Page 3 of The Austen Escape
He acknowledged my nod with his own and continued. “She got to me in there. Craig hired me to manage growth and reposition WATT. We’ve done that job well.”
“But?”
“You all know this. His goal was to stay independent, maybe go public someday. Karen is pushing for a sale, and soon. That’s public too, if you haven’t heard it. Finance is running numbers. That’s a whole different ball game.” He looked back to the building. “For everyone here.”
“I see...”
Craig, a brilliant physicist and engineer, thrived in the chaos of creativity. He had founded WATT, named for his childhood hero and the unit of power, on the principle that a few twenty-somethings with energy, smarts, and grit could make great stuff.Not glamorous or sexy stuff, but bold and innovative devices that people wanted or needed to make the sexy stuff run better. Craig loved innovation. Karen loved strong sales and healthy margins.
For the first time I saw clearly the power struggle pulling at us. I also saw that Karen’s vision was gaining ground. And that my project was a tangible symbol of the conflict.
“Golightly” was my pet name for it—a pair of glasses I’d started dreaming of years before the technology caught up with my imagination. One Friday night, when I was about twelve, my mom introduced me toBreakfast at Tiffany’sand Audrey Hepburn’s iconic character, Holly Golightly. I watched that movie dozens of times, mesmerized. I’d never seen a woman more beautiful. And although I missed much of the story in those early years, I caught the drama, the ukulele, and the sunglasses. I’d made my own ukulele out of cardboard and string, and now I’d moved on to the sunglasses.
They weren’t as glamorous as Hepburn’s, but mine did more than shield the eyes from UV rays. My Golightly glasses were self-contained augmented virtual reality glasses that embedded interactive 3-D images. They rivaled Microsoft’s and Apple’s offerings in an even slimmer format—at least that was the goal. Every prototype had failed—one exploded—and each one took something within me with it.
I walked past Nathan—my version of running away. “Back to batteries for me.”
Two strides and he caught up. “What’s wrong with batteries?”
“Nothing, except I didn’t think my world would be dominated by them. I’ve been dreaming of these glasses for years.” I stopped. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Then tell me.”
“There’s no point.” I shook my head. “You know what drivesme nuts? Out-of-the-box thinking used to be lauded around here. But now... no more risks? No innovation? I needed this one, Nathan. I can do it.”
“I know you can.”
I studied his face. “But not anytime soon... She cut funding, didn’t she?”
He didn’t reply, but one blink said it all.
“It’ll be too late, you know,” I said. “We can’t circle back. The market will move on.”
“I know that too, and I’m sorry.”
We walked on in silence. I looked up in surprise when we reached the building again.
Nathan held the door’s handle but did not pull it open. “Are you going to be okay?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “My allergies are horrible this fall.” I lowered my hand and caught Nathan’s expression—sympathy encasing pity. “Of course I’ll be okay. Easy come, easy go, right?”
He narrowed his eyes. It felt like some offering, some connection, had fallen between us because I hadn’t held it.
He accompanied me back to my desk and perched as he had before—as if we’d never taken a walk and he’d never delivered the blow to Golightly, and to me.
“Craig mentioned you had an advancement for the IR battery.”
Back to batteries.
“I was playing around with Golightly... Double insulate it and we can cut the space between components. Everyone wants smaller devices. See, Karen doesn’t get that; we need some ideas to generate others. Without—” I pressed my lips together. “Never mind. The lab is testing the battery now.”
Nathan picked up a small wire elephant sitting on my desk and handed it to me. “Please don’t let this derail you, Mary.” He stood. “I’ve got another meeting with Craig. Will you be around later?”
At my nod, he was gone... and my afternoon was suddenly free.
Chapter 2
Easy come. Easy go.” One swipe of my hand and six months’ worth of wire animals skidded across my desk and onto the floor.
