A tall, lanky redhead with brown eyes and a warm smile walked up and introduced himself. He didn’t need to: Bill Roche, venture capitalist par excellence, one of the few who had achieved name-recognition status in the wider business world. He was thin and wiry in that healthy California way. He looked like someone she might actually like to get to know, not like the other bean counters she had met this week.
“Christy Hayes?” he said, shaking her hand. “Did you fall in a lake?”
Christy laughed, relieved that Bill had a sense of humor. “No, we were delayed flying in. Then I ended up running here when our car got stuck in traffic. Sorry I’m such a mess,” she said, looking down, suddenly mortified.
“Not at all. I’m impressed that you ran to make it. Lucky for you we don’t make investment decisions based on appearance,” he laughed.
“Of course you don’t,” Christy said. “That would be nuts.” She wished Katherine had heard him say that.
“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, Christy. What you’ve accomplished is really something. Hopefully, we can help you take it further. Let’s go to my office and talk.”
Christy had the strongest surge of hope since leaving New York a week ago. She floated down the wide, cushiony breezeway to a large, open room, all tropical greenery outside the glass. Bill motioned for her to sit at his small conference table made of beautiful inlaid walnut. She switched on her laptop, which remained absolutely mute. Her panic rose as she tapped the keys. Nothing. She tapped harder. Water began to seep from the case onto the table. The black screen stared back at her. Usually she did the vision thing while Katherine presented the numbers and fielded those questions. Today she was on her own. No Katherine. No numbers. No safety net.
Slowly, Christy closed the laptop. Her panic was giving way to the same adrenaline she used to feel at the starting line of a race. Just as she was poised to take off, Bill said, “Stop! Let me call an associate in to join us. Then I want to hear your story, start to finish.”
In walked a familiar face, and, sad to say, a familiar body. David Baum. He had been with an investment group Christy met with three years ago, just as Baby G was getting off the ground. Like the others they approached then, no one at David’s firm would back a girl Olympian trying to break into the competitive world of athletic footwear, and Christy was treated dismissively at each meeting. But she and David had connected. A hot romance ensued. She had fallen hard for him, and it seemed mutual. They alternated between New York and San Francisco on weekends and became familiar faces on the red-eye. But in the end, Christy couldn’t build a company and keep a bicoastal relationship going. She ended it badly, as she did many personal things in those early days of struggle, just for lack of the energy and time to do it right.
Now David and Christy looked at each other. She blushed, and he, smooth as all bankers, moved to cover his emotions. Dammit, of all the pitch meetings in all the towns in all the world, he has to walk into mine, Christy thought miserably.
But she composed herself quickly and told Bill and David her story. How they had gotten started using Christy’s commercial endorsement money to stake the company; their market victories; the opportunities for growth. Bill asked completely different kinds of questions than the other bankers they’d met. He wanted to know how Christy handled disappointments, to hear about the mistakes they had made, things they usually kept under wraps in these gigs. He asked about the toughest decision she’d had to make, and she told them about the time their fall line came in from the manufacturer with a small defect in the architecture of the sole of their flagship model. They decided to pull the shoes, even though it almost put them out of business. Christy felt that Bill understood what it was like to be an entrepreneur; to be lost much of the time, but to have the kind of grit that keeps you going anyway. Christy could feel she was in her zone. She was known for her power of persuasion—part passion, part looks, part vision. She hadn’t felt it with the other venture sheep this week, but with Bill, this High Priest, she was soaring.
Just before the meeting ended, David pulled his lean, athletic frame up and excused himself for another presentation, suggesting to Bill that they talk later. Christy shot him a pleading look as he stood to leave. She could read nothing in his eyes, even though he was looking right at her.
Bill spent twenty more minutes with Christy, and she could tell he was going to say yes.
“Christy, it was great to meet you,” he said. “I was really impressed with your presentation. I just want to get David’s take. It’s good that you two know each other. Personal references are everything with us.”
Christy smiled weakly and swore herself to chastity for life, or at least to dating only gorgeous waiter-actors unlikely to show up when her entire future was on the line. She hoped with all her heart that David would act in the interest of the firm—and not hold their failed relationship against her.
Christy shook Bill’s hand and headed for the exit. She grabbed a few more bags of M&M’s as she passed the kitchen. She had kept Bill interested for over an hour. He was known for his short attention span. Anything over thirty minutes was considered a done deal.
When Christy finally emerged, Katherine was waiting outside the office in their rented Taurus, with its crushed left hood. As she got in, Katherine
