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EVEN AFTER COMING HOME from the Maritime Club, heading straight to bed, and sleeping for twelve hours, I was feeling the aftereffects of Doctor Spinner’s anxiety pills. They were not pleasant. My only desire for the moment was to sit, calm and undisturbed, in my dim little office with the blinds drawn, with a few moments to myself before class.
A jaunty knock shattered the quiet. It felt like the sound waves were making my brain bob up and down in my cerebral fluid like a cork. Was that physically possible? I’d have to ask Emma.
I trudged over to my door and opened it.
“Oh. Hi, Sherry.” I tried to muster an enthusiastic tone. “Come in.”
I held the door open and stepped aside.
“Hey, Dr. B! It’s super dark in your office. Ya want me to turn the light on?”
“No! Uh, no thank you.”
Sherry seated herself in the visitor chair. I stepped carefully around my desk and lowered myself slowly onto my yoga ball.
“I don’t care for the artificial light,” I said. “I prefer the natural daylight.” I gestured at the tiny slivers of sunlight filtering through my tightly closed blinds.
“So Dr. B, we love the idea of doing something technical for our business plan. I’ve been working on something I think is gonna be pretty great. I just had some questions about the assignment.”
Sherry’s bright enthusiasm made me feel like someone was shining a klieg light in my face. I longed to be back in my bed with a blanket pulled over my head. As fleeing my office was not a realistic option, I rested my head in my hands in a pose that I hoped looked thoughtful, rather than hung-over.
“Terrific,” I whispered. “I’m glad your group is getting started on this.”
“I don’t want to say too much yet, but I think you’re gonna like it. Glenn’s been helping. That’s cool, right? I was gonna ask you about it, actually. Glenn’s not doing the work for me or anything. He’s helping me out with some of the details. Giving me advice and stuff.”
“You may interview experts for your business plan, as long as you’re doing your own work. It’s in the assignment guidelines. Did you say Glenn is helping you?”
“Yeah. He’s a doll.”
“So what is his area of expertise?”
“He’s real good with electronics,” she said.
“Glenn? Your Glenn?”
“Oh, yeah. He’s awesome at that stuff. You should see how he set up our TV. He got two different game consoles and the cable box hooked up, and he got it all working on one remote.”
“Impressive,” I said.
“It works perfect. I mean, as long as you don’t need to change the volume.”
“Well, that’s better than I could do,” I conceded.
“He’s good at computers, too.”
“That’s wonderful. He sounds like a real Renaissance man.” I pressed my hands to the sides of my head to still the throbbing. Why did Sherry have to be so chatty this morning?
“Yeah! He knows all about sharing and privacy settings, like how you can put up a post but make sure only your friends can see it? Oh, that reminds me. I just sent you a friend request. Anyway, Glenn left town for some work thing, and he might be gone for a while, so I dunno what I’m gonna do.”
“About your business plan?” I asked.
“Oh yeah, that too,” she laughed.
“How can I help?”
“I got some ideas, but I feel like I need to learn more. I was hoping you had some recommended reading for me.”
“You’ll want to get a general idea of what products are already out there, and where the unmet needs are.” I recommended a couple of established technology blogs and a computer security podcast I listen to when I’m having trouble sleeping. I didn’t tell Sherry the part about sleeping, of course.
“Oh. And Sherry. I just remembered. Here’s something else you may want to look up. Facial recognition software? Have a look at the technology. It might inspire some ideas.”
She reached into her purse for a pen and I glimpsed an open pack of cigarettes. “Facial recognition. Lemme write it down. Sounds cool. Oh, you think you could wear sunglasses to confuse the facial recognition software? Like the ones you’re wearing? Hey, how come you’re wearing sunglasses? Oh, don’t tell me. Hangover, right? Listen, I’m not judging, I’ve been there.”
“Factors that confuse the facial recognition software. Good. Your group can investigate that too.” I nodded cautiously, lest I set my brain banging around inside my skull again.
“Oh yeah, I gotta bunch of ideas. I don’t know which one is gonna work out. Dr. B, I gotta tell you, I’m loving this class. It’s like, opening a whole new world for me. I never thought of myself as a businesswoman, but now I feel like yeah, I could be one.”
“Of course you can.” I managed a weak smile. Sherry’s remark was a spark of hope in an otherwise miserable morning. This is what makes it all worthwhile, I reflected. The students who are here to learn, not to appease their parents or wait out a bad job market. Give me one or two of these a semester, and I can deal with the rest.
“My biggest problem right now is putting in the time for class, though,” Sherry said. “You know, paddling practice has been pretty intense lately. Emma’s been working us hard.”
“Are you ready for the big race? I know it’s going to be a little sad not having Kathy there.”
“I’m so excited! I can’t believe it’s this weekend already.”
“Make sure to take good care of yourself” I wondered if I looked as hypocritical as I felt.
I caught sight of a broad-shouldered figure standing in the doorway, and for a second, I thought it was Donnie. My heart raced a little, and then... cue the needle-scratch.
It wasn’t Donnie Gonsalves at all. It was his son, Davison.
Just when I thought my headache couldn’t get any worse.