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  I feel my face scowling when Shane calls on me for introductions. They raise their eyebrows, gesturing at me to talk about myself, but I haven’t been paying attention to what anyone else said around me, and I don’t know if I’m supposed to name my favorite breakfast cereal or what. Best to cut to the chase.

  “I’m AJ Trachtenberg,” I huff out. “I teach middle school science for Public Schools of Pittsburgh. I’m sure you know we’re under funded and we’re always looking for companies to sponsor field trips for our students to enrich their—“

  “Field trips to the museum?” Samantha interrupts me, one blonde brow arched quizzically as she asks for clarification.

  “Well, no,” I stutter, though field trips to the science museum would be amazing. There’s never any money for anything. “Field trips here. For tours and job shadowing. So the kids can see data science in action.”

  She taps a pen on the desk and glances at the scowling man beside her. Who is that guy? “I’m not sure this is the best environment for your middle schoolers, Mr. Trachtenberg.” She gestures around the room. “Our data scientists are working with very complex algorithms.”

  “And you think because my students live in poverty they can’t comprehend what it is your employees do for a living?” I’m fully in a lather now. Peak surly. I take back my gratitude about the coffee. My lower back is starting to sweat. I hate when people underestimate my students.

  “No,” she says, shaking her head emphatically, causing some of the yellow waves to tumble over one shoulder. “Absolutely not what I meant. Perhaps I should clarify that—“

  “Forget it.” I slap my folder closed and cross my arms. “We’ll just take them to Google.” I realize this is an empty thing to say, both because we don’t actually have a relationship with the tech giant and also because the companies aren’t remotely the same.

  It doesn’t matter, though, because my words have the desired impact. Samantha Vine is flustered, stammering her way through the rest of the introductions as she assures everyone else in the room that Vinea strives to be a place where every voice is considered and welcomed.

  Lip service. She’s no different from any other money-hungry mogul.

  As soon as the presentation wraps up, I leave my stuff on the table and stomp out to the parking lot. I don’t even grab a third coffee on my way out the door.

  By the time I get to the car, I feel like an asshole. I remember how welcoming Vinea’s physical space is. I know I have a hair-trigger temper. But the fact remains that she doesn’t want my students here, and by proxy she doesn’t want me. I don’t have time for people who don’t want me in their space. Not anymore.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Samantha

  THE ONLY THING saving me from curling in a ball and crying is the promise of meeting up with my friends. We call our little group Foof…Fresh out of fucks. It’s a sort of ridiculous name for a bad-ass group of entrepreneurs, engineers and queens of the Steel City.

  I feel so at ease when I’m with them, like I really don’t have to pretend or put on a fake smile or any of that. I can actually free my fucks with these gals…and I need that, because everyone else claws at me, demanding attention I can’t spare and hurling mean words at me if I say as much.

  As often as we can, Foof huddles up in the event room of our friend Esther’s bar, Bridges and Bitters, and these meetings are my recharge. Esther bought an old building in Lawrenceville and transformed it into the most amazing spot. She went for a speakeasy feel, with reclaimed wooden everything and these cozy settees. But honestly, we could meet on a milk crate by the river and I’d still walk away energized from these women.

  A few days later, and I’m still reeling after I chased off Mr. Grumpy Teacher from our meeting and stumbled through the rest of my interview with the guy from Forbes. I definitely appreciate Esther’s vintage velvet furniture as I collapse in a heap.

  “That bad?” She arches a dark brow at me as she moves some furniture around the room to get ready for the rest of Foof to arrive.

  I drape a wrist across my forehead. “If I had a corset on, I’d be asking you to slice the laces.” She pats me on the shoulder and heads back up front to mix a batch of cocktails for us. My friends shuffle in, some of them excited about their day and others looking like they want to join me tying one on.

  Logan links arms with her sisters-in-law as they make their way in. As they all chat about life, I sit up and rest my elbows on my lap, propping my forehead against my palms. “I wish I could have a do-over,” I mutter.

  “Tell me about it.” Celeste Sheffield, actual grandma and the oldest member of Foof, sits next to me, patiently waiting for me to spill my guts.

  I take a deep breath, thinking back over the wretched day, from the annoying call from my dad to my magazine interview not going well. I bite my lip, trying to decide the worst part of it all. “I told a middle school science teacher I didn’t think young students would gain much from touring Vinea,” I tell her. “So now this guy thinks I think his students are too stupid, because of poverty.” Celeste pats my leg in a motherly sort of way I really appreciate.

  “I was just so overwhelmed with the Forbes reporter there and thinking about how much work it’ll be to prepare for going public. Who has time to prep for a bunch of tween visitors? But I guess what I said came out wrong and AJ took offense.”

  Celeste swirls around the ice in her drink and looks at me. “What if you called and explained? Said you realized your mistake? You could extend your invitation to the students after all.”

  I cringe. “Ugh. Apologies are the worst, though. Like, now this guy is going to know I say dumb things when I go off book.” Men thinking I’m stupid is a big, fat trigger for me after living with the Colonel. He’s so domineering and immersed in a hyper-macho military world. Everything has to be precise with him. Language, thought processes, all of it. “Can I make Logan call?”

  Logan laughs and shakes her head, wagging a finger at me. “I just run the numbers, boss. You’re the one with your name on the building.”

  It’s true. My name is on the damn building. So why do I feel like such an imposter all the time? I’ve spent my entire life trying to fill someone else’s shoes…I got thrust into that role after my mother died. I didn’t mean to start a company in my free time from my dorm room, but I did. Now, ten years along the way, I’m on the cusp of going public with my business-baby and I can’t drum up the ovary power to call someone and apologize?

  “Gah. Fine. I know, I know. I’ll call him and grovel.”

  “That’s the winning spirit!” Esther winks as she slides me a glass of something magical.

  “What’s this yummy drink?” I stir the liquid with the sprig of rosemary she stuck in the glass. Esther uses the Foof meetings to test out her new concoctions before adding them to her cocktail menu each month.

  “I think I’ll call this one Atonement.” She waggles her eyebrows as she takes a sip. “It’s tequila reposado, Amaro, lime, pineapple and some simple syrup.”

  “I only know what half of those mean,” I tell her. “But it’s damn good.”

  “Repent and find out,” she tells me and shrugs. “Since when do you care what some man thinks of you?”

  I always care. I bite my lip and look around the room. I can’t let any of these women know how terrified I am of disapproval, of failure. No, that won’t do at all. Gotta keep faking it. I’m a go-getter, damn it.

  “Okay, okay, I’ll call him. Sheesh.” I take another sip of the drink, which is not quite a margarita, but is tart and sweet and smooth all the same. It tastes classy. Sexy. I stand up off the settee and wander into the hall. The quiet music Esther has playing in the bar creates a nice ambiance. It’s loud enough that you can hear it, but still have a conversation with someone.

  Like, say, a smoldering, grouchy science teacher I insulted earlier today…

  I roll my eyes at myself for being nervous to call him and pull out my phone. Shane is a terrific manager
of community relations, and I’m sure they sent me notes on everyone who was at Vinea today. Sure enough, there’s a contact list in my inbox. They even made it clickable, so I just have to tap the name AJ Trachtenberg and the phone starts dialing.

  It rings. And rings again. And rings some more. I take a sip of my Atonement. God, Esther really makes a damn good drink. Finally, the voicemail picks up and a low voice seems to growl at me. “This is AJ. Leave a message. I’m unlikely to respond.”

  I pull the phone from my ear and stare at it, hanging up before I can reconsider.

  Was his voice that sexy earlier today? Or am I just drunk on Atonement? Who says that on their voicemail message?

  I toss back the rest of my drink and set my glass on the bar. Gah. I have to call him again. But…then I get to hear his voice again… Should I waste my time leaving him a message if he doesn’t pick up? Is this effort wasted? I tap redial and it rings ten more times. Ten freaking times before I hear the smooth baritone. The phone beeps at me, and I stammer into it. “Hi. Hello, Mr. Trachtenberg. This is Samantha Vine from Vinea. I was hoping I could talk to you about what we discussed earlier today. About your students. I mean, I would love to welcome your students to Vinea….You caught me a bit off guard earlier…”

  I realize I haven’t yet actually apologized, but can’t decide if that’s something I should even do over voicemail when he’s unlikely to respond. I sigh. “Anyway, I’d appreciate a call back so we could talk about this further.”

  I hang up and slap myself in the forehead, groaning, before I walk back into the room full of my friends.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  AJ

  I MISSED TWO calls last night. Nobody ever calls me apart from my parents and my Bubbie, so I never bother to answer my phone. I almost choked on my beer when I finally listened to the voicemail and it was from her. The blonde bombshell I happened to be Googling when I silenced her calls.

  I’m not quite sure what to make of her wanting to discuss my students, so I decide to just ignore her call. We’re dissecting frogs this week in my seventh grade science class. I have a lot to prepare and I don’t have time to listen to someone else tell me about their incorrect assumptions about my students.

  I wipe off my glasses, straighten my tie, and stride into my classroom, ready to face a room full of young teens who smell worse than the formaldehyde in the bins of frogs I stacked under the back window. “Morning, scholars,” I say to my first period class.

  They stagger in slowly from breakfast in the cafeteria, teasing each other, talking about football. I pull out my notes for first period and start arranging everything on my desk until a cracking voice interrupts me. “Yo, Mr. T.”

  I look up. “What’s up, Dante?”

  “What’s the deal with the new art teacher?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, like, how do I say his name?”

  “Ah.” I reach in my drawer for a dry erase marker and write Mx. Tran on the board. “Remember, their pronouns are they and them.”

  The bell rings and everyone takes a seat, silently waiting for me to elaborate. “And the M-x honorific is pronounced MIX.”

  Dante taps on his desk a few times. “Okay, but, like, isn’t that weird?”

  “Well, would it feel weird if I called you ‘miss’?”

  He laughs but then looks around. “Well, yeah. Cuz I’m not a girl.”

  “Right. Well Mx. Tran is non-binary. They are not a girl, either. Or a boy.”

  Jayden seems to ponder this a bit and raises his hand. “Doesn’t someone have to pick, though?”

  This is actually fitting in with my lesson plan about the reproductive organs in the frogs we’re about to dissect, so I brighten up. “Glad you asked, Jayden. Let’s make a list of all the things that make a girl and a boy.” I draw two columns on the board and turn back to the class.

  “Okay, who’s got something for our list?”

  “Boys have short hair,” says Maya, a red-head with a long braid tossed over one shoulder. Another girl with a buzzed undercut turns around and says, “Yeah, but so do girls.” She turns to face me. “Girls wear skirts.”

  Someone brings up the kilts on Outlander. The kids debate breasts and beards. We go back and forth this way for awhile, not settling on a single trait that seems to fit just one of the columns. Dante seems more confused than ever. “Mr. T, isn’t this science class? What does all this have to do with biology?”

  I grin and erase the columns from the board, writing “gonads” instead. I tell them to pull out their textbooks. We talk through the diagram of the frog reproductive systems, and I tell them how tadpoles sometimes switch sex before metamorphosing into frogs.

  “Any given amphibian could be genetically male based on chromosomes, but have female gonads,” I tell them. “Who can remember what we talked about with chromosomes?”

  We talk through the different chromosome arrangements for a bit and I’m just about to pivot back to the frog diagram when Jayden interrupts me again. “Yo, Mr. T. There’s someone at the door.”

  I look over my shoulder to find her standing there. Samantha Vine, leaning against my doorway with her arms folded, wearing the hell out of a pair of checked pants and a bright red top.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Samantha

  DOES STEEL-CITY Sweetheart Samantha Vine Have the Chops to Go Public?

  By: Nick Ackerman, Business Analyst

  Investors everywhere have one question on their mind this month as Vinea prepares for its IPO: when can I get in? The tech startup has soared to notoriety, enjoying nearly universal adoption from healthcare research institutions and biomedical companies alike. But is the company ready for the public stage? Moreover, is its leader prepared for the level of scrutiny that follows CEOs of publicly traded companies? Stay tuned as we follow the news this week on MarketView.

  I don’t have the heart to read the entire media summary Audrey pulled up for me this morning. I’m sure it’s all the same thing each time: can I handle the competition in a big pond?

  So, since I need a distraction and since AJ Trachtenberg never called me back, I decide to just pop by the school and hope I can catch him. I know it’s a terrible idea, and probably disruptive. But the idea that he thinks I think something just hangs over me like a cloud. And besides—aren’t kids excited about field trips? Even if he doesn’t want to forgive my little misstep, shouldn’t he just get over it to give the students a fun trip?

  I also know that if I don’t take care of this now, I’ll get mired in a thousand other things at work and also stress out at the idea that my family might call me and yell at me for something else I didn’t anticipate. Honestly, the weight of this thing with AJ Trachtenberg might be the straw that breaks my back this week. And I don’t have time to find a spinal surgeon.

  I approach the front doors of the school and ring the buzzer, explaining to the guard that I’m just here to talk to Mr. Trachtenberg.

  I fumble my way through asking for directions to the main office until a guy in a button-down stops in his tracks. “Did you say you’re here to see AJ?”

  “Yes!” I brighten up at this ally, come to save me in the middle of my ill-advised mission. “I’m Samantha Vine. AJ and I had a bit of a misunderstanding yesterday at the Vinea event and I’ve been trying to track him down.”

  He holds out a hand. “Doug Rogers,” he says. “Let me walk you up to his room.”

  “Oh. Won’t he be teaching in there?”

  Doug grins and nods. “He will indeed. I believe you will throw him off his game entirely.”

  I start shaking my head. “I can just leave him a note. It’s just that it was hard to reach him over the phone.”

  “Sam. Can I call you Sam?”

  “Please do.” I love when people drop formalities. I grew up with a colonel for a father. I’ve had enough uptightness to last me a few lifetimes.

  “Sam,” Doug continues. “Nothing would thrill me more than to mess with AJ’
s head. He thinks he’s unflappable and he drives the rest of us wild with that chip on his shoulder. Humor me, please. I’ve got three sons and I teach in a middle school.” He grins and I can’t help but like him. Apparently AJ Trachtenberg is grumpy with everyone, not just me. Whew.

  I shrug. “Show me the way!”

  Doug leads me up a flight of stairs and points to a door decorated with cardboard microscopes and double helixes. Doug pushes the door open a few inches, grins and waves, heading back down the stairs as I lean against the doorframe to listen. AJ is really different when he’s with his students. He seems animated as they talk about frog reproduction. I try not to laugh, remembering my own boring encounters with biology teachers. AJ seems passionate about his students, not just the subject matter.

  Eventually, one of the kids notices me and I smile. AJ grimaces at me and I swear, he growls. Right there in front of his students, he growls like a wolf. Or maybe a grizzly bear. He’s a very hairy person, I observe, noting dark strands on the backs of his hands, his neck, his jaw. I have to stop thinking about his jaw.

  AJ says, “Class, this is Samantha Vine. She’s come to judge your aptitude for science.”

  I frown. “Actually, I came to apologize. I didn’t know I’d be disrupting your class. But I’d love to invite you all to my company, Vinea, for a tour. Once you’re done with the frog gonads.”

  A girl raises her hand and says, “Mr. T, can we do whatever she’s talking about instead of dissect the frogs?”

  The class murmurs excitedly. Someone says, “Yeah, Mr. T. It smells like butt in here. No offense.”

  AJ just blinks and looks like he’s grinding his teeth. The girl raises her hand again. He calls on her. “Yes, Margot?”

  “Ms. Vine—what do you do at Vinea?”

  I push off the door and walk into the room, grinning. “We dissect frogs.” The class bursts out laughing and groaning and I wait for them to settle down. “Actually, I’m a data scientist.” I look over at AJ to see if he seems like he’ll murder me, but he’s just quietly simmering off to the side, so I continue. “I designed a software tool that helps scientists with their experiments. Have you all done experiments and lab reports and stuff like that?”