even breathing in the dust can be a problem.”

Delia remembered the bags of peanuts she didn’t eat on the airplane and was glad she’d been too nervous to open them. “That must be hard.”

“Her teachers are great about it, but she had a serious scare a couple of years ago. She was out with her friend’s family, and she and the mom alerted the server. But the guy in the kitchen was a sub for the usual chef and didn’t know what was in the sauces he was heating up. A tablespoon of peanut butter in a gallon of sauce. That’s enough. If she didn’t have her EpiPen . . .”

Eric’s voice faltered at the end, and all Delia could think was if Cassie or her parents were in that situation, there was no way she’d be coding an app like Lit.

“So I’m here, and I’m doing my best for her, you know?” Delia nodded, and Eric continued. “My grandma was so proud when I showed her the acceptance email. She said, ‘dreamers dream, doers do.’”

Delia smiled, but her mind clung to Eric’s “doing my best”—the thing she was doing and realizing wasn’t enough. She was dragging her team down, no matter what Lucy said. She had no hope of helping them with her Pulse ranking, and she was even failing at the code. Had she actually thought she could be some superstar and get a job out here? She should be home, actually helping her parents, not here. She was a little fish in this big pond and she knew it—everyone knew it. She was certain that she was the one everyone at ValleyStart was talking about.