They were sending Emma Chin to conduct it.
I did not realize this until Monday afternoon, when my assistant Kelly forwarded me the confirmation email.
“Your interview tomorrow is with Emma Chin from The New York Times,” Kelly said, poking her head into my office. “She won a Pulitzer last year. This is a big deal.”
My stomach dropped.
“Emma Chin? Are you sure?”
“Yes. It is right here. She is doing a series of profiles for Forbes on young tech leaders. You are one of six people she is interviewing.” Kelly smiled. “You should be excited. This is going to be huge for the company.”
I stared at the email.
My brother’s fiancée. The woman who, according to him, was too important to have me at her wedding.
The woman who supposedly believed I worked in IT support.
I should have canceled. I should have made up an excuse and rescheduled.
But something in me—pride, maybe, or stubbornness, or just exhaustion from being invisible—made me leave it exactly as it was.
I wanted to see her face when she realized.
Tuesday morning arrived cold and bright.
I dressed carefully in what I thought of as my CEO uniform: tailored black pants, a silk blouse, and a structured blazer. I wore my Stanford PhD ring and the simple diamond studs my grandmother had given me.
I looked successful. Professional. Like someone who ran a 2.1 billion dollar company.
Emma arrived at 9:58 a.m.
Kelly escorted her to our main conference room on the third floor. Through the glass walls, I watched Emma set up her recording equipment, arrange her notes, and check her phone.
She looked polished in a way I had never quite mastered. Perfect hair. Designer dress. Expensive bag.
She looked like someone who had won a Pulitzer Prize.
Someone important enough that my brother would uninvite his own sister to avoid embarrassing her.
At exactly 10:00 a.m., Kelly knocked on my office door.
“Ms. Parker, Ms. Chin is ready for you.”
I stood, grabbed my tablet with notes about Neural Systems’ recent achievements, and walked to the conference room.
Emma looked up as I entered, her professional smile already in place.
“Ms. Parker, thank you so much for making time. I am Emma Chin from—”
She stopped mid-sentence.
Her smile froze.
Her eyes went wide.
“Lily?”
“Hello, Emma.”
“What are you—why are you—”
She looked at her notes, then at me, then back at her notes.
“I am here to interview Lily Parker, CEO of Neural Systems.”
“That is me.”
“But you are Marcus’s sister.”
“Marcus’s sister, Lily, who works in tech support?”
“I work in tech,” I corrected gently. “I never said tech support. That was Marcus’s assumption.”
Emma sat down slowly, her polished composure cracking.
“You are the Lily Parker. The Lily Parker who founded Neural Systems.”
“Yes.”
“The company valued at 2.1 billion dollars.”
“As of our Series D close, yes.”
“The company Forbes called one of the most innovative AI startups in Silicon Valley.”
“They were generous with that assessment.”
Emma just stared at me.
Then she looked at her notes again, as if they might have changed while she was speaking.
“My producer gave me your bio. You have a PhD in AI from Stanford. You published twelve papers before you were twenty-five. You hold seventeen patents. You were named one of MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35.”
“Eighteen patents now, actually. We just got approval on the latest one.”
“And Marcus thinks you do tech support.”
“IT support, I think, was his exact phrase. Tech support or IT or whatever.”
Emma closed her eyes.
When she opened them, she looked genuinely distressed.