“Quit?” I said.
“Yeah. Of course.”
“Why?”
“Who cares why? You got a better offer elsewhere. You’ve got some health problems. Or some family issues. Trouble at home. Just get out of there. Quit.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You think I should quit because he’s breaking the law? Is that your advice to me?”
“No,” Gary said. “As your attorney, my advice is that if you are aware of any illegal activity you have a duty to report it. But as your friend, my advice is to keep your mouth shut and get out of there fast.”
“Seems kind of cowardly. I think I have to notify the investors.” Gary sighed. He put his hand on my shoulder. “Jack,” he said, “the investors can look out for themselves. You get the fuck out of there.”
I didn’t think that was right. I had been annoyed when my code had been stolen. Now I found myself wondering if it actually had been stolen. Maybe it had been sold. We were a privately held company, and I told one of the board members.
It turned out he was in on it. I was fired the next day for gross negligence and misconduct. Litigation was threatened; I had to sign a raft of NDAs in order to get my severance package. My attorney handled the paperwork for me, sighing with every new document.
At the end, we went outside into the milky sunshine. I said, “Well, at least that’s over.”
He turned and looked at me. “Why do you say that?” he said.
Because of course it wasn’t over. In some mysterious way, I had become a marked man. My qualifications were excellent and I worked in a hot field. But when I went on job interviews I could tell they weren’t interested. Worse, they were uncomfortable. Silicon Valley covers a big area, but it’s a small place. Word gets out. Eventually I found myself talking to an interviewer I knew slightly, Ted Landow. I’d coached his kid in Little League baseball the year before. When the interview was over, I said to him, “What have you heard about me?” He shook his head. “Nothing, Jack.”
I said, “Ted, I’ve been on ten interviews in ten days. Tell me.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Ted.”
He shuffled through his papers, looking down at them, not at me. He sighed. “Jack Forman. Troublemaker. Not cooperative. Belligerent. Hot-headed. Not a team player.” He hesitated, then said, “And supposedly you were involved in some kind of dealings. They won’t say what, but some kind of shady dealings. You were on the take.”
“I was on the take?” I said. I felt a flood of anger, and started to say more, until I realized I was probably looking hotheaded and belligerent. So I shut up, and thanked him. As I was leaving, he said, “Jack, do yourself a favor. Give it a while. Things change fast in the Valley. Your résumé is strong and your skill set is outstanding. Wait until…” He shrugged.
“A couple of months?”
“I’d say four. Maybe five.”
Somehow I knew he was right. After that, I stopped trying so hard. I began to hear rumors that MediaTronics was going belly up, and there might be indictments. I smelled vindication ahead, but in the meantime there was nothing to do but wait.
The strangeness of not going to work in the morning slowly faded. Julia was working longer hours at her job, and the kids were demanding; if I was in the house they turned to me, instead of our housekeeper, Maria. I started taking them to school, picking them up, driving them to the doctor, the orthodontist, soccer practice. The first few dinners I cooked were disastrous, but I got better.
And before I knew it, I was buying placemats and looking at table settings in Crate & Barrel. And it all seemed perfectly normal.
Julia got home around nine-thirty. I was watching the Giants game on TV, not really paying attention. She came in and kissed me on the back of my neck. She said, “They all asleep?”
“Except Nicole. She’s still doing homework.”
“Jeez, isn’t it late for her to be up?”
“No, hon,” I said. “We agreed. This year she gets to stay up until ten, remember?” Julia shrugged, as if she didn’t remember. And maybe she didn’t. We had undergone a sort of inversion of roles; she had always been more knowledgeable about the kids, but now I was. Sometimes Julia felt uncomfortable with that, experiencing it somehow as a loss of power.
“How’s the little one?”
“Her cold is better. Just sniffles. She’s eating more.”
I walked with Julia to the bedrooms. She went into the baby’s room, bent over the crib, and kissed the sleeping child tenderly. Watching her, I thought there was something about a mother’s caring that a father could never match. Julia had some connection to the kids that I never would. Or at least a different connection. She listened to the baby’s soft breathing, and said, “Yes, she’s better.”
Then she went into Eric’s room, took the Game Boy off the bed covers, gave me a frown. I shrugged, faintly irritated; I knew Eric played with his Game Boy when he was supposed to be going to sleep, but I was busy getting the baby down at that time, and I overlooked it. I thought Julia should be more understanding.
Then she went into Nicole’s room. Nicole was on her laptop, but shut the lid when her mother walked in. “Hi, Mom.”
“You’re up late.”
“No, Mom…”
“You’re supposed to be doing homework.”
“I did it.”
“Then why aren’t you in bed?”
“Because-”
“I don’t want you spending all night talking to your friends on the computer.”
“Mom…” she said, in a pained voice.
“You see them every day at school, that should be enough.”
“Mom…”
“Don’t look at your father. We already know he’ll do whatever you want. I’m talking to you, now.”
She sighed. “I know, Mom.”
This kind of interaction was increasingly common between Nicole and Julia. I guess it was normal at this age, but I thought I’d step in. Julia was tired, and when she was tired she got rigid and controlling. I put my arm around her shoulder and said, “It’s late for everybody. Want a cup of tea?”
“Jack, don’t interfere.”
“I’m not, I just-”
“Yes, you are. I’m talking to Nicole and you’re interfering, the way you always do.”
“Honey, we all agreed she could stay up until ten, I don’t know what this-”
“But if she’s finished her homework, she should go to bed.”
“That wasn’t the deal.”
“I don’t want her spending all day and night on the computer.”
“She’s not, Julia.”