Calm your tits

They had agreed to meet at a Starbucks within walking distance of Seafood Square, ostensibly to discuss purchasing a booth at HBACE (which Marisa pronounced "H-Backy" as if this wasn't actually more cumbersome than just calling it by its full name), but when she got there it was clear that Monte had his own agenda. His laptop was open and when she tried to join him at his table he ushered her over to one behind him so they were sitting facing away from each other. "What is this," she said. "Shhh. It's market research. We're studying the clientele." "We're doing market research for Starbucks now?" "That couple over there," Monte motioned with an unsubtle flick of the elbow. "They met each other here thru our site." "No shit?" Calisto rubbernecked in the direction he had gestured and he tried again to shush her. "Discretion!" he hissed. "Can I at least sit at your table? I feel like we're secret agents or something." "Fine." She joined him again and they both attempted to watch this couple without being seen. "We need to become familiar with the types of weirdos who actually use the site," Monte said. "I've been tracking several of the most active accounts to no avail, but these two are the most promising ones so far." "Learned anything about them yet?" "Yeah, they're horrible people. I mean, they're meeting at a Starbucks. The girl over there gives her name as Gazelle Fujihara." "Gisele?" Calisto hoped she had heard incorrectly. She was pretty sure it had to be a given name -- a gazelle was about the last animal she'd think of in relation to this girl. More like a mouse or maybe a lobster. "Ga ga ga ga ga," said Monte. "The dude is supposedly named Blaine Makaiwi. Let's check out their profiles and then compare it to how they are in real life." They observed the couple while pretending not to, but Calisto failed to see how this was going to yield any useful data on their users. Blaine was dominating the conversation, going into great detail about a comic book he'd been reading, Gazelle doing her best to stay cordial. Calisto wondered if this had been their first meeting, or just the first one that Monte had decided to crash. He was furiously typing away the whole time as if every asinine word he was hearing was sending him off on another brainstorm. "This feels creepy," Calisto said. "No wonder people aren't signing up if this is what you're doing." "Do you have any better ideas?" He asked this with no hesitation, as if it was locked and ready to go the whole time. "I actually do," she said. "I wanted to talk to you about going offline temporarily." "That sounds like folding." "What I'm thinking is more like a re-launch. I think we should use HBACE to officially start over." Monte just stared back. "You know one interesting thing these two have in common? Neither of them have an online dating profile on any other site. I must've looked through all of them. We're the only service they use. Why do you think that is?" "How do you know they're not registered anywhere else? Maybe their profiles are locked. Maybe they're catfish on the other sites." "Then we are the only ones where they signed up as themselves. You don't think that's interesting? Now we just have to figure out why." "Why don't you go ask them? You've stalked them this far, and it sounds like they could use the company." Blaine had shifted the conversation into a play-by-play of the video game he had been playing the other night. According to his profile, he was ranked Bronze 2 on League of Legends, whatever that meant. "Don't knock the hustle," he said. "Anyway, I like the idea of taking the site down. As long as it comes back up at some point." "Marisa says we'll be able to increase our online profile tenfold. We were the victims of bad timing, that's all." "Put up a 'down for maintenance' sign and pray our users don't abandon us before we get back. I like it. But then what? We're going to the Expo and presenting a business that technically doesn't exist at the moment, how do we convince anybody to invest in it?" "It's not just about finding an investor, we have to make connections. Partnerships and networking and word-of-mouth and such." Calisto felt disgust with herself, spouting these half-remembered business cliches as if she understood them, but she hadn't thought about how it would look if they showed up at HBACE without a functioning website and it was making her reconsider the entire strategy. But then she thought, no, this is a typical jittery Monte misdirect, stay on message, especially after the next thing he said: "Word-of-mouth is only a good thing if you don't look like a joke to everybody. What good is them knowing our name if they can't take us seriously?" "Okay, calm your tits," Calisto said. His voice had been rising, perhaps involuntarily, to the point where Blaine had stopped talking and now he and Gazelle were looking in their direction, as if this drama that was unfolding was just the type of interesting turn of events that makes a good first date memorable. Was this Monte's plan all along, to cause a scene in front of their users to ensure they continued to use the site, just in case something weird happened again? Calisto rejected the idea, but it stayed in the back of her mind the rest of the time anyway. "You're thinking way too far ahead," she told him. "We can worry about what people think of us after they know who we are. For now, can we just focus on what's in front of us?" "Everything is always in front of us," Monte said. "I just prefer to take care of things before it's too late, that's all." He checked his phone for the time although he could have just looked at his laptop screen. "I have to get going," he said. "It's been nice seeing you." "I wanted to ask you something," Calisto said. "Is there any way you could hold down HBACE for me? I want us to be there, but I might not be able to make it." "If you can't be there, I can't be there," he said. "I can send Marisa, she's willing to fill in for me." "Marisa couldn't sell crack to a crackhead," Monte said, standing up. "Let's call this off." "No, wait! I'll be there." "Good. I'm the one who's blowing off a weekend with my kids, Jesus. If I can make it, you can." He left her sitting there, but turned back before he reached the door. "I almost forgot. Call this number." He handed her a card. "Eric told me your roommate's moving out and this guy can help you get set up." "What IS this?" The name on the card didn't seem to be for a real estate agent, but some kind of government agency. "He's a social worker that I know. He helps women in bad situations." "Monte, is this seriously the number for a battered woman's shelter? I can't call this." "Like I said, I know the guy, he'll get you in as a favor to me. It's not that bad, he's helped some of my friends. Eric told me you'd listen to me. You won't listen to them, just me. I'm just doing this for them. I told him you wouldn't listen to me either." "I'm sorry, it's just... you don't have to do this." "Give the guy a call," he said. "Good luck with everything." He left, and Calisto remained at the table being stared at by Blaine and Gazelle. When she returned their gaze, they looked back at each other and resumed as if nothing had distracted them.