The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman Page B

Miguel, the cleanup engineer, as he was called, looked up, even as he kept wiping tables.
    “Alex,” said Emily.
    He glared at her, as if to say, Don’t you Alex me. “I’m going to work.” He marched down the stairs.
    “No, wait.” Emily hurried after him into the top-floor lounge they called the Playroom, a space furnished with sagging couches, Foosball, pool, and Ping-Pong tables. “Don’t go.”
    “What do you mean, ‘Don’t go’? Am I a child for you to order me around?” Alex demanded.
    “Oh, stop and listen to me,” said Emily. “You have got to get hold of yourself. Don’t let other people get under your skin like that. You’re so smart. Be smart about people too. Be generous when you come to the table with something new.”
    “I’m not interested in speaking to Bruno about this,” said Alex.
    “But you’ve got to. You’ve got to speak to all three of us. That’s how it works,” said Emily. “Go back up there and start over.”
    “No. He should apologize to me.”
    “Look, there’s only one way to get things done, which is to stop taking offense and explain yourself.” She was determined to get through to him, her difficult, prodigious CTO. “I won’t let them interrupt.”
    “No one can stop Bruno and his twenty-million-dollar financing from interrupting me.”
    “I can,” Emily promised.
    “I told you, I’m not interested.”
    “Just tell me. Come on.” She knew he wanted to explain his idea. She sensed his excitement, along with his pride. In fact, her voice charmed him, as much as her earnest advice.
    He picked up a paddle and began bouncing a Ping-Pong ball up and down on its flat surface. Tap-tapping over and over, he explained a plan for data monitoring so audacious and innovative that Emily knew if Veritech did not pursue it, others would.
    “There are still ethical questions,” she pointed out. “And strategic questions. Bruno’s right to ask if we want to go into the security business right now.”
    Alex kept his eye on the ball. “Storage and security go hand in hand.”
    “This would be a different kind of security,” Emily mused. “Almost forensic.”
    “Exactly.”
    “Almost like spying,” she said. “We’d have to think hard about that.”
    “We can think while we build,” said Alex.
    “No. Think first and then build,” Emily countered. “Is the prototype working yet?”
    Ah, the fundamental question. “We broke it this morning,” Alex admitted. “But the idea is there.”
    She nodded, half entranced with his scheme. Bold, broad-ranging, category-busting. “The idea is fantastic.”
    Alex bounced the Ping-Pong ball too hard, and it popped off the edge of his paddle, but he was quick and made the save. “Work with me, then.”
    She wanted to. She wanted to give him free rein, but prudence prevented her. Her instinct was to distrust his instincts.
    “You need to present this idea formally to the Board.”
    “We’ll see,” said Alex.
    “Say you will, or I’ll do it for you.”
    He bristled. “You aren’t presenting anything for me.”
    She turned away, then, so he couldn’t see her smile. He was arrogant, but she’d manage him. His idea had so much potential!
    As she took the stairs down to the third floor, her imagination leaped ahead. If Alex let go of his surveillance model, his techniques could be employed in new, more sensitive search engines. His idea of fingerprinting could have applications for passwords. What if Veritech went into password verification? Yes! She would name Alex’s new password authentication system Verify. Emily stopped on the stairs and almost laughed. Deliberate in everything she said and did in public, she had a passion for new schemes.
    She hoped she could talk seriously to Alex that weekend. The day before the IPO, she was hosting Sunday brunch, an event that impressed Jess as very formal and old-school.
    “You have such a sense of propriety!” said Jess, who’d come early to help shop and set