I frown. “You know half of Silicon Valley, and you call me of all programmers? I’m not half as skilled as those brainiacs you know.”
“You’re as skilled as they are, Serena. Don’t try to convince me of the opposite. Besides, every programmer I know is already here. They’ve been here for hours. We’re not getting anywhere.”
So that’s what all the noise is. He’s in his office. I look at the phone. It’s two thirty in the morning. “Why do you think I’ll make a difference?”
“Another pair of eyes is always welcome when it comes to this, you know that.”
“Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”
“No.” The desperation in his voice sends chills down my spine. “I have a meeting with investors tomorrow morning. If the code can’t be fixed, the platform won’t be working, I won’t have anything t-t-to show… to them,” he stutters, then stops, taking in another deep breath. “That would be very bad, Serena. Look, just come here. I promise you, there are so many people here you won’t even see me. I’ll stay out of your way.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I say, a knot forming in my throat.
“I know you can’t stand the sight of me. I can’t blame you.”
“That’s not true,” I whisper so low I’m sure he hasn’t heard me.
“I wouldn’t have called you if it weren’t necessary, Serena.”
“How bad will it be if you aren’t able to show the platform to the investors tomorrow?”
He laughs nervously. “How bad? I think it’s safe to say ramen noodles will become a big part of my diet.”
I clench the sheet in my fist. Bankruptcy. “I’ll be right there.”
The second the elevator doors open on the floor of James’s office, I feel like I’ve just entered a football stadium. James wasn’t exaggerating. He really must have called up every single programmer he knows. There are at least six times more people than there should be in this office, and their constant chatter, punctuated by the occasional shout from one side of the room to the other, unpleasantly pierces my ears. The air is thick with exhaustion and the smell of too many people.
And the heat of too many computers.
I stand on my toes, trying to spot James in all the chaos, but give up after a few seconds, and settle for finding someone, anyone I know. I vaguely recognize a blond hunk with whom Jess went out a few times, and who graduated from Stanford last year, but no one else.
But someone recognizes me.
“Serena,” a surprised voice calls. I swirl on my heels, and encounter one person I was least expecting to see here. In front of me, every bit as hairless and smug as on the plane is Ralph. Between the talk of constant partying and Christie’s heavy-handed hints that his only occupation was spending his trust fund, he’s the last person I expected to find in a room where everyone is working hard. Ralph is watching me with his abnormally bushy eyebrows raised.
“Ralph,” I say, hoping I’m more skilled at hiding my surprise than he was.
“Come on,” he says, and without another word leads the way into the chaos. He seems to know exactly where he’s going because he doesn’t hesitate. As we squeeze ourselves between groups of people huddled around computers, I notice Parker, throwing his hands in the air in despair, talking with less grace than I’ve ever heard him talk. He doesn’t see me. I look the other way as I pass him, glad I can use the excuse of him being busy to not greet him. I think of James and the state he must be in. I’m glad it is Ralph who found me and not James.
“Right,” Ralph says when we reach the corner of the room where there is a desk with three computers and four twenty-something guys seated in front of two of them, staring at the screen. “Everyone, this is Serena.” One of them raises his hand and waves without looking in my direction. The others don’t acknowledge me at all.
“Sit here.” Ralph points to one of the two empty chairs in front of the third computer. He sits next to me and explains in a few hurried sentences what the issue is. To increase the platform’s speed, the programmers did some last-minute modifications to the back-end code yesterday. Somewhere in those modified lines of code lies the bug that caused the platform to completely crash.
“We’ve been working on finding the bug for the past ten hours, but another pair of eyes is more than welcome.”
I gulp, watching Ralph lean forward in his seat. His elbows on the desk, he rests his chin on his right hand, his eyes beginning to scan the lines of code. Ten hours is a long time to be looking for a bug without finding it. Especially when a few dozen people are looking for it. I check my watch. It’s three o’clock in the morning.
With my heart pounding fast, and without another word, I turn my attention to the screen, too. It takes me some time to get acquainted with the code well enough to be able to search for a bug. Not a favorite activity of mine. I might be among the top of my class in computer science, but there’s a reason I never considered it a career option: I can’t see myself programming for hours at a time. I realized this soon enough after I decided on it as my minor, but was too proud to drop it.
The constant chatter around me is distracting, as is the increasingly suffocating air. The tension in the air is almost palpable, like the thinnest sheet of fog. I try to block out all of it. I try to think that this is just another course assignment. One that I’ve delayed until the last moment. Who am I kidding? I never left anything until the last moment. And no assignment ever had stakes like this.
A failed course or a bad grade was the worst that could happen. And as minutes pass by, and then an hour, the fact that something much worse than failing a course will happen if someone doesn’t find the error in the code stops being just a possibility. It’s becoming a reality. One that almost paralyzes me. How bad? I think it’s safe to say ramen noodles will become a big part of my diet, James’s words ring in my ears.
I lean forward, closer to the screen, flexing my wrist. At some point during the last hour, I rested my chin on my wrist, like Ralph. He’s now so close to the screen that if he leans in a few inches more he’ll touch the screen with the tip of his nose. I focus my eyes on the screen and read the lines of code again and again. Until my vision is blurry. I squeeze my eyes shut and open them again a few times. My gaze slides to the lower right corner of the computer, at the clock. Another hour passed. I swallow hard.
Ralph’s voice makes me jump. “You’re not reading anymore; you’re just gazing at that screen, that’s no good. You need a break. So do I.”
I realize he’s right. Both my elbows are on the desk, and I’ve got no memory of putting them there.
Ralph leans back in his chair, massaging his neck. I mirror his movements and discover that my neck is stiffer than I thought. Around me, everyone is glued to their computers, some focused, some on the verge of falling asleep. The guys sharing our desks are part of the latter group.
“You looked surprised to see me here,” Ralph says and I turn to him. He’s smirking.
“I could say the same about you.”
He watches me intently for a few seconds then says, “Because I knew James and you broke up. He told me he called you here, but to be honest, I didn’t think you’d show up.”
I take a deep breath. I wonder how exactly he knows that James and I broke up. Did James tell him, or did he see James with other women and draw his conclusions? The image of a disheveled Parker opening the door to James’s apartment comes to mind. The image of an almost-naked Sophie follows. I have a strong urge to vomit as I remember that dreadful morning. Did James have one of those wild nights again? Did Ralph accompany him this time? I scrutinize Ralph, pondering whether I can try to scoop any information out of him without him catching on to what I’m doing. The smirk on his face tells me there isn’t. He’s expecting me to ask him something like this. What he said before was a provocation.
So I provoke him too. “And I knew that your favorite pastimes include spending obscene amounts of money on brainless activities.”
“They do,” Ralph says, not looking the least bit insulted. “But now and then I like to put my hacking skills to some good use. You know, with whatever neurons I haven’t killed with brainless activities.”
I snort.
Ralph opens his mouth, but instead of another provocation, he simply says, “James.”
I jump to my feet and swirl around. Then I’m positive my heart stops for a few seconds.
James doesn’t look like himself. He’s got dark circles under his eyes and his skin is so pale, it’s scary. A vein twitches in his neck. The faintest smile forms across his lips as he gazes at me. My heart starts back up. When he smiles, he looks like the James I know again.
“I’m grateful you’ve come here, Serena.” Then he looks at Ralph
h and his voice is sharp when he speaks. “Ralph, I remember telling you-”
“James, I’m doing you a favor, so don’t even think of playing the boss with me.”
“Has he been holding you back?” James asks me seriously.
“What? No. We’ve been in front of the computer for two whole hours and nothing.”
James tenses up at the word nothing. “Well, we’ve got two more left, and then it’ll be over either way.” He’s still smiling but in an ironic way. It gives me chills.
“What do you mean?” I ask, my heart pounding like mad.
“That’s the investors’ deadline. They’re pulling back all their support and investment if it’s not fixed.”
“But that’s insane. Why-”
I stop mid-sentence. I know why. This is how Silicon Valley works. This is why I never wanted to enter this world that uses sweat as currency and exhaustion as fuel, to create a world that can crumble in an instant.
“I need coffee,” Ralph says, rising from his seat. He swings an arm over my shoulders, leaning into me. I bite my tongue to keep myself from grimacing as a pungent stink emanates from his underarms. “Do you think you can convince the boss not to kill me if I go on a coffee break?”
My eyes dart to James in a fraction of a second, and I know the boss would like nothing better than to punch Ralph. His tightened fists aren’t the only indication of this. His eyes, fixed on Ralph’s arm, have that glint that I’ve seen enough times by now to know exactly what it means. It’s as unsettling as it was under that tree next to the auditorium when he thought I was seeing someone else, and in the club when Jason was hitting on me, or when he asked if I’d heard from Michael back when we were at Royal Garden.
It filled me with dread on both of those occasions, but it does something different now. It fills me with hope, to see that he’s still jealous. That he still thinks of me as his. Maybe, just maybe, he still thinks of himself as mine too. Only mine. Perhaps he hasn’t kissed other lips.
Ralph is oblivious to all of this. He scans the room as if hoping a fountain of coffee will pop up from the ground.
“I need coffee too. I think everyone needs some,” I say, not because I want to side with Ralph, but because I genuinely don’t think anyone in this room can work two more minutes, let alone two more hours if they don’t get caffeine in their system. I unhitch Ralph’s arms from my shoulders. The smell of him nauseates me.
“I know,” James says, his fists loose now. “That’s why I ordered coffee for everyone.”
As if on cue, I hear a ping from the other side of the room. The elevator doors open and two women appear, one in her forties and one who doesn’t look older than me, pushing coffee carts with plastic cups inside the room. I realize now that I could only hear the ping because the chatter in the room had dropped to an almost non-existent level. And while two hours ago, I would’ve given everything for silence, now I know it’s a sign that everyone is truly exhausted.
And so does James.
“Excellent timing,” I say, as Ralph darts in the direction of the coffee cart.
James links his gaze to mine, and his next words turn all my limbs into something that has the consistency of melting ice cream. “Smile for me.”
The corner of my lips instantly lifts into a smile.
He smiles as well, then turns to face the room. “Everyone, coffee is here,” James says loudly. “Fill up, and please get back to work. There is just under two hours left and I have full confidence that someone in this room of amazing people will find the bug.” The desperation that pierced his voice a few minutes ago isn’t there anymore. His voice is energetic, and lively. Inspiring even. “And then we can all go celebrate at Wellstone’s. My treat.”