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The Childhood Neighbor

hile Elizabeth was busy building Theranos, an old family
acquaintance was taking an interest in what she was doing
from afar. His name was Richard Fuisz. He was an
entrepreneur–cum–medical inventor with a big ego and a colorful
background.

The Holmes and Fuisz families had known each other for two
decades. They first met in the 1980s as neighbors in Foxhall Crescent,
a leafy neighborhood of stately homes in Washington, D.C.,
surrounded by woodlands and abutting the Potomac River.

Elizabeth’s mother, Noel, and Richard’s wife, Lorraine, struck up a
close friendship. Both were stay-at-home mothers back then, raising
children of similar ages. Lorraine’s son was in Elizabeth’s class at
St. Patrick’s Episcopal Day School, the neighborhood’s private
elementary school.

Noel and Lorraine were in and out of each other’s houses. They
shared a weakness for Chinese food and often went out for lunch while
the children were in school. Elizabeth and her brother attended the
Fuisz children’s birthday parties and frolicked in the Fuiszes’ pool.
One evening, the power went out in the Fuisz home while Richard was
away, so the Holmeses took Lorraine and her two children, Justin and
Jessica, in for the night.

The relationship between their husbands wasn’t as warm. While
Chris Holmes had to make do on a government salary, Richard Fuisz
was a successful businessman and wasn’t shy about flaunting it. A