Van Ness Media was closed over the weekend, so Ash called on Monday, right after she and Maya arrived at her house. But the phone number she found online brought her to a prerecorded menu of options, and none of them seemed quite right for her question. She hung up, frustrated.
“Who are you trying to call?” Olive asked. She was sitting on the living room floor, holding a growing number of wooden blocks, as Beckett was toddling around picking up blocks and handing them to her.
“Van Ness Media,” Ash told her.
“What’s that?” Olive asked.
Maya and Ash stared at her.
“You haven’t heard of Van Ness Media?” Ash said incredulously. “They make apps we use at school for, like, everything.”
“Really?” said Olive. “Hey, Baby Beck. Can you bring me my phone?”
Beckett looked at the blocks in his hand. Olive smiled at him and pointed to her phone, which was on the couch. Beckett carefully put the blocks down. Then he walked purposefully over to the couch, got Olive’s phone, and walked it to her. She thanked him and opened her browser. “Van . . . Ness . . . Media . . .” she said, typing. “Ugh, another ad for beauty products I can’t afford. You order expensive soap one time, and the internet thinks you’re rich.”
“Itch,” Beckett repeated.
“Rich!” Olive said dramatically. “Okay. I’m on the Van Ness Media webpage. Here we go. ‘Van Ness Media is the fastest growing creator of educational media software in the United States,’ ” she read. “ ‘Our innovative, user-friendly programs teach real-life digital media skills and allow children as young as three to create professional-quality television shows, movies, music, fine art, presentations, slideshows, newsletters, and more.’ ”
“You sound like you’re in an ad,” Maya said with a giggle.
“I wish,” Olive said. “Are they casting?” She flashed a smile and read the slogan from their website. “Van Ness Media. Powered by kids’ imaginations.”
“You really hadn’t heard of them before?” Ash asked. “Didn’t you use Van Ness Media when you were in school?”
“Nope,” Olive said to Ash, followed by “Thank you,” to Beckett, who’d resumed handing her more blocks. “I’m what—twelve years older than you and Maya? We didn’t have Van Ness anything when I was a kid.”
“What programs did you have on your tablets?” Maya asked.
“Maybe they had actual tablets,” Ash joked, “with chalk. And for writing on paper every desk had one of those dipping things . . . inkwells.”
“Inkwells?” Olive said in an old-lady voice. “I wish! We wrote on cave walls with pterodactyl blood!” Then, back to herself, she did some more searching on her phone. “Check it out. Van Ness Media has only been around ten years.”
She handed her phone to Ash, who took over reading aloud. “ ‘Van Ness Media was founded in 2009 by Maria Van Ness, a Baltimore native and graduate of the University of Maryland. After teaching middle school media classes for many years, she was unsatisfied with the software available to her students and set out to create her own products. What started as one video-editing program in one classroom has since grown into a full suite of educational software used in more than three hundred thousand classrooms nationwide.’ ”
“Wow,” Olive said. “That’s a lot of classrooms.”
“They’re still based in Baltimore, though,” Ash said. Harry E. Levin reminded her of that every single morning. “Their ‘world headquarters’ is in Harbor East. And listen to this! ‘Maria Van Ness lives in Federal Hill with her St. Bernard, named Bernard.’ ”
“Holy moly,” Maya said. “She lives in our neighborhood?”
“Ohhh,” Olive said, tapping two blocks together. “I read about that. She moved to Fed Hill recently, like a few weeks ago. I definitely remember reading something about a big-shot businesswoman buying a fancy row house near here.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen her, though,” Ash said. “Have you?” She turned the phone around to show Olive and Maya a photo of a middle-aged woman with silver hair swooped across her forehead. She was wearing a pair of black pants, a black shirt, and a puffy black vest. The picture was taken at Federal Hill Park, which was right near Brielle’s house. Maria Van Ness was standing at the top of the hill by the big American flag. The downtown Baltimore skyline was behind her, and an enormous dog was by her side.
“That must be Bernard,” Maya said.
“Such an original name,” Olive said as she swooped up Beckett, who wanted to look at the photo too. “See the dog, Beckett?”
“Doggy,” he said, pointing. “Woof woof.”
“That’s right,” Olive said. “What does a . . . cow say?”
But Beckett was too busy pointing to the dog. “Woof woof,” he said again.
Ash still wanted to talk to someone at Van Ness Media to get to the bottom of their Young Creatives to Watch list. Why take her chances pressing various buttons on the phone when the founder and CEO was just across the harbor?
“Let’s go to the Van Ness Media headquarters now,” the anchor suggested. “We can say we’re doing a story for The Underground News. Maybe I can get an interview with Maria Van Ness herself!”
“You want to just go over there,” Olive said, “and ask to meet the head of the company?”
“Ash is brave like that,” Maya said proudly. “I don’t even like when my mom makes me order my own food at a restaurant.”
Ash knew that was true; she’d eaten out with Maya’s family. Her mom always made her tell the waiter what she wanted herself, even though it made Maya so nervous that she’d once blurted out “calamari” instead of “macaroni.” She was too embarrassed to correct herself or send it back. On the plus side, it turned out that fried squid tastes better than it sounds.
“They’re right there in Harbor East,” Ash said. “We can take the free water taxi. Beckett would love that. Wouldn’t you, Baby Beck? Boat ride?”
Beckett instantly forgot about the dog. Riding the water taxi was one of his favorite things to do. “Boat!” he said, clapping his hands.
Olive looked at her watch. “Well . . . Sadie’s having dinner at Lucy’s, and the water taxi runs until seven. . . .”
“Yes,” Ash hissed. She looked at Maya, eyebrows raised.
“I should probably check with my mom,” the camerawoman said. She fired off a text message, and got a reply less than a minute later. “She said it’s okay. She can even pick us all up on her way home from work.”
Olive shrugged. “All right. Let’s do it.”
Ash zipped up her boots, ready for action. Harry E. Levin’s show was “brought to you by Van Ness Media”? It was time for Ash to bring Van Ness Media to hers.