Page 20 of Semantics
“Yeah, small world,” she replied.
“Have you been to Buddy’s over on Fifth and Cross?” Stella asked.
“The bar?”
“Yeah.”
“A few times, I guess. Why?”
“Really small world,” Stella noted. “I go there a couple of times a month.”
“You do?”
“Maybe we can meet up in person, and I can buy you a drink? I know it won’t make it up to you, but I could at least try to atone for my massive email mistake.”
“A drink?”
“Why not? We can reminisce,” Stella said. “You can tell me about how much smarter you are than me and remind me for the millionth time that you have a girlfriend back home, and I can listen and pay the bill to try to get karma back on my side.”
Violet wanted to laugh at that, too, but she held it in and replied, “You’d have to buy me several drinks to make up for calling me a bitch.”
“Okay. Whatever. Wait. You don’t drink the fancy booze with the gold leaf floating in it, do you?”
“I might at Buddy’s when you’re buying.”
Stella laughed and replied, “I’ll do the demo, and if you want the gold-leaf alcohol, I’ll buy.”
Violet nodded before she could stop herself. She didn’t know what had come over her. It wasn’t like she wanted to get a drink, even a free one, with Stella Ross, but it was highly likely that they’d both grown and changed a lot in ten years, so maybe they could share a drink, put the past behind them, and Violet could get her company a nice discount on Stella’s software.
CHAPTER 6
Stella had no idea what had possessed her. She’d suggested that she and Violet meet up in person for no real reason. Their conversation had been fine, but it hadn’t exactly been about anything that mattered, and after they’d arranged their meet-up, they had focused exclusively on the Cerebral demo. Violet had asked several great questions, which should not have surprised Stella because while they’d both probably grown up a lot, Violet was still always going to be Violet: she’d been the smartest woman in the entire program back then, and in Stella’s opinion, asking great questions was a sign of intelligence.
After they’d finished the initial demo, Violet had asked for their technical documentation on things like their API, webhooks, and just about everything else that Stella had. Violet had also requested a meeting with Monique because of her former sales engineer status, which basically meant that Monique was a salesperson on steroids and that she could answer the more technical questions that Stella couldn’t. Violet had told Stella that she’d have her head of engineering on that call, and they’d set it up for the following morning.
“Hey, Monique, did you meet with Violet?” she asked in the kitchen around lunchtime.
“Yeah, her and her engineer. Crazy smart.”
Monique shook her head in disbelief.
“Who?”
“The engineer. I hooked her up with Tim’s team to dive a little deeper because she was way over my head. She’s got experience, so that helps. I guess they’ve been thinking about building their own tool or going with a vendor, so she’s up to speed on how it all works. Tim had an opening, so they met right after, I think.”
“How did it go?” Stella asked.
“Fine, I think. I had answers to most of their questions, and it seems like we’d be a good fit for them. If Tim can impress, I think they’ll sign.”
“Really? That quickly?”
“It depends,” Monique replied. “I know they’re a small company, so they might not like the price for what they want, but if you can negotiate with them a little, they might be into it. I think Cerebral is the right tool for them.”
“How small? On LinkedIn and the form, it says under fifty, but I didn’t get an accurate number during my call with the CEO.”
“I think it’s just four people. The engineer said it’s four of them and some freelancers every so often, but no permanent contractors or other employees. That’s what I got from her, anyway. And I have to run. I’ve got another demo in five. Need anything else from me on this one?”
“Not right now. I’ll see how it went with Tim, and if he thinks that they’re ready to talk contract, I can get moving on that and save you some time,” Stella said.
