pencil against his paper made my eye twitch.
Jackson had his clacking keyboard and his leaky headphones. Tyler and the other programmers also coded to music. I, on the other hand, required silence. Especially when I was debugging.
But Noah was dutifully scratching out a book report for language arts across the kitchen table from me, and I wasn’t about to tell him to switch out for a quieter pencil. Mom and Esmy had gone to bed, and we were united in working late.
When I’d tried to compile and run my code, it’d thrown up a runtime error. I’d reviewed my code but hadn’t found anything. Then I’d checked the other modules one by one. And whose code was screwing with mine? Jackson’s. I’d had to leave early for soccer, but I’d vowed to find and fix the bug before we returned to work the next day. If I was lucky, he’d never know, and we could keep working as a “pair” with the luxury of not speaking to each other. Exactly like he wanted.
Noah’s head swayed, and he blinked his eyes hard. His pencil had zigged across the page, and he scrubbed the errant mark with his eraser.
“Hey, buddy, I think it’s time for bed.”
“But I’m not finished.”
“You can work on it again tomorrow. I’ll write you a note. You can show your teacher that you started it.”
He grimaced and looked back down at the paper.
“It’ll be okay. I promise. Go to bed. You’ll feel better tomorrow if you sleep.”
“Okay.” He stood and stretched. “Night, Alicia.”
“Night, Noah.” He scuffed off to bed, Tigger trailing at his heels.
I focused my own bleary eyes back on my laptop screen. There was one piece of code that didn’t look quite right…
My phone buzzed on my desk. I shot my hand out like a snake to grab it. It wasn’t Carly Simon, and Jackson hadn’t texted me since Cooper’s chewing-out on Monday; still, I half-hoped it was somehow him. I’d tell him about the bug, and we could joke around like we’d done when he found that bug in my code. I half-smiled at the memory of his terrible guesses about what I did on Tuesdays and Thursdays. A cornette.
Tiannah: We didn’t get to talk at the game tonight. You OK?
I’d stayed in my car, one eye on the game and the other on my laptop screen. It wasn’t an effective way to watch soccer or to debug code, but it was the working mother way of life.
Me: Sorry, had to work in the car. Miss you.
Tiannah: You have a minute to talk?
I hadn’t even finished typing out Yes when my phone rang. I swiped to answer. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself. Mind if I vent for a minute?”
I leaned back in the stiff kitchen chair and smiled. “Shoot.”
She launched into a story about the Evil P.T.A. Moms. A lesser woman—me—would’ve ceded the field years ago. But Tiannah wouldn’t let them win. She fought them on everything from instituting a nut-free space in the lunchroom to diversifying the holiday concert program. She’d won some and lost some, but she always complained—or crowed—to me.
After she finished her story and I’d told her she was right, of course, she paused. “You okay? Diane said you were having a rough week at work.”
I shifted in the chair. “It’s fine. It’s just…” I hadn’t meant to tell her, but the words poured out of me. Tyler’s screw-up two weeks ago. My failed pair-programming with Jackson. The sushi. Cooper’s twin tongue-lashings. All the embarrassment, the frustration, the fear of the past four weeks that I’d held back from everyone, including my best friend, puked up like so much bad sushi.
“That Jackson Jones sounds like trouble,” she said.
“He’s not so bad.” I bit my lip.
But Tiannah, my best friend, heard the words I didn’t say. “Not so bad?”
“He’s a great programmer, and he’s taught me so much. He’s trying to make nice with the team. Make them more cohesive. I guess I misjudged him at first. I don’t hate him anymore.” I winced, glad she couldn’t see me.
“Whoa. You don’t hate him? You mean you like him?”
“Not like that.” But the words had spilled out too fast. “I respect him.”
“Girl, watch yourself.”
“I know. But he’s different from the other guys I’ve worked with.”
Tianna’s silence stretched out, letting me know exactly what she thought.
“You know I’d never—”
“I know. But feelings are tricky things to wrangle.”
“Just let me fangirl for a few more days. Then I’m sure he’ll do something irritating and remind me why I hated him in the first place.”
“They always do, honey. But I know you’ll keep yourself under control. You’d never risk your business for dick.”
“I didn’t say anything about dick. I just said I liked the guy.”
“Alicia.” Her voice held a warning. “Remember what’s important.”
Noah. And Weber Technology Consulting. Focus on that, not your smart coworker and his nimble fingers.
“You’ve got this. You’ll show everyone how smart and capable you are, and then you’ll have to start turning down offers.”
Turning down offers. I wished. For now, I had to finish the work I’d said I could do. And, as usual, I had to produce twice as much to get the same recognition.
“Anything I can do to help?”
Oh, you know, help me debug this code, figure out what’s up with Noah and language arts, and talk some sense into me so I don’t jump every time I get a text. “No, I’m good. Thanks for checking in. Love you.”
“Love you, too. See you Thursday?”
“Yeah.”
With a sigh, I turned back to Jackson’s code, which, sadly, hadn’t debugged itself.