There were a couple times when she had been sucked in by his charm. Like when he’d gotten that knowing gleam in his eye when she’d made subtle references to how old Matchmaker was, or every time he’d articulately fielded Helena’s questions, or when his face had gone all soft and sentimental, talking about his late parents.
Claire. Her fake name that she used on the app, murmured in that fucking voice.
So she’d remind herself of why, exactly, he was a bastard. If it jolted him and made him show remorse or chagrin, all the better.
“Ugh.” Helena leaned into the audience reaction. “Ghosting is the worst.”
“It’s a terrible feeling. When you ghost someone, you’re saying, I don’t care enough about you as a human being to even tell you I don’t want to see you again. How humiliating is that?” She tried to keep her smile intact, but she feared it was turning a little feral.
“No joke.” Helena glanced offstage. “Okay, I am being signaled that we’re running low on time, so let’s take a couple questions from the audience.”
Most of the questions were for Rhiannon, a tiny win that made her want to childishly stick her tongue out at the hunk of man sitting across from her. Some of the questions were silly and goofy, and Rhiannon answered them as such. There was a harmless one about the journey she’d taken to get to where she was, which Rhiannon significantly toned down, nothing that wasn’t in her Wikipedia article: Harvard dropout, founder of a now-defunct social media startup she’d sold for a hefty sum at the age of twenty-six, an executive at a competitor app, and finally, starting Crush with a silent investor. She didn’t name Katrina, who used a number of shell companies to keep herself out of the spotlight.
Those in the tech industry knew Rhiannon had departed Swype under a dark cloud, but even right after she’d left, the questions she’d fielded in public had been veiled and gossipy. No one had been bold enough to come right out and ask her directly, Rhiannon, how do you feel about the fact that your former employer started a whisper campaign about how you were a gold digger and a whore?
Not great, Chuck.
“Ah, interesting,” Helena said as the next question came on the screen, but her lip curl told Rhiannon the woman found the question to be the opposite of interesting. Once Rhiannon read it, she liked Helena more. “The question is, ‘Rumor has it Crush’s staff is 80 percent female. Isn’t it discriminatory to hire only women?’”
Rhiannon scanned the room, though the stage lights made it impossible for her to track down who in the audience had asked such an asinine question.
She said nothing for a beat. When she’d been embroiled in a messy employment relationship with Swype, the man in charge wearing her down, she’d dreamed of this power. The power to be silent while a man—though it could be a woman, patriarchy had no gender—waited for her answer, to force them to conform to her timetable.
It was petty and silly, but again . . . one could indulge in such things when one was in charge.
Finally, she spoke, directing her answer to the audience, not Helena.
“It’s not a rumor, though the number’s a little off.” She didn’t have to look offstage to know Lakshmi was probably plotting to strangle whoever had green-lit that question. “I am proud of how representative Crush is. An inclusive staff means an inclusive app, one that can be safe and welcoming and serve as many people as possible. Currently, approximately 72 percent of our workforce are women, both cis- and transgender, 18 percent are men, both cis- and transgender, and 10 percent are non-binary individuals. Let’s look at the other companies of Crush’s size. What’s the makeup of their staff?” She didn’t look at Samson, because she wasn’t talking about Matchmaker. Matchmaker wasn’t the enemy, and since she wanted to buy it, she wasn’t about to rip it apart.
But she hoped everyone was thinking about Swype real hard. Her pettiness knew no bounds there.
Helena shifted. “I would imagine it’s a majority of cis men,” she murmured.
“I would say that too. So why do I constantly get asked this question? Why isn’t every single one of these male CEOs asked why they’re discriminating against anyone who’s not a straight white cis man?”
A murmur of agreement went through the crowd. Someone started clapping.