"What did they sound like?"
He laughed some more. "A lot like you did just now."
She frowned. That struck her as a prejudice, and she was disappointed. "How well did you know these girls from the 'hood?"
He shrugged. "We rode the same school bus; sat in the same classes. That's about it."
"You never made friends with any of them?"
He shook his head. "Looking back, I think they were all kind of bigoted."
This was a twist she hadn't expected.
"They sorta' turned their nose up at me," he continued, "when I did try to say hi, or ask them a question or something."
Shauna thought back to her own days in high school--how cliquish and snooty her girlfriends were.
"They talked to each other," he said. "A lot. And it was always about who made how much money, the clothes they wore and what kind of car they drove. If it wasn't a Beamer or Benz, forget it. And I hear the same conversations between customers at some jobs." He shot her a hard look that seemed accusatory.
"You don't think we're all like that, Miles? I don't assume, just because you're white, that you live in a trailer, go fishing every weekend and listen to country-western."
"You don't?" His question sounded sincere, not argumentative.
"No, I don't."
"You got any white friends?"
"Jenny and I hang out, at the office," she said.
"Do you pretend not to know her whenever a person of color comes by?" Now his tone was definitely accusatory.
"No!" Even in the suburbs where she grew up, minorities tended to hold separatist attitudes. There was unspoken peer pressure to treat WASPs like the enemy. But she couldn't remember ever doing it herself.
His eyes were glued on the road ahead, but he said, "I wish I knew you back in the old neighborhood, Shauna."
The next job was supposedly a DVR install, but the customer revealed that someone in the call center had promised her a new outlet. Shauna jotted down the job number in her notebook. But when the customer throttled her yapping Pomeranian, and took it away to lock it up, Miles leaned down to whisper in Shauna's ear. "I'm gonna get us caught up. Watch this."
When the customer returned, Miles pointed to the entertainment center. "Is that where you want the outlet, Ma'am?"
The woman said, "Right."
"I'm sorry, Ma'am," Miles said. "You'll have to move that furniture out of the way, then call to reschedule."
The woman looked shell-shocked. "Reschedule? Why? Can't you just move it away from the wall?"
"No, Ma'am. Legally, I'm not allowed."
"You look big and strong," she said. "Why can't you just slide it out?"
"I can't be responsible if something breaks," he said.
"Nothing's going to break."
"I can't take that chance."
"But I even asked the girl on the phone," the woman protested. "She said not to worry about it--that the technician would move it for me."
"Do you remember who you spoke with?" Shauna asked.
"No, but..."
"Sorry, Ma'am, but you'll have to reschedule," Miles said, dragging Shauna out of the house.
Again, Miles took off so hard that the tires chirped.
"You've been moving furniture all day," Shauna said, feeling bad for the customer.
"Which is not my job," he said. "In fact, I could get in big trouble for moving stuff in customer's houses. We're not supposed to do it." He now pointed his finger at Shauna. "And you CSRs are supposed to tell the customer to have everything ready. You just heard from the horse's mouth what she was told."
Shauna herself had assured customers that technicians would move whatever needed to be moved, in order to get them off the phone quicker. There was a question about it on the list they were supposed to follow when confirming an appointment, but she was taught to skip that one for the sake of time. Not until yesterday, when Jason Rumkis made a few snide remarks about cable techs not being furniture movers, was the slightest protest ever raised.
"I need to start going by-the-book all the time, like some other techs," Miles said, with a loud, blustering tone. "I'd be finished with my route in six hours or less, every day."
His bravado seemed false. Maybe he felt as bad for the customers as she did.
"You don't know what some of these customers will pull, trying to get a new TV or something out of the company." He was lecturing now. The rising anger seemed genuine. "If they've got something that's falling apart already, all they have to do is get me to touch it. Then they call Avcom and say I broke their stuff, and they get it replaced for free. If that happens twice in one year, I get terminated. Every time I do a favor for a customer, I'm putting myself at risk."
Miles rushed through the next few jobs. One customer didn't have the payment, and he told the customer to straighten it out with Avcom before rescheduling. Another one had furniture to move, and he kicked that one, too.
"Last job coming up," Miles said, then checked the time and whooped with glee.
"What kind of job is it?" she asked.
He handed her his clipboard, so she could read the work order herself. "Your guess is as good as mine."
"Replace box," Shauna read. "You don't know what that means?"
"What would you say it means?"
"I suppose they need a new converter or DVR," she said.
Miles nodded. "That's logical. But logic can get you into trouble."
"Pray tell, Miles."
"See, to the customer, everything is a box," he explained. "Yeah, converters are called boxes. But the customer calls a modem a box, too. A router is a box. The house box or wall box are boxes, of course. A smart panel is a box. An MDU is a box. The tap, up on the pole, is a box. The pedestal is a box--even though it's round…cylindrical. The dog house is a box. A splitter is a box; an amplifier is a box, a power supply is a box, a wall plate is a box... A remote control, for cryingout-loud, is a box, so far as they're concerned."
She enjoyed his rant, and smiled. "I see how it can confuse."
"I'm gonna start documenting my work orders the same way people talk," he threatened. "When Dispatch or a supervisor asks what I did, I'll say: 'Well, sir, I ran a new wire from the box to the box. Then I closed and locked the box, repaired the box, hooked up the box, installed the box, programmed the box, checked the diagnostics on the box, tested the box inside the box, swapped boxes, connected the box to the box, made sure the box was working, and got signatures. Any questions'?"
Shauna giggled harder as he went on, until her throat hurt.
"You could do that with 'cable,' too," he said, now amused by his own tirade. "'Hello, Ma'am, I'm the cable man. Avcom Cable sent me to hook up your cable; but first I'll have to run a new cable to make sure your cable comes in clearly."
She found a paper clip on the console and threw it at him.
"I'm sorry," he said, now giggling with her. "As you can probably tell, I think about this stuff way too much."
The job turned out to be a simple upgrade to the digital package, and they were done quickly.
"How about that!" he cried, exuberantly. "I'm gonna get you back to the office at a decent hour."
Shauna smiled quizzically at him. "Did you do all that by-thebook stuff so I wouldn't have to stay out late?"
Before he could answer, Miles' Nextel beeped.
"Yo, Miles," buzzed the dispatcher's voice through the speaker. "You're on standby, I see. I'm gonna send a couple jobs at you. Check your workforce."
"Ten-four," Miles replied, then sighed.
"Standby?" Shauna asked. "They just gave you more work to do?"
He nodded. "It's better than getting woken up at dark-thirty."
"They do that?"
He nodded. "But Avcom's been cracking down lately--dispatch isn't supposed to call up standby techs now unless it's a complete outage on every channel, on all TVs. So I don't get woken up every night."
"I hope you get overtime for that," she said.
"I do. But you won't--your torture is over for the day."
Shauna reviewed the day in her mind. The environment was not a comfortable one for her, and the initial awkwardness had only made it worse. But it seemed they were just getting back the smooth rapport they'd had on the phone. There was something about Miles' gentle strength; how protective of her he was after her disastrous mistake; and that strange sensation when he touched her cheek... Deep within her was a fear that she would miss out on something if she left now.
"Don't take me back to the office yet, Miles."
"Huh?" He stared at her, perplexed.
"These aren't the most comfortable surroundings for me," she admitted. "But I'd like to tag along."
"Don't feel bad about the guy's ceiling," he said. "You don't owe me anything."
"That's not why I'm staying," she said. "Wouldn't you like some company out here tonight?"
"Company?" he echoed, pronouncing the word as if it were an alien concept to him.
"You don't want my company?"
"Of course I want your company, but--"
"Then stay on the highway and let's roll to the next one," she said, interrupting.
Miles turned off his blinker and drove past the Wilmington exit. He opened his mouth a few times, but didn't say whatever was on his mind.
Shauna called Mum, to let her know she'd be late getting Katina.
"Would you like me to put aside a dish for you, Baby?"
"No thanks," Shauna said. "I'll probably grab a bite out tonight."
"OK, Darling. I Love you."
"Love you, too," Shauna said, then spoke to Katina for a few minutes before hanging up.
"How many kids you got?" Miles asked.
"Just the one."
"You in trouble with the old man for working late?"
"Old man?" she echoed.
"Your husband."
"I'm not married. That was my mother--she watches my little girl for me." Her lips were very dry, she noticed, and her pulse was excited. "How about you: Married? Kids?"
"No kids," he said. "Divorced."
"I'm sorry. How long?"
"About three years now," he said. It seemed he took great satisfaction in the fact.
At the first standby job, Miles replaced an aerial drop which had been torn down by a tall tractor-trailer. Her curiosity getting the better of her, Shauna asked to carry the ladder partway to the pole. With an amused expression, Miles helped her get it out of the rack, then advised her how to hold it so it wouldn't ride on her shoulder bone. Still, it was quite painful when the weight of the thing settled onto her. She cried out her surrender. Miles squatted behind her, then rose until his own shoulder lifted the burden off her. She laughed with relief as he adjusted himself under the center of balance and carried the big fiberglass monstrosity to the pole. Shauna massaged her collar, worrying that she might have pinched a nerve.
Next Miles had to correct an accidental disconnect in the projects. Shauna was horrified by the squalor of the place--the halfnaked, unattended children running through vehicular traffic; the loud, profane women screaming at neighbors and baby-daddies; the apparent drug deals taking place right out in the open; the threatening demands from different people about who Miles was there to cut off; and the number of people who tried to bribe or bully him into hooking them up for free.
When Miles finally got the customer's service reactivated, and got back in the truck, he closed out the jobs in the workforce feature of his Nextel, then alerted Dispatch.
"Shouldn't we get out of here, Miles?" Shauna asked.
"I just want to make sure I'm done for the night," he said. "Only two jobs seems too good to be true. I don't want to waste any gas driving around if the next one is close by."
"Please?" she asked. "This isn't a nice neighborhood." The way the project-dwellers stared at his white face made her nervous.
Miles looked up from his Nextel at her, confused. Then his eyes widened, and, looking embarrassed, he started the engine and drove for the nearest exit. "I'm sorry, Shauna."
"Isn't this scary for you?" she asked. "I mean, this is a dangerous place for you at night. Even in broad daylight."
"It's a rough area," he agreed. "But they put that police station in across the street and the homicide rate went way down since then."
She breathed easier once they swung out on Germantown Boulevard. "Did you grow up here?" she asked, "or some place like it?"
"Kind of," he said. "But it wasn't this rough then. At least, I don't remember it being this rough."
"Are the people always like this to you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Trying to bribe you, or guilt you into giving them free cable, and all that."
He nodded and chuckled. "My first day on the job, five different people tried to bribe me."
"Do the brothers go through the same thing out here?" she asked.
He took his time before responding. "No, I don't think so. During the normal shift, we usually try to come out here in pairs--and at least one black technician per pair. Cuts down a little bit on the drama."
"I guess there are certain parts of town where it works the opposite, too," she said.
He nodded. "There are a few trailer parks, and other places, where the brothers aren't expected to go by themselves, if at all."
"It's sad," she said, and he nodded agreement.
Dispatch called back, letting Miles know he could go home.
"You hungry?" he asked, driving south again, toward the Broadcast Lane office.
"A little bit."
"I know a neat little place on the way back, if you have time to sit down for a meal."
"Sounds good to me," she said.
He took her into an older suburb, where civilization had pushed a salient out into farmland, and a tiny, village square-type business district had sprung up amidst the residential zone. He parked in front of a quaint mom-and-pop's independent restaurant. They went inside, and Miles asked for an outdoor table. The hostess led them through to the back, and a table under an umbrella on a wooden porch overlooking a small, picturesque park, lit by moonlight and oldfashioned lamp posts.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, taking in the sight. "This is so nice. How'd you ever find it?"
"Total accident," he said, pushing her chair in as she sat. "I was so desperate to find a bathroom one time, I just rolled into the first parking space I found, then rushed in the nearest unlocked door. Happened to be this place."
He went around to the opposite side of the table and seated himself. Shauna admired the rustic decorations--candle holders made of small fruit jars suspended in fancy wire designs; horse shoes, buggy wheels; model sailing ships; polo mallets; crank-phonographs. There were no harsh florescent lights in the dining areas, just soft, warm lamp light. Quiet dinner music played.
"Wow, Miles. Is this where you bring your dates?" She surprised herself with the question.
He smiled, thoughtfully, up at the half-moon. "No, not yet." he lifted his water glass toward her. "It was my secret. Now it's our secret."
She extended her own glass and touched it to his. "I love it. Is the food good?"
He shrugged. "I think so."
They examined their menus. The waitress came and took their order while lighting the citronella candle near the table, then served them an appetizer of sweet rolls with real butter.
"I don't want to badmouth your vocation," Miles said, once they were alone, "but it seems to me you should be doing something a lot more meaningful than customer service."
"Pardon?"
"You just seem too smart for it," he said.
The comment flattered her. "Thank-you. But I'm grateful to have a job."
"Tah-rue. And I'm glad there's somebody like you there to talk to when I need to go through the call center."
Shauna took a sip of water. "What do you mean: 'like me'?"
"Smart," he replied. "Sense of humor. Honest."
She chuckled. "Flattery will get you nowhere."
"Most things do get me nowhere," Miles said, tearing off a piece of a bread roll. "But I gotta call it like I see it."
She buttered a roll and took a bite. It was delicious.
"How'd you wind up at Avcom?" he asked.
She thought over her answer while chewing and swallowing. "I made some bad choices. And then I have this little girl who needs food, shelter and clothes, so I take the first job that looks like a sure thing, with benefits, steady work, 401K and all that stuff."
He nodded. "I'm the king of bad choices, Shauna. Ultimately, that's why I'm here, too."
She enjoyed the rolls and the atmosphere for a while, then the waitress brought her salad and veal platter. Miles received his soup and roasted chicken platter, digging in with a vengeance.
"What would you do if you could?" Miles asked a little later.
"Be a nurse," she said.
He studied her for a moment. "I think you'll be a good one."
"What about you?" she asked.
"A mad scientist."
She giggled. "You're such a nutcase."
"Yeah, and that's the problem," he said. "My madness is too nutty--not nearly dangerous enough."
She watched his playful blue eyes twinkle and decided he was plenty dangerous already. "Seriously," she said.
"I like designing and building stuff," he said.
"Such as...?"
"Well," he said, slicing a thick, juicy slab off his chicken, "I'd really like to get into aircraft. Then again, I'd love to tackle the air brake systems on trains. They've advanced technologically over the last century, but in a really convoluted way."
"Trains?" she asked.
"The air brakes, specifically. They just kept adding new devices to make the old system work better, and now it's almost like the tax code or the legal system we have, where seventy percent of the stuff is obsolete or makes no logical sense, and was only introduced to prop up other obsolete stuff that no longer makes any sense. Air brakes on a train could use some radical simplification. The simpler something is, the less that can go wrong. And although technology does grow more and more complex as time marches on, in some areas it's actually simplification that's profitable and necessary to advance."
Overcoming Page 8
