“Ooh, great, Eric and I were just talking about that,” Delia said, reaching for the round, gold-rimmed sunglasses Lucy had helped her pick out at one of the kiosks in the student center (not bad for something on the clearance rack). Maddie pulled her aviators down from her head, and the two started toward the exit, leaving Lucy alone, waiting for her mother.

After saying goodbye to Nishi, Abigail placed her leather briefcase in her hand and approached her daughter. “Walk with me?”

Resentment simmered at the surface, but Lucy moved her feet.

“Sounds as though things are going well,” her mom said.

No one mentioned tenth, then?

“I’m glad I decided to accept this invitation to speak, otherwise I would have no idea what you’re up to.”

“And that’s my fault? You’re the tech guru, but I’m pretty sure cell phones can now make as well as receive calls.”

“Interesting.”

“What?”

“I interpreted our last encounter in my office to mean you wanted space. I gave it.”

Right, and what’s your excuse for the eighteen years before that?

“Your team seems competent. Are you getting along?”

“What is this about, Mom? We don’t do chitchat.”

Her mother sighed. “Believe what you want, Lucy, but I am encouraged to hear how well things are going. However—”

“And there it is! Do I win a prize?”

“However,” Abigail said, unfazed, “before the panel Nishi mentioned she chaperoned a field trip to San Francisco—”

“Oh, God, Mom, please. And what? Did she say I was dancing? In a club?” Lucy fake gasped. “I was having fun, which I deserve, because Lit is going well, so, so well, because I’m working my ass off to make sure it does. I’ll never understand why you can’t trust me even the tiniest bit. You don’t think I’ll ever be you? Good, because I don’t want to be.”

*   *   *

Lucy quickened her pace, as if the pounding in her feet would help her ignore the tremble in her hands. She thought about canceling, but she didn’t have a way to get in touch with Ryan and she wouldn’t be a no-show.

She followed the path to the student center and breezed through the glass door. Under the arched entryway to the study hall, site of the hackathon and now ValleyStart’s collective workspace, she steeled herself with an image of sharing her Demo Day win with Stanford. So long as she stayed on the wait list, she was fine, everything was fine, fine, fine, fine.

But nothing was. And now even the table in the corner dedicated for mentor meetings was empty. Had Ryan forgotten?

The lecture had only just ended, and already teams were tethering themselves back to tables and chairs, walling themselves off with laptop screens, immersing themselves in their work. Maybe ValleyStart was right about the rankings spurring competition.