Cover

Dedication

For Marc, for making me believe in moonshots

Pulse

ONE

VALLEY OPTIMISTIC • Silicon Valley’s belief in new tech or ideas that engender doubt from those in the outside world

♥♥♥♥

FOUR. STILL. ONLY FOUR.

Lucy shifted in the hard wooden chair across from her mom’s desk and clutched her phone tighter. She swiped up and down with such force that her Caribbean Blue Baby fingernails would have scratched the glass had she not been diligent about using a screen protector.

Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Snapchat, Facebook . . . Swipe, swipe, swipe. The likes, favorites, followers, friends . . . she had enough. Enough for her ranking on the Pulse app to be higher than four.

Four?

Swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe.

The pink plastic bracelet the bouncer had secured around Lucy’s wrist danced up and down the same way she had last night, after name-dropping her way into the hottest new club in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District. The fact that she didn’t actually know Ryan Thompson, founder of Pulse, was a technicality that would soon be remedied.

Her OUR FINGERS ARE ON THE PULSE tee only given to Pulse employees opened doors closed even to most of Silicon Valley’s elite. She’d snagged it from a hipster-preneur six months ago at a party in Fremont. He was so busy claiming he left Pulse of his own accord (uh-huh) because his eco-friendly (read: nonprofitable) idea was going to change the world (i.e., drain his bank account) that he scarcely knew what he’d lost. All it took was a deftly spilled cocktail, an exorbitant dry cleaning bill, and Lucy’s favorite tank (note: pomegranate margaritas don’t come out of silk), but it was worth it.

Soon she’d have one of her own.

And she’d no longer be a 4.

♥♥♥♥

Really?

The likes on her Instagram story from last night alone should have bumped her up to a 5. Thumping. But here she sat. Still at 4. Still Thudding.

She stared at the string of hearts on her Pulse profile, knowing that, somehow, this was all because she was wait-listed at Stanford.

And that, Lucy knew the exact “how” of: Gavin Cox.

Freaking Gavin Cox.

She shouldn’t have done it, but her blue fingernail moved on its own, navigating to his profile.

Level 6. Throbbing. Gavin Cox was Throbbing and she was Thudding. If only she possessed a male member and a wingspan like Michael Phelps, she’d be Throbbing too. But now that high school was over, winning state would no longer be a crutch for Gavin, and his Pulse would plummet. He’d be lucky to be Beating—a measly 3.

Lucy was tempted to knock her mom’s expansive cherrywood desk. But Lucy Katz didn’t believe in luck. Lucy Katz didn’t hope. Lucy Katz didn’t dream. Lucy Katz did.

She knew what she wanted.

And it wasn’t this.

Thudding and wait-listed and this drab third-floor office in this mud-brown building in this sad little Sunnyvale office park.

So it wouldn’t be.

Tired of the edge of the chair digging into the soft underside of her knees, she scooted forward until her wedge sandals reached the floor.

Her mom was twenty minutes late.

As usual.

Lucy knew enough to show up for their scheduled lunch a half hour after its start time, but she was on time.

As always.

Lucy planned like other people breathed.

Which was why she wasn’t nervous about Stanford. It was a blip. A minor inconvenience. Nothing that an internship at Pulse wouldn’t wipe away like a hard reset on her MacBook Pro.

She stared at the gently tanned skin of her exposed ankles and wiggled her toes, enticing circulation to resume after being dangled two inches off the floor despite her heels. She pulled her pink-and-white-striped notebook onto her lap and leafed through the pages, refreshing herself on all the notes she’d taken thus far on ValleyStart, the summer tech incubator program she was about to begin. The five-week competition ended with one team winning an internship at Pulse. If she succeeded (please), she’d spend the rest of the summer at Pulse with Ryan Thompson. And Pulse, well, not even Stanford could ignore a pedigree that included Pulse.

Satisfied it was all already committed to memory, she closed her notebook and stared at the shiny gold L floating on the center of the cover—the only Hanukkah gift she’d received last year, sent in a FedEx envelope from her mom’s assistant.

She tucked it under her arm and stood, passing by windows that looked out on row after row of blue, red, black, white, and green hybrid cars lined up like Crayolas in the parking lot, the closest the office came to having a pop of color. A four-by-six double frame propped beside her mom’s three monitors was the only personalization in the room.

One side held Lucy as a baby, swaddled in her mom’s arms with her dad looking off to the side, toward the London office he’d soon head. The second photo once again displayed the three of them, this time on graduation day, just a few weeks ago. Her dad had scheduled a week of meetings before and after in order to attend.

Two milestones in Lucy’s life, as if nothing had happened in between, with the frame leaving no room for anything to come.

The graduation photo hung crooked in the frame. She could just see her mom hurriedly shoving it inside with one hand, typing an email with the other, while on a conference call with Singapore, Melbourne, and Dubai.

Lucy set her phone on the desk. She pulled off the cardboard backing to straighten the photo, and out fell the slip of paper behind it: a smiling baby—not Lucy, simply the picture that had come in the frame. How long had her mom kept that other child beside Lucy? Long enough to forget to print one to take its place, long enough to no longer notice that she should.

On the desk, Lucy’s phone vibrated and lit up with a text.

ValleyStart: Team assignments are in! Meet Your Mates!

Lucy’s arm shot out like a rattlesnake, and her notebook fell, knocking into one of her mom’s monitors.

“Lucy!” Abigail Katz entered the room and rushed forward in her expensive flats.

“Got it!” Lucy’s tennis-trained reflexes saved the monitor before it took down the others like dominoes.

Considering Lucy had read and reread the acceptance packet about a thousand times and been waiting for the past two months to see who she’d be spending the next five weeks with, her restraint in not jumping on the ValleyStart portal instantly was extraordinary.

It’s actually happening.

Her pulse quickened, and she was almost dizzy as she circled one way around the desk, back to the hard chair. Her mom rounded the corner from the opposite direction, adjusted the tilt of the monitor, and sat down in front of it.

With the seven-inch height difference between them, Lucy could only see her eyes. And the tiredness in them.

Lucy would never deny that Abigail Katz worked hard.

But that was all she did.

“I’m sorry, Lucy.” Abigail smoothed the ends of her chin-length bob. The barest hint of gray dusted the roots—a constant battle, waged every three weeks as she colored it back to brown. “They needed some guidance in a branding meeting that wasn’t on my schedule.”

“Right,” Lucy said.

Abigail reached into the top drawer of her desk and pulled out two protein bars. “Just a quick lunch, then, okay?”

Peanut butter. Lucy hated peanut butter. “Sure.” She peeled back the wrapping. Not even peanut butter could ruin her ValleyStart high.

“All set for tomorrow?”

“Packed the car this morning.” She bounced (just a little) in her seat.

Abigail stopped chewing. “Not an Uber or Lyft?”

“It’s ten miles.”

“Right. Ten.”

Half the number of fender benders Lucy had been in. Who has time to spend learning to be a perfect driver?

“Fine. Whatever.” Lucy pretended there was no judgment in her mom’s question and forced a bite of the peanut butter. “I’ll leave the car.”

“Better plan. You won’t need it anyway.” Abigail set her own half-eaten bar down. “You have to focus. Palo Alto High School may have been competitive, but ValleyStart’s in another league. The top startup incubator for high school graduates in the country with only sixty accepted out of—”

“Three thousand applicants, I know.” An acceptance rate of only two percent. Two. Stanford’s was four. The sole explanation . . .

Freaking Gavin Cox.

The only other applicant from her high school to make it into ValleyStart.

Lucy pushed her heels into the floor and all thoughts of Gavin where they belonged—in the past.

“I’ve been focused, Mom. I’m certainly not going to stop now.” Top ten in her class, 4.8 GPA, tennis all-star, two marathons under her belt, and still a lecture on being “focused.” Lucy regretted the bite as her stomach churned.

“Nothing wrong with reminders,” Abigail said, just as one dinged on her computer and phone in unison, the sound as familiar to Lucy as the squeak of her bedroom door.

Lucy stood.

“Wait. It’s just . . .” Abigail’s eyes slowly drifted from her three monitors to Lucy’s expertly draped off-the-shoulder tee and perfectly cuffed dark-wash jeans. “I’ve always given you freedom because you’ve shown that you can handle it. Up until now.”

Now meaning not getting into Stanford.

“But with this, with this new world you’re entering, well, I just want you to be aware of the pressures and the importance of how you present yourself.”

“Present myself? I’m not a poodle in some dog show.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what do you mean, Mom?”

“Letting off steam in high school is one thing, but now you’re an adult.”

“So I’ve heard.” Her mom had repeated the same phrase ad nauseam since Lucy’s eighteenth birthday three months ago.

“Believe me, Lucy, it’s no secret how little you’ve wanted to heed my advice lately. If and when that changes, you know where to find me.”

Right here in this same baby-poop-brown office you’ve lived in since I took my first steps . . . which, naturally, you missed.

Heat rose in Lucy’s chest, and all she wanted to do was give her mom a reminder: that the phrase was “work hard” and “play hard.” And the playing bit could yield the same—if not better—results as the working. Connections made things happen. Just ask her Pulse tee.

“Sure, Mom.” Lucy brushed her hand through her long dark hair, forgetting she was still holding the brick of peanut butter. She picked a crumb off a strand by her chin and watched as her mom slipped on her computer glasses and turned the world right in front of her eyes crystal clear, blurring everything else beyond—including Lucy.

Lucy headed for the door. “Just one small thing . . . in order to give me freedom or anything else, you’d actually have to be around.”

She didn’t wait for her mom to look up; she simply wrapped her hand around the metal knob and closed the door behind her with barely a sound, making sure she “presented herself” properly.

How am I even related to her?

Lucy only made it halfway down the hall before she slowed, leaned her head against the crap-colored walls, and tried to stop her heart from racing.

Level 7. Seven hearts was Racing.

Like everyone her age, like everyone in the world, Lucy knew the Pulse levels as well as her home address. “What’s your Pulse?” were the first words off anyone’s lips upon meeting, the first background check determining worthiness for everything from friend to blind date to party invites, probably even job offers.

The brainchild of Ryan Thompson when he was only a year older than Lucy, the app amalgamated an individual’s likes, favorites, views, thumbs-ups, and more from every major social media platform, translating it to a simple Pulse level, ranking you from zero, Dead, all the way to ten, Crushing It. Over time, as the app evolved, Level 10s became top influencers, the people everyone wanted to be or be seen with. Advertisers and the entertainment business soon realized that Level 10s’ smiling faces could increase sales and media coverage. Now 10s got complimentary everything, from the newest iPhones to dips in Iceland’s Blue Lagoon. To be a 10 was to live with all the perks.

Once Lucy and her team won the ValleyStart incubator, Pulse would be her second home for the rest of the summer. The prize of an internship at the most successful tech company in the past ten years was worth more than any amount of money.

She’d use it to her advantage. Starting now.

Lucy opened the Stanford portal and did what she’d wanted to do for weeks, since she was accepted into ValleyStart. She requested a second alumni interview. She knew it was irregular, but she explained that she had new information she was delighted to share—namely the incubator.

Lucy then lifted her chin higher and straightened her top. As she passed by the largest office—a suite—she ran her finger along the three little letters on the nameplate: CEO.

Pulse would secure that future.

At the elevators, Lucy logged in to the ValleyStart portal to find not just the names of her teammates but her assigned mentor: Ryan Thompson.

For the first time since arriving at her mom’s office, Lucy smiled.

TWO

DESIGN HACKER • A term that attempts to paint graphic designers as more “techie”

THE ODDS OF FINDING a four-leaf clover are the same as being injured by a toilet. Maddie Li had yet to be the one in ten thousand to go toe-to-toe with a bathroom fixture, but she had come across a four-leaf clover. She’d plucked it from the green lawn of the expansive quad in Harvard Yard only six blocks from her Cambridge home when she was nine. It had hung around her neck, encased in a tiny glass ornament, ever since.

A constant reminder of what else came into her life that day: her little brother, Danny.

“Not a single pterodactyl. Defective, Maddie, I’m telling you.”

Maddie watched as Danny ran figure eights with his spoon through his cereal milk. “I’m not so sure. I mean . . .” She made a show of checking if the coast was clear, glancing through the arched kitchen doorway to the hundred-year-old front door to the freshly wallpapered staircase. “Well, maybe I better not say . . .”

Danny tucked his feet underneath him, and Maddie’s hand instinctually reached to steady the stool. He leaned across the marble counter. “You can trust me.”

Maddie raised an eyebrow. “Hmm . . . I don’t know . . .”

“Maddie.”

“Danny.”

Her brother sucked in his cheeks, folding his bottom lip into a pout that never failed to achieve its desired effect.

“Okay,” she said, “but it’s gotta stay under your hat.”

“I’m not wearing a hat.”

Maddie lifted her hand above her brother’s red hair. Though empty of her stylus, her fingers automatically curled into position, and with a flourish she drew an invisible top hat above his head. “There.”

He looked up and pretended to knock it off his head. “It’s brown,” he said matter-of-factly. “Green’s my favorite color.”

“How silly of me.” With a fervent air scribble, Maddie abided by the wishes of her little brother. “There. Now, about those pterodactyls . . . my theory, and again, you didn’t hear this from me, but I think they’re the smartest dinosaurs in all of cereal land.”

Danny’s eyes widened, and a pang of sadness stole her breath. Five weeks. She wouldn’t see him for five whole weeks.

She cleared her throat, lowered her voice, and pointed to the cereal box. “These guys . . . they’re not going to become extinct. Not ever again. So each and every one waits and waits and waits and then flaps its wings a million miles an hour and zooms out of the box right before the factory glues it shut, and now they’re all living together on a tiny island off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard.”

Danny cocked his head. “That’d be nice.” A wistfulness gleamed in his eyes, but not long enough. Growing up too fast was Danny’s thing. Maddie’s was hitting pause, whenever and however she could.

He slowly sat back on his heels and dunked his spoon in his bowl. “But it’s just a story.” His fingers swirled in the milk, and out came a tiny pterodactyl. He popped it in his mouth and chewed. “Gonna miss your stories.”

Maddie’s phone dinged with a text from ValleyStart. She flipped it over on the counter. But not before Danny saw it too.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’m proud of you, Mads.”

A hard lump formed in Maddie’s throat, and she tried for the millionth time to convince herself that this was the right thing.

Which was hard to do with the way her phone continued to ding obnoxiously. She pushed it farther away. “I’m the one who’s proud of you.” She gestured to his sleepaway camp duffel on the floor of the living room, open and waiting for his favorite socks, which were still in the dryer. Maddie had had to pry them off his feet that morning. Probably the last time they’d be clean all summer, considering how he could barely stand to go a day without them. “That’s one neat and orderly bag, kid.”

“Learned it from you,” Danny said, smiling his crooked grin. Then he burst out laughing at his own joke.

Maddie smiled. Even if she wanted to, she didn’t have time to be neat, not when there was school and clients and a little brother to take care of.

As Danny read the dinosaur facts on the cereal box, Maddie reluctantly turned to the string of texts waiting on her lock screen. Ones not just from ValleyStart, but at least ten from a number she didn’t know. The first message identified the sender as Lucy Katz, proclaiming herself to be one of Maddie’s teammates and roommates. The girl had sent her Pulse handle and how excited she was to be at Thudding, whatever that meant, and as near as Maddie could tell, her life story since birth at five pounds, three ounces to . . .

Whatever.

“Packing a bag’s easy,” Danny said. “I can teach you . . . so long as a trip to J.P. Licks and a chocolate cone’s in it for me.”

Maddie shoved her phone in her pocket and put on her widest big sister smile. “Does this mean you’ve been snooping in my duffel?”

Danny shook his head. “Was going to help you get organized, but Mads, even that’s too big a job for me.”

“The creative brain doesn’t have time to fold.”

“Hope your new roommates don’t mind.”

Maddie felt her smile slipping and held on tight.

“It’s okay,” Danny said. “I already know how much you’re gonna miss me. I mean, who wouldn’t?”

They were both good at covering. A couple of nights, that was the longest they’d ever been apart. So, yeah, Maddie was going to miss Danny like she’d miss a limb—especially since she’d be spending her days at a technology incubator inventing another app people didn’t really need.

“And you’re gonna miss this.” She hopped off her stool and plastered a kiss on his cheek. “When I get back, we’re going to kick those pterodactyls off that island and claim it for ourselves!”

“Ew, Mads, that was all wet!”

Footsteps pounded the stairs, and Maddie looked up to see her mom drop a leather satchel on the bench by the front door. Strands of her long auburn hair hid her eyes as Kelley Finnerty Li reached inside one of the galvanized steel baskets home to everyone’s shoes, neatly tucked away by the cleaning lady. After pointing the toes of her stilettos toward the door, she stood and faced the kitchen, her wireless headset glued to her ear. Maddie was pretty sure her mom slept in the thing.

She gave a half-hearted nod to her children while simultaneously complaining about “him” and “joint assets.” Swap out “him” for “her,” and the conversation would be a replica of the one their dad had had less than half an hour ago. He’d breezed through the kitchen, side-hugging Danny, and on his way out, grabbed a muffin Maddie had made for Danny’s ride to camp later that afternoon.

Maddie still wished she were driving her brother to New Hampshire. But she had a six a.m. flight to San Francisco the next morning, had to finish packing, and needed to finalize a project for her most valuable client. The client that would have been her second most valuable client had she landed the company whose proposal she’d worked on for weeks. Besides, the camp owners had assured Maddie that the bus ride with other campers was a great bonding experience.

Bonding was something Maddie had zero interest in doing with this Lucy chick. Her butt was still buzzing from the girl. This is going to be a long five weeks. Maddie made a mental note to pack her noise-canceling headphones.

ValleyStart offered Maddie one thing and one thing only: a rock-solid entry on her résumé. With the prestige of the program behind her, she’d never lose another client, which meant she’d keep growing her graphic design business, which meant, most important, she could forgo college and stay right here in Cambridge with Danny.

That hadn’t been her original plan. But the allure of design school in Maryland had vanished four months ago when her grandparents, who lived in New York, were needed in Beijing more than they were in Cambridge. They’d been planning to move in to help with Danny after Maddie became a college freshman. But her grandmother’s sister was sick, and Danny, after all, had two healthy parents.

Physically, that is. Because nothing else about her parents and their relationship could be called “healthy.” At least not in the six years since their personal life merged with their professional one. Together, they’d founded an entertainment representation agency whose success consumed them—and who they used to be. Maddie had been taking care of Danny ever since.

Lately, things had gotten much worse. Not that they told Maddie; her only clue was that they now seemed to be communicating exclusively through lawyers.

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