I have a confession to make. I have a drinking problem. That’s the scariest thing I’ve ever said in public. I tried to hide my problem from my coworkers, my partner, my family. This week, I finally realized that I was more afraid that I would never be able to stop than I was of asking for help. If this post helps one person feel seen with whatever she’s struggling with, then my reluctant visibility will have been worth it.
I tapped my messages icon to see if Devin had responded. Nothing.
The post had one like, two likes, three likes, four. I thumbed refresh. I waited. More.
* * *
...
The board meeting was scheduled for Monday morning. To be discussed: hitting the benchmarks that would solidly position us as the Instagram of wellness and finalizing our strategy and timeline for raising $25 million.
I arrived early, dressed up like a woman in my new pink dress and a lipstick I found when I was cleaning out the bathroom called GoGetter. In the staff kitchen, I cut fresh cucumbers and put them in the water pitcher the way Devin liked. I borrowed a few potted succulents from Khadijah’s desk to make a centerpiece on the conference table. On one wall of the conference room, an artist had stenciled a Kanye tweet. On another, we had a quote from Roxane Gay: “I embrace the label of bad feminist because I am human.”
Our investors Klaus Wu and Richard Zimmerman would video-conference in from Menlo Park. I had one chance to make my case for why we should abandon our series B plan altogether and pivot to a paid membership structure—let our users themselves pay for the value we were providing, instead of being so reliant on corporate advertising. What could be more positive for women than women paying to use a product built and owned by other women?
It would give us more freedom in the kind of content we could put out there—if we wanted to call out a beauty brand for doing animal testing, we could, without worrying about that brand canceling their ad spend. I had proof of how high our user engagement was. All we had to do was roll out the new membership model quickly. Plus, raising more capital would mean adding more seats to our board, and I didn’t think we needed any more men at the table. Devin and I were already outnumbered three to two.
With the matches we kept in the kitchen for birthdays, I lit a bundle of sage and cleared the space of toxic energy.
Khadijah arrived at 9:55. I had asked if she would take the minutes while I was busy presenting.
“I stopped drinking,” I blurted out. “I’m really sorry that you had to see me like that.”
“Yeah, I saw your post,” she said.
She was more dressed up than usual, in a white blazer over a black maternity dress. Her baby bump seemed so obvious, I was mortified I hadn’t noticed it sooner.
“You look nice today,” she added.
I’ll organize a baby shower at the office, I thought. I’d have it catered. All the money I used to spend on wine could now go to generosity toward others. I would make it up to her. I could enlist the help of Khadijah’s closest friends at work to help with the decorations. I tried to think of who those friends might be. I could call Adam. At least I remembered his name.
In the Google Doc with our meeting agenda, I added a section on Content strategy for prenatal and postpartum millennials.
Anonymous badger was editing the doc at the same time.
Staff, they wrote. I had no idea who the badger was. Could have been Devin, could have been Evan, could have been Klaus.
Under Staff, I added a bullet point: Let’s talk about benefits esp. paid parental leave.
I poured Khadijah a glass of cucumber water.
Devin and Evan entered the room together and sat next to each other in silence, leaving one empty chair between them like something left unspoken. Devin’s face was pale and somber. She wouldn’t make eye contact with me. She was wearing a black poncho that went past her knees, her hair braided around her crown like a Scandinavian child’s.
Of course she was in a bad mood—she thought we had to continue riding the fundraising merry-go-round as if nothing had changed. Neither Klaus nor Richard reached out to me about the allegations against Evan, which meant the story didn’t even cross their desks, or they didn’t see an issue with Evan’s conduct. They didn’t have their own Richual accounts, so it was unlikely they saw my video either.
I hoped Devin would be able to hear the subtext of my pitch. If we switched to a paid membership model, we didn’t have to raise more money from Klaus or Richard or any other VC. We didn’t need Evan to open doors for us. We would be women-funded, free from men altogether.
“Hello,” said the head of Klaus on the big TV screen. He was wearing a blue plaid shirt, unbuttoned, under a blazer.
“Hello, it’s Richard,” said Richard. He was wearing a green plaid shirt, unbuttoned, no blazer.
“Hello, Richard? It’s Klaus, but your video isn’t coming through.”
“We can see both of you,” I said.
“Should I restart my browser?” asked Richard.
“Ah, there you are,” said Klaus.
“Good morning, everyone,” I said. “Thank you for joining us so early on the West Coast.”
“We’re just waiting on one more,” Evan said.
“Who?” I asked.
“Can we hold off for five?” Evan asked. He had to be high if he thought I was going to let him run this meeting.
“No, I don’t want waste anyone’s time. Khadijah, would you please do the roll call?”
“Devin Avery, present. Maren Gelb, present. Evan Wiley—”
Our lawyer, Leslie Royce, walked in. We weren’t yet big enough to have in-house counsel, but Leslie was someone we called on when we needed her to review a contract or help us untangle a sticky situation with an advertising partner. She was old enough to be the mom of anyone in the room, but she had no children. Devin had known her for years; Leslie had worked with her dad.
“I wasn’t aware that you were joining us,” I said.
“Sorry about that miscommunication, Maren,” she said, shaking my hand before taking the seat between Devin and Evan. “We’re all good.”
“Are we? All good?”
“For the record,” Evan said, “Maren, I think you’ve done a great job.”
Khadijah looked to me, as if seeking permission to enter this into her notes, and I nodded.
“Thank you, Evan, I’ll take it from here. I know that funding strategy is on the top of our agenda, and I have a creative solution that I’m excited to share with everyone. First, let me just bring up this screen so you can see our live user metrics. It’s Monday morning, so there isn’t a whole lot happening right now, but if you look at this huge peak here, that represents the spike we experienced this weekend.”