Hard Code: A Laugh-Out-Loud Workplace Romantic Comedy

by Misha Bell

  “You’re not going to worry about that right now.”

  That again. Should I just ask him straight out if I still have a job? Or will that just put the idea in his head?

  “You went to Brooklyn College, right?” he asks out of nowhere.

  “I did.” Wait. How does he know? Did he notice it in my file when he looked for my address?

  “Great computer science program,” he says. “Soothing campus.”

  I blink at him. “How do you know? Are you a fellow alum?”

  “Guilty.” Something almost like a smile touches the corners of his eyes. “I graduated eight years before you, so our paths never crossed.”

  Huh. So he did look up my file, even down to the date of my graduation.

  I wonder what it would’ve been like if we’d met in school and he weren’t my boss squared.

  Are you crazy? Who says he’s even attracted to you? He’s just giving you a ride home, followed by a possible job termination.

  I moisten my dry lips. “Did you also major in comp sci?”

  Did his gaze just fall to my mouth?

  “What else?” he asks, the corners of his lips tilting slightly—a definite smile, and a panty-wetting one at that.

  “History,” I blurt—and thank goodness don’t add, “That would be easy for you, since you lived it.”

  His lips stretch into a full-blown smile. “No, I’ve been into programming forever. My older brother got me into it.” He tilts his head. “How about you? Why did you choose that as your major?”

  “It was an act of rebellion at first,” I admit. “My parents are hippie-artsy types. They hoped I’d major in something like music, photography, or film—nothing practical, like computer science.”

  He arches an eyebrow. “There are other practical disciplines out there.”

  “Sure. I took a bunch of introductory STEM courses first, but something about programming appealed to me. Also, an asshole in that class didn’t think I, a girl, could do it—which spurred me on.”

  At the mention of the asshole, the Impaler frowns deeply. Maybe it wasn’t HR behind the women-to-men ratio, after all?

  “The irony is,” I continue, “writing code feels like that creative process that my parents yammer about all the time.”

  The frown relaxes. “Programming can be as much art as science.”

  I smile. “Just don’t tell my parents that.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” he says with mock seriousness. “Let them suffer knowing their daughter got herself a degree that will virtually guarantee she’s always got a well-paying job, and one that will likely intellectually stimulate her as well. The horror.”

  My smile widens. “What did you like about computer science when you tried it?”

  He adjusts his glasses again. “I liked the logic and certainty of it. In other sciences, there are a lot of theories which may or may not be the ultimate truth. In ours, most theories have proofs, like in math. I also like the feeling of control when I code. With computers being as prevalent as they are, not knowing how to program, or at least how it all works, is a little like not knowing how to read and—”

  His phone rings, distracting us both, and I realize I was listening openmouthed—in part because I got drawn in by the passion in his voice. If being a super-rich company owner ever gets boring, he can always do inspirational speaking on the side.

  He glances at the screen of his phone but doesn’t pick up. “Where was I?”

  Crap. Did he just ignore something important because of me? “It’s fine,” I say. “You should take that.”

  He pockets the phone. “You said your parents are into art. What do they do for a living?”

  His phone rings again.

  He ignores it, his gaze trained expectantly on me.

  Would it be rude if I insist that he pick that up and therefore ignore the question?

  Sensing my reluctance, he takes out the phone and pointedly silences it.

  “Mom is an opera singer,” I say after the phone disappears into his pocket again. “Dad’s a painter.”

  He looks fascinated. “Does she perform somewhere, and does he have exhibits?”

  “Mom mostly teaches others, but Dad did finally get famous enough to be able to sell his works. That happened just as I was graduating from college. When I was growing up, our income was pretty low—full-ride financial aid for college kind of low.”

  “I also got that,” he says to my surprise. “When we arrived in this country, we didn’t have an income at all.”

  Ah, yes, of course. Immigrant background. “Your parents must be proud of what you’ve accomplished.”

  “Take it for granted, more like.” He frowns again. “I think they feel like they gave up their lives back in Russia for their kids, so their standards for what’s considered a worthy accomplishment are out of control.”

  “Well, at least they didn’t name you Fanny when your last name is Pack,” I say, eager to rid him of that frown. “As you can imagine, I was the butt of a lot of jokes. Pun intended.”

  My evil plan works. Another smile touches the corners of his eyes. “I think I would prefer parents with a sense of humor—even if it meant I’d end up named after an accessory.”

  “That’s because you don’t know my parents. You know how teens are embarrassed by their parents? I’ve felt that way my whole life. They’re completely inappropriate. For example, they had ‘the birds and the bees’ talk with me when I was five—with diagrams and everything.”

  Another real smile graces his lips. “Better than never—as was the case with mine.”

  I want to trace the curve of those sexy lips with my finger. No, stop it, perv. Boss squared, remember? With effort, I return my focus to the conversation at hand. “Still, you’ve never been to middle school with my name,” I say.

  He’s unfazed. “My last name, Chortsky, means ‘from a chort’—which is Russian for ‘demon.’ Chort is also a popular curse word, kind of like ‘damn.’”

  Huh. So it’s official, he is evil. Still, poor guy. I picture a little boy with that name, being teased unmercifully. “At least your parents didn’t choose that name,” I say. “They suffered with it too.”

  He shrugs. “They could’ve changed it.”

  “Fine, you win—if it’s a win to have parents worse than mine.” I cock my head. “What do they do?”

  “Right now, they own a restaurant on Brighton Beach. In Russia, though, my father was a surgeon and my mother an architect.”

  Before I can ask anything else, the limo comes to a stop.

  I glance out the window.

  Wow. I didn’t even notice the ride home.

  “Go rest,” he says, his commanding tone returning and the earlier smile gone without a trace.

  I fight the urge to ask about testing again. Something tells me it wouldn’t be welcome at this juncture.

  “Bye,” I say as I open the limo door.

  “Until later, Ms. Pack.” He pauses, then adds gently, “By the way… you might want to check on your eyebrow.”

  Chapter Nine

  I burst into my bathroom and stare in the mirror.

  Of course. The eyebrow I drew earlier is barely a shadow of itself, and that mixture of curious, suspicious, and skeptical expressions is on my face in full force.

  Ugh. Could this day have gone any worse?

  The entire time I was talking to him, he must’ve been staring at that eyebrow. No wonder there were some smiles. He must’ve been dying of laughter inside.

  I take out Precious and order an indelible eyebrow pencil, eyebrow powder, and temporary eyebrow tattoos. I even splurge on stick-on human hair eyebrow wigs in the hopes that one of these things will let me look human again.

  When my mortification subsides a little, I check my work email.

  Empty inbox.

  I’ve never had zero email before. Even on my first day with Binary Birch, a welcome message was waiting for me, as well as something from HR and Sandra
.

  Speaking of Sandra, I dial her up.

  “You’re supposed to be resting,” she says instead of a hello.

  “I am?” Did she say that sternly?

  “I just got off the phone with Mr. Chortsky. He made his feelings clear.”

  I feel like I’m about to fall through the floor. “Did he explain why?”

  “Mr. Chortsky, explaining himself to me?”

  This time, I definitely detect a note of annoyance—hopefully at the Impaler and not me. “Look, Sandra, about the testing I was—”

  “That’s another thing.” Her tone is clipped. “We’re not to speak about Project Belka or any sort of work until you’ve rested—and once you have, he wants our interactions to happen face to face.”

  Weirder and weirder… unless they plan to fire me, that is. I think firing someone face to face is how it’s usually done.

  “Is there anything else I can help with? Some other projects I can work on?” I ask in desperation. “Being bored won’t help me rest.”

  Sandra sighs. “What about your app? You can always work on that. The cleaner that code, the higher the chance it will impress people.”

  Is that a hint? Do I need to prepare a resume and use that app as my portfolio?

  “Did you send a link to my code to the development department?” I ask, fishing for more hints on my fate.

  “As soon as I got it,” she says.

  “And?”

  “I haven’t heard back from anyone yet. I’m sure the dev team will review it in due course.”

  Unless I’m fired. “Okay, thanks, Sandra. How about I swing by the office tomorrow, after I’ve rested for the remainder of today?”

  “Is that what you and Mr. Chortsky discussed?”

  “He didn’t exactly define the word ‘rest’ for me, if that’s what you mean.”

  She heaves another sigh. “Fine. As long as you’ve rested by then, I’m free at eleven tomorrow. Would that work for you?”

  “Yep. See you then,” I say and hang up before she can change her mind.

  After I eat lunch and feed Monkey, I decide to do what Sandra said—check on my app source control repository.

  A surprise is waiting for me there.

  For the first time ever, someone is collaborating on the project with me.

  The first message is about a bug report.

  Actually, it’s more than that. It’s an unwelcome critique of the app as a whole—dripping with cattiness.

  Quaint app. Not bad for someone who’s never coded a day in her life. For your information, if you aim the app at an image of a cartoon character’s face, the returned lookalike isn’t the same character. So, for example, I used it on Daffy Duck, and your app decided he looks most like Donald Duck. If you think about it logically, Daffy looks most like Daffy.

  Hmm. I bring up a picture of Daffy on my work phone and use Precious to aim my app at him. The app indeed says he looks like Donald instead of himself.

  So this is a legit bug—especially if one forgets for a second that the app was made for people to use, not cartoon characters. At least a duck looks like a duck. If the app claimed Donald Duck looked like Bugs Bunny, that would be worse.

  I check out the helpful user—screen name CrazyOops. No profile image, but the screen name itself is enough for me to guess who this is. First half must refer to (You Drive Me) Crazy and second half to Oops!...I Did It Again, both songs by Britney Spears.

  I’d bet Monkey’s liver this user is another Britney. As in, Britney Archibald. She must’ve been dying to find a bug in my code to retaliate for the numerous flaws I found in hers.

  Hey, at least it means the development department got Sandra’s email, and some of them are looking at my code. Maybe the others are less biased. In fact, I see a couple of other messages already.

  First, though, I record CrazyOops’s IP address. If she’s made other accounts in order to further diss the app, I’ll know it’s her.

  Surprisingly, the next message is not a bug report. Instead, someone located the reason the app was doing what Britney bitched about and fixed it.

  Holy binary. Who is this mysterious do-gooder?

  The screen name is Phantom, and the profile picture is of the half-masked face of the Phantom of the Opera.

  That’s not a lot to go by. Maybe she or he is someone who likes the classics—but that can be lots of people.

  Putting aside the mystery of the identity of this person, I check out the next message from them.

  It’s not a bug report or a fix this time, just a direct message. A long one at that. In it, Phantom suggests a whole range of interesting and fun features for the app and includes references to open source projects and libraries that I can use to implement said features with relative ease.

  Also, Phantom suggests a number of improvements that would “make the app ready for wide use.” The issue that stands out to them is that my database of user pictures is public at the moment, which will cause privacy concerns with the more paranoid users. Here, too, Phantom suggests references that I can use to make this job easier.

  I double-check the IP. Not the same as Britney’s, but I could’ve guessed that based on the supportive tone and because she’d never end a message to me the way Phantom has:

  Your code is elegant. I think you have a talent for this. Don’t give up, and you’ll go far.

  Even though I have no idea who Phantom is, it’s got to be someone on the dev team, which makes me swell with pride.

  Also, I get the screen name now. Whoever this is, they’re acting like a mentor, which the Opera Phantom was to Christine.

  I just hope this Phantom isn’t hideous, or harboring a dark obsession with me. Note to self: Don’t call the Phantom an Angel of Software and keep an eye out for a mannequin that looks like me in a wedding dress.

  Grinning, I write a thank-you message to the Phantom of the Code and spend the rest of the day familiarizing myself with all the sources they’ve provided me with.

  As I work, I actually feel myself becoming a better programmer—or at least a cockier one.

  When my eyes get tired, I log off and feed myself and my grumpy guinea pig some dinner. After that, I put on the gloves and the N95 mask again so I can rid myself of the one remaining eyebrow. I manage to do this without getting the toxic substance in my eyes, mouth, ears, or any other orifices.

  Eyebrowless, I survey my pale face in the mirror. I look like I’ve gone through chemo, yet still better than when there was just one eyebrow.

  Belatedly, I realize my big eyebrow-related shopping won’t arrive in time for my meeting with Sandra. Oh well, I’ll just draw them on and make sure to redraw as needed.

  Thus determined, I finish my evening routine and go to sleep.

  When I arrive in the office the next morning, Sandra and I grab the meeting room nearest her cube. She looks uncomfortable, exactly as I imagine she would if she were about to fire me.

  Crap. Is this it?

  “So,” she says, steepling her fingers.

  I brace myself. “Yes?”

  “How are you?”

  “Ready to work on something,” I say, doing my best not to sound insubordinate.

  She shifts in her seat. “The order from the top is that you’re only to work on Project Belka.”

  I raise the patch of skin where I drew one of the eyebrows. “So I can just resume that?”

  Sandra clears her throat. “Not until you’ve been deemed rested.”

  “Do I not look rested?” I take out a mirror and make sure that I don’t have bags under my eyes—and that the eyebrows are still in place.

  She glances furtively in the vague direction of the Impaler’s office. “I’m not the one who has to decide.”

  “I see.” I drum my fingers on the desk. “So let me get this straight: I can’t work on anything but the project that’s on hold until I’m miraculously rested. And to top it off, if we want to talk about said project, it has to be face to face?”

/>   She nods. “Sorry you ended up coming here for nothing. I was actually hoping you’d have an update for me.”

  Ah. She might be a little sore that I ended up interacting with her boss directly. She doesn’t realize that was by accident.

  I sigh. “I didn’t mean to criticize you.”

  She gives me a slight smile. “I know. I’m sorry again that I got you into this mess in the first place. He wanted my best person on the project and—”

  “Oh, don’t worry. And thanks for passing along my code. I already got some feedback.”

  “That’s great,” she says. “From who?”

  “They used screen names. But maybe you know… Is there anyone in the office who likes the Phantom of the Opera a little too much?”

  She rubs her chin. “Rose, in accounting?”

  Rose is pushing ninety, so if it’s her, more power to her.

  “My guess is that this is someone in the development department,” I tell Sandra.

  She frowns. “No one comes to mind.”

  “Okay, thanks.” I stand up. “If that’s all, I’m going to get some tea and head home.”

  “Good idea,” she says. “My official directive to you is to rest.”

  “Got it.” I give her the same crisp military salute I gave the Impaler, but this time as a joke.

  She grins, and as we leave the room, she says, “My unofficial advice is to keep improving your coding skills.”

  Is that another hint about my fate? I almost ask outright, but I don’t want to put her on the spot.

  When I get to the pantry, I grab a chamomile packet and pour hot water into a cup.

  Before I can dunk the tea bag into the water, I feel a presence enter the small room, creating a disturbance in the Force that gets my Spidey senses tingling.

  As I look up, a pair of lapis lazuli eyes capture my gaze, making my stomach flutter.

  “Ms. Pack,” the Impaler says, his accent stronger than usual. “I hope I didn’t startle you.”

  “Hi.” The syllable comes out as a husky whisper that should be in an HR rulebook, filed under “inappropriate for the corporate environment.”