Lara Vapnyar - Still Here

They did become friends though, a friendship mostly based on cat-care help and oversharing of their marital troubles. Helen once saw a huge Facebook photo of Vica open on Sergey’s laptop. The caption read: “Enjoying sangria in the East Village. Could be worse .”

“That’s my wife,” Sergey explained, blushing. “Ex-wife. We’re separated.”

“She’s pretty, but kind of angry looking,” Helen said. Sergey proceeded to spill out all his grievances with Vadik and Vica and his suspicion that they might have slept together some years back. Helen said that the suspicion was probably well-founded, because she too had cheated on her ex-husband with his best friend. Teena knew about it and hated her for it.

“This is the guy who takes care of Goebbels.” Helen introduced him to Teena.

“Sergey,” Sergey said.

“Sir what?” Teena asked. “Sir Gay?” And she curtsied, laughing.

A few minutes later Sergey overheard some hushed parenting in the kitchen.

“What did we talk about, Teena? Huh? What did we talk about? We don’t make homophobic jokes in this household!”

“I wasn’t being homophobic. It’s just that his accent is superfunny.”

“Teena! We don’t make immigrant jokes either.”

It took Teena about two weeks to stop rolling her eyes every time she passed Sergey on the stairs. In three weeks she warmed up to him enough to start calling him “Sergio.”

It took Goebbels about the same amount of time to stop attacking Sergey in dark corners and biting him on the ankles. It was then that Sergey decided that he loved the apartment. Technically it was a one-bedroom, but the living room was used mostly for storage. The guy must have had a thing for antiques — the room was crammed with old musical instruments, mostly string, with the addition of a few brasses. Sergey had to spend most of the time in the dark bedroom, where the only window was half blocked by the A/C and which he had to share with Goebbels and his enormous cat tree. He learned to appreciate the apartment though, once he realized how nice it was to live by himself for a change. He could do whatever he wanted without worrying that he would upset, annoy, or disappoint someone.

Within three weeks Sergey finished his prototype and started revising his pitch. He debated whether to include Vica’s “prehumous” option and finally decided to do it. All the marketing manuals advised making his potential customer base as wide as possible, and considering the growing number of people concerned about their online legacy, Vica’s idea served that purpose really well. The next step was to learn how to submit it to investors. He shelled out a hefty sum of money for a three-hour online class and followed the teacher’s suggestions to the letter. His pitch turned out to be quite good: accessible, persuasive, detailed but not overly specific, peppered with power verbs and appealing visual images. He e-mailed it to the teacher, and he seemed to be impressed. “Yep, that’s pretty solid,” he wrote back. Sergey did wonder if this was an automatic reply that he sent to all his students.

Then Sergey proceeded to submit his application and the written pitch to ARC Angel Fund NYC, Life Sciences Angel Network, New York Angels, Astia Angels, SNK Investments, Tribeca Angels, Golden Seeds, and Gaingels Syndicate.

He got no replies.

“Are you kidding me?” Helen said when Sergey wondered why he hadn’t heard anything yet. “I don’t have a fancy MBA like you do, but even I know that blind submissions never work! You have to use your personal contacts.”

That was what his online teacher kept saying too. Use personal contacts, networking, and crowdfunding. But he warned his students that crowdfunding wouldn’t work unless you had a very strong online presence. Sergey’s online presence was virtually nonexistent. And he didn’t have any personal contacts.

“Oh, come on! One of your friends from your business school?” Helen asked. Sergey shook his head. He didn’t keep in touch with any of his business-school classmates.

Later, in bed, with Goebbels curled up at his feet, Sergey considered what other personal contacts he might have. He had worked for large banks and investment firms for many years, yet his only contacts were his bosses, the bosses who had fired him, the bosses who had thought that he lacked “skills, spirit, drive.” He could’ve used Vadik’s help, but they weren’t talking. Then there were Bob and Regina, but Bob had never liked him, and Sergey couldn’t endure yet another humiliation from Regina, who kept avoiding him after his separation from Vica as if he had the plague.

There was Sejun. She had offered to introduce him to a great investor, but asking Sejun would be awkward to the point of revulsion. He was still very angry with himself for starting that stupid, pathetic Skype affair with her. He didn’t miss Sejun, but he did miss Vadik. They had never gone without talking to each other for more than a couple of days before. Every so often, while Sergey browsed through Facebook, he would look at the right side of his page and see the green light next to Vadik’s name and be tempted to shoot him a brief message. He would stop short of that every time.

His remaining business contact was his former schoolmate from his university, Alexey Kuzmin. According to Facebook, he had recently moved to New Jersey and was involved in some kind of shady entrepreneurial scheme. They hadn’t seen each other more than a few times since they graduated, but Kuzmin liked to engage Sergey in Facebook chats, the sole purpose of which was to brag about his superrich friends in Russia and the United States.

Sergey started with Kuzmin. Called him up, endured chitchat about health and family. Kuzmin inquired about “that very pretty wife of yours,” said that he was so sorry that they had separated! Then he said that he was still married to his first wife, even though he could afford a younger and much prettier woman now. “I guess that’s called love, man,” he said. “I guess,” Sergey replied. He then told Kuzmin about his app. Vica had told him to be careful when pitching — she was afraid that somebody would steal his idea. Helen said the same thing. He thought they were both paranoid, but this Kuzmin was definitely sketchy, so Sergey tried to be as vague as possible.

“Hmm,” Kuzmin said, “virtual immortality, huh? So you’re looking for investors?” Sergey confirmed that he was. “I’ll have to think about it and call you back. You’ll definitely hear from me, man. I can promise you that.” They hung up. Sergey thought that it was pretty clear that he’d never hear from Kuzmin again.

He made an enormous effort and e-mailed Sejun. He received a swift, brief, businesslike reply. Yes, she would be happy to introduce him to her good friend, James Kisco.

Sergey googled the name and found out that James Kisco was one of the original investors in Vine, Airbnb, and Eat’n’Watch. He also turned out to be thirty-two, good-looking, and surprisingly easy to reach. James’s assistant sounded cordial, said that they had been expecting his call, and scheduled a “breakfast meeting” at their New York office within a week.

Sergey asked Helen and Teena to listen while he read his pitch aloud, because he wasn’t sure how to pronounce certain words like radial, infatuated, or neither.

“You look very handsome when you pitch,” Helen said after Sergey’s first attempt. “Doesn’t he look just like Gregory Peck, Teena?”

“Who?” Teena asked.

“Gregory Peck? To Kill a Mockingbird? ”

“Oh, right!” Teena said. “He does. Like a short and Jewish Gregory Peck.”