Self Care - Leigh Stein Page 0,4

my face one pixel at a time. When we first launched, Maren had explained to me, If we’re going to be two white girls with a startup, we can’t be two white girls who don’t know we’re white. I don’t want any press that’s like, “They didn’t get the diversity memo.” I agreed that I was white, but I didn’t feel as bad about it as Maren did. Khadijah was our very first hire. In the media kit photos, her box braids looked bananas. Maren wanted to give her 5 percent equity because of reparations, but I talked her down to 2.5.

I still was confused about whether I was supposed to let Khadijah know that I knew she was black or if I was supposed to pretend that her blackness never crossed my mind.

“Your skin looks great,” I said. “Are you using hyaluronic acid?”

“Nope.”

“Pore-refining mask?”

“I’m not doing anything different,” she said, trying to suppress a yawn. For the shoot, she’d had to arrive at my apartment before dawn.

“Maybe it’s just that color on you,” I said. “What is it, MAC Rebel?”

“Thanks,” she said. “I’ll get this posted as soon as I finish editing your face.”

“Don’t stay too late tonight, okay?”

She’d already put her headphones back on so I wasn’t sure if she heard me.

I should wear more lipstick, I thought, looking at myself in selfie mode on my phone. But my lips were thin, and drawing attention to them would draw attention to my jaw, which was more Samantha Bee than Reese Witherspoon. Not that I didn’t totally admire them both for being older women who were still visible in public.

There is a typo in a headline on the site , Maren texted with a screenshot.

You are supposed to be resting!!!!!

I am resting. I am in bed right now.

You are working.

Not working, just scrolling.

She couldn’t turn it off, not even for a day.

Hey , I texted Evan. He was our first investor, the person who’d made all this possible. I tried to only ask him for favors when it was truly necessary.

Sup

Can we use your house this weekend? I think Maren needs detox.

Am I invited?

Ummmmmmm , I said. I knew what he was really asking, but my hands were full with Maren. Girls’ trip?

Totes magotes , he said. Just lmk when you’re coming by for the keys.

Maren

As soon as I saw the tweet, I knew I wanted to help,” Evan said. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay. I mean I will be.”

“Because I’m sorry to tell you this, but you look like shit,” he said and we both laughed. I had to laugh. In a couple of weeks, Evan and I would be in back-to-back meetings with VCs. “Sleep-deprived teen goth who swears these jeans must have shrunk in the wash” was not the best look for me to deliver our value prop. Male founders could get away with a sloppy genius aesthetic, but I had to be a brand ambassador for self-care.

“So take the weekend—take the whole week if you need it. My parents hardly ever go up to the house anymore. Put your phone on airplane mode, light a fire, take a bath, whatever you need to get back in fighting shape. And most importantly?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t read the comments.”

“Too late,” Devin and I said at the same time.

Evan’s penthouse on Rivington was all high ceilings and right angles and cold daylight. The open kitchen had a distressed reclaimed wood light fixture with vintage Edison bulbs hanging from it, the exposed filaments like fairies trapped upside down in jars. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked a wraparound terrace and views of Lower Manhattan. Evan had made a small fortune while he was still at Wharton, when the mobile-friendly cryptocurrency trading bot he built was acquired by one of the world’s largest banks. But more people knew him as the Bachelorette runner-up who abandoned the bachelorette during the rose ceremony of the fantasy suite episode in a radical protest of the show’s amplification of toxic masculinity. “I will no longer be complicit,” he said, before ripping off his mic and riding off into the tropical night, shirtless, on a motorcycle. Girls at home, gripping their third goblets of rosé, lost their minds, googled toxic masculinity, started petitions for Evan to become the next bachelor, even as he told TMZ he was done with the franchise.

He was our first investor and one of our most trusted advisors, the guru behind our exit strategy. Through his connections, he’d helped