by Melissa Good
The kid slowly turned his head to stare at her. “That’s your stuff?”
“Yeah.”
“No way.”
Dar leaned back. “No way what?” she asked. “No way I wrote that because I’m female, or too old, or...?”
The kid blushed. “Sorry, didn’t mean to dis you.” He sat back in his seat. “That’s the kind of stuff I like to do. Making characters and games and stuff. I’ve got this idea.” His voice grew animated. “It’s this game console idea where the characters interact with you and you can make them do stuff.”
“That what this is?” Dar pointed to the laptop. “I can see the decision tree metrics.”
The kid grinned. “It’s a simple version of it. The whole thing’s too big, and I didn’t want to drag my external hard drive with me here.”
Dar turned and switched to her keyboard, calling up the program that was running in a background window. She typed out a dozen lines and cut and pasted a few places, then recompiled the program and restarted it.
Gopher Dar blinked out, then reappeared, this time with a sword in his paw and a Robin Hood outfit on. He looked around and waved the sword, chittering loudly at them from behind the glass.
“Sweet,” the kid said. “Can you show me how to do that?”
“Depends.” Dar rested her elbows on her desk and laced her fingers together. “That’s decent code.” She indicated the screen. “You want to develop it for us? Get paid to write on it?”
He stared at her for a silent moment. “For real?”
Dar nodded.
His reaction was unexpected. He sat back in his chair, looking stunned, an unfocused look to his eyes.
Dar waited.
“My dad thinks this is all kid stuff,” he finally said. “He wanted me to get a job at a bank.”
“What’s your name?” she asked, quietly.
He made a face. “Don’t laugh. It’s Arthur.”
“I never laugh at anyone’s name, given that mine’s Dar.” Her eyes twinkled a little.
“That’s not a girl’s name.”
Dar half shrugged. “Okay, Paladar Katherine.”
“Really?”
“Really. So you want to come work for us, Arthur? I’ll hire you as a programmer and that can be your first project. If you get it how you like it, I’ll write some hardware code to make it run on a platform and maybe we can both make a few bucks.” Dar folded her hands, watching his jaw drop a little. “Yes? No?”
He paused then he grinned like a Cheshire cat. “Fuck, yeah.” Then he clapped his hand over his mouth. “Sorry.”
Dar pulled the thumb drive out and stood up. “No problem. Let’s go down to the HR office and get your paperwork done. Can you start on Monday?” She handed him the drive.
“Not tomorrow?”
“Sure, why not?” Dar waved him ahead of her. “Let’s go surprise your dad.”
KERRY AND MAYTE strolled along the street together, heading for the coffee shop. It was another bright and sunny day, and the sidewalks were full of people. “I think having them do the drink service is going to work out,” Kerry said, as they neared the cafe.
“Yes. They are close to us and also, they agreed to charge us just for what was used,” Mayte said. “So it is not just spending money and wasting things.”
“And they have relatively healthy snacks,” Kerry noted. “I like that idea better than a vending machine with chocolate bars in it.”
Mayte looked confused. “You do not like chocolate now?”
Kerry chuckled. “You know I do. It gets delivered to my office on a regular basis. But if someone’s missed lunch, I’d rather they have something that’s actually nutritious instead of pure junk food.”
“Not so much the chips and pretzels.”
They entered the cafe, and Cheryl, the girl behind the bar, looked up and waved, already used to seeing them. “Hey, girls!”
“Hey.” Kerry took over one of the stools and sat down. “Latte, for me.”
Mayte perched on the seat next to her. “Some chai tea for me.”
“No problem. Hey, Gary wanted to talk to you if you get a chance,” Cheryl said. “And there’s a guy, Robier? He carves really cool wooden business signs. Wanted to know if you wanted one for that big old barn over there.”
Kerry’s ears perked. “Handmade?”
“Sure.”
“Absolutely.” She handed over one of her brand new, just off the press business cards. “Tell him to give me a call.”
Cheryl grinned. “You betcha.” She tucked the card away. “Did you guys have a problem with that old scrounger yesterday? We heard something like that. He and some buddies of his were around here trying to get Gary to give them our day old bread.”
“You mean the guy in the wheelchair?” Kerry asked.
Cheryl expertly frothed milk for Kerry’s latte. “Yeah. I don’t even know what his name is. But he’s around here a lot, trying to snitch stuff. We’ve got to watch the condiment trays outside if he’s around.”
“He was looking into our garbage,” Mayte said. “For some boxes.”
Cheryl put down Kerry’s coffee and started fixing Mayte’s chai. “He gets stuff out of all the dumpsters around here. I used to feel bad for him, and for some of the other homeless guys, but if you don’t give them what they want they get all asshole on you.”
“That’s pretty much what happened,” Kerry said. “The maintenance men chased him off and he was rude and angry with them. Is he actually a veteran?”
Cheryl shrugged. “Gary thinks he is. I mean, it sucks a little that they went to war on our behalf and now they’re living in the streets, you know?”
Kerry nodded soberly. “My father-in-law’s retired Navy.”
“Bet he doesn’t live in the street.” Cheryl eyed Kerry.
“No, he lives on a big yacht that his kid bought him,” Kerry said, with a smile. “But he did live in the streets for a little while I think, when he got back from the Middle East, before he and Dar hooked back up.”
“Dar’s papa is a very nice man,” Mayte said. “Not rude like those others were.”
Cheryl nodded. “So anyway. This guy, Wheels, or whatever his name is, he got back about six months ago. There’s a shelter thing nearby here, and they hang around that place.”
“The building men told us he was dangerous.” Mayte accepted her cup of chai and offered up several bills for it. “Is that true, do you think?”
Cheryl shrugged again. “People can be creepy. He stares at me sometimes. It makes me uncomfortable,” she admitted. “I try to make sure someone’s around when we close at night, to walk me to my car.”
“I get that.” Kerry sipped her latte. “They were outside when we left the other day and they started fighting. Normal people would have hit the gas and left, but of course we stopped and tried to help.”
“Kerry!” Mayte sounded dismayed.
“Yes?” Kerry gave her a wry look.
“You should be careful.”
She shrugged. “Anyway, I get that they can be rough. I told them I was going to call the cops if they messed around outside our building again. I hope they took me seriously.”
“They call the cops on them all the time,” Cheryl said. “Sometimes they chase them off, but they’re kinda sympathetic to them, you know?”
Kerry did know. She could see the police officers feeling bad for the veterans. “If they start taking stuff, it’s not about being sympathetic.”
Just then, the kitchen door swung open and Gary, the owner of the cafe entered. He was a short stocky man with grizzled red hair and an explosion of freckles all over his head. “Hey!” He came over. “There ya are. I just got back from your place looking for you.”
He leaned on the counter. “So you liked the setup, right?”
“We did,” Kerry said.
“So when you get going there, can we talk about doing catering for you, for meetings?” Gary asked. “Like when you get clients in, that kinda
thing. My cousin runs a shop down on South Beach and he does that for some of the biz down there. Better than bringing in pizza, yeah?”
Kerry considered that. “Okay, we can make a deal for that, and try it out. I like the drink service, and the tray your guys brought over today was perfect.”
Gary beamed at her.
“Only thing is, we can’t make it an exclusive because you don’t have stuff like pizza and cheeseburgers,” Kerry said. “So if we make it that you’re our first call for catering, but you’re okay if I bring stuff in from fast food joints sometimes, I’m okay with it.”
Mayte looked a little confused, but she stayed quiet.
“Sure,” Gary readily agreed. “Not sure why you’d want to bring in McDonald’s, but heck no accounting for tastes.”
“I know my audience,” Kerry said, with a rueful smile. “In that case it’s a deal.” She held out a hand and he took it. “So now that’s decided, can I get a large mocha to go please? And two of those chocolate chip muffins.”
Kerry clasped her paper bag and her to go cup as she walked alongside Mayte back toward their office. “I really like this area.”
“Me too. But there is no McDonald’s,” Mayte said.
“No, I know. But two things,” Kerry said. “One, you never want to give any vendor an exclusive unless you have to. They stop wanting to compete if they know they don’t need to.”
Mayte nodded “I see.”
“Two, sometimes you just need a cheeseburger. Even a vegetarian one,” Kerry said. “Other cultures have their comfort foods. I guess yours might be black beans and rice, or yucca, right?”
“Si, yes. It is what we have many times, with limes, and also roast pork. Though not too much. It makes you very heavy.”
“For those of us with a long line of American ancestors, it’s pizza, cheeseburgers, BBQ ribs, or fried chicken. None of them are particularly healthy, but they sure taste good. “Or, for instance I make Dar grits all the time with her breakfast.”
“Grits?”
“Yeah. Ground hominy. I’d never heard of it before I started living with Dar. Never even had it in a restaurant down here, but it’s something she grew up with and loves. It’s like a cereal,” Kerry explained. “But you have it with biscuits and gravy, and maybe eggs for breakfast.”
Mayte pondered that. “I cannot even think about what that might be like. Is it good?”
They entered the office building and climbed the steps, hearing voices on the second floor. “I’ve acquired a taste for them,” Kerry said. “By themselves they’re kinda tasteless, but if you put enough stuff on them they’re pretty good.”
“You must be talking about my favorite breakfast item,” Dar said. She was standing on the second level with a gangly young man with a skateboard. “Meet Arthur. He’s going to be doing some programming for us.”
Arthur was carrying a folder along with his skateboard, and he shifted it to under his arm and extended a hand to both women. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Kerry returned the clasp. “So he’s the first programmer? He gets to pick his space then. You done that yet, Dardar?”
“Nope. Just finished with HR,” Dar said. “Want to do that? Mayte can you get desk stuff ordered for him, and a desktop and monitor? He’ll run Linux.”
“Sure,” Kerry motioned him forward. “Let’s get you a home away from home, Arthur.”
Mayte scribbled a note and trotted off to her desk, and Kerry led their new acquisition off down the hallway toward the office space they’d laid out for the programmers. She remembered the conversation yesterday about the kid, and wondered about the change in his job assignment. “You do some programming now?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Games and stuff. I showed some of that to that other lady, and she was okay with it.”
Kerry chuckled. “If Dar was okay with your stuff, everyone else will be okay, too.” She pushed the door open to the programmer’s area and casually kicked a doorstop to hold it there, making mental note to ask her beloved partner what her thought processes had been on this one.
She wasn’t nearly so hypocritical to wonder about the hiring choice. Dar made those by instinct, and she’d been a prime example of it.
“Yeah, she’s got skills,” Arthur said, looking around the room. “This is cool.”
Dar had designed the space, having the best insight into the psychology of its inhabitants. The room was on the inside wall, overlooking the garden and each cube space had window real estate and walls high enough and enclosing enough to allow for a blocking out of the surroundings.
The desks were wide and had adjustable levels for monitors and keyboards, and there was task lighting built into the overheads to allow the overhead fluorescents to be turned off. There was enough space in each cube to permit a worktable, or a beanbag chair, or a small refrigerator, all of which Kerry explained to Arthur as they toured all the spaces.
“That’s rad.” Arthur became steadily more cheerful as they talked. “My brother does system design and his place is like a three-by-three desk and potted plant.”
“No, we know from experience that you can’t get creative work out of people if they’re in a box they can’t personalize,” Kerry said. “We’re going to be a small company. Everyone’s going to be important.”
They had stopped at the last cube in the corner where a little angle in the room had given this workspace an angularity the others didn’t have. Arthur peered around it then he put his folder down on the desk and leaned his skateboard against the wall. “This is okay.”
Kerry pulled out her gizmo and tapped out a message to Mayte, glancing at the cube number. “Sounds good.”
“What’s that?” Arthur eyed her phone. “That a Handspring?”
Kerry nodded. “We’re testing them.” She pocketed it. “Did HR tell you about the security check?”
“They said something about the government,” he responded. “I didn’t really get all that.”
She perched on the edge of the desk. “Not a big deal. Everyone we hire gets a background check. We do work for the government, sometimes.”
“Yeah?” He looked interested. “Cool. What do they look for? I got busted for tagging once.”
Kerry smiled. “That’ll probably pass. Just tell your family and friends if they get a call don’t freak out,” she said. “You might want to reread the page in there about confidentiality when you get home. Did Dar say when she wanted you to start?”
“Tomorrow,” Arthur said. “I was doing some work with my dad, but I suck at it and he’ll be glad if I stop. I power stapled him in the leg the other day.”
Kerry laughed out loud. “Yeah, I really suck at what my dad did too,” she said. “Then sure, we’ll see you tomorrow. Give us a chance to get you some gear in here.”
Arthur gave her thumbs up.
Kerry pulled one of her new cards out and handed it to him. “Give me a call if you have any questions.”
He glanced at the card. “You and that other lady sisters?” he asked. “You don’t look alike.”
Kerry casually stuck her hands into her front jeans pockets. “We should probably get this out of the way now since you asked. No, Dar and I aren’t sisters. We’re domestic partners. We live together.”
She paused and waited, watching his facial expression carefully.
He looked up after a second. “Oh, you mean you’re gay?”
Kerry nodded. “Sometimes people find that uncomfortable.”
“I don’t care,” he said. “Maybe I would if you were my girlfriend. You guys aren’t all political about that? I don’t like all that stuff.”
“We try not to be political at all.” Kerry smiled gently. “I had enough of politics growing up. My father was a senator. So if you’re expecting rainbow flags and all that, probably not going to happen.”
“Okay, that’s cool,” Arthur said. “The guys I game with would give me shit if I was a part of that, and I don’t want to deal with it.”
Reall
y, refreshing honesty. “Then we’re good,” Kerry said. “We will have dogs here though. That okay by you?”
Arthur grinned wholeheartedly for the first time. “I like dogs. What kind?”
“Labrador Retrievers.” Kerry motioned him ahead of her.
“Saw that other lady has fish. Can I bring in my iguana?”
“He live in a tank or on your shoulder?”
Chapter Thirteen
DAR SHUT HER systems down, leaning back as the silence took over the room, allowing her to enjoy the spears of golden sunset peeking through her window.
She heard Kerry in her office talking, and the soft, easy chuckle that drifted through the open door.
She was looking forward to going home, and having a light dinner with her, then spending a little time in the island gym together.
They were the last to leave, and that, too, felt a little funny since she was used to knowing that though they were gone, somewhere in the building there were night operators and off shift workers, keeping their eyes on things throughout the night.
Here, when they left, they locked the door, and that was it. Dar got up and slid her laptop into her backpack, zipping it up and slinging it over her shoulder as she heard Kerry finishing up her conversation. She turned off the little desk lamp and walked over to the interconnecting door, leaning on the sill.
Kerry grinned at her, and held up one finger.
Perfectly content to wait, Dar went over to the window and sat down on the wide sill with its fabric covered padding. She leaned against the window and watched the foot traffic outside, seeing some groups of young men and women strolling down the road heading for the waterside.
She halfway wished they had the boat docked. She felt like putting the bow to the wind and wanted the crisp breeze in her face. She wondered briefly if Kerry would be up for a night dive.
“Okay, so let’s plan on that tomorrow,” Kerry was saying. “I need to wrap this up. I’ve got an appointment I’m late for.”
The appointment smiled, watching her reflection in the glass. She pulled out her Handspring and reviewed it, then accessed a little program she’d downloaded earlier that day. The hourglass spun for a while, then delivered her up the marine forecast. She had to regretfully forget her idea of a dive when she noted the ten-foot seas offshore.
